OT Cheney - Cutting Gas Tax Stupid

No, it's not. The Constitution provides for National Defense. There
was no Constitutional basis to attack Iraq.

 

Puleeze. How long have "the Dems" been "in control" of the Congress?
Add to that the fact that they are the lamest party around and can't
push anything through that has the slightest opposition.

Sorry, but Bush bears full responsibility for the massive overspending
that has taken place and bankrupted us since 2000. Too bad he didn't
get any economics lessons from his Dad.

When you decide to pull your head out of the two-party system and look
at reality, you'll have a better feel for what's really been
happening.

 

You might want to check into that statement a little closer. Let me
know which spending bills Bush has vetoed.

 

Why bother to quote at all if you're just going to ignore wholesale
sections of the post?

As I said, Iraq (and Afghanistan) could be considered National Defense
simply for the fact that they are keeping the Islamic Terror
organizations too busy to come over here...

Like it or not, the President declared war, and the Congress approved
it.

 

On this, we are in total agreement. Bush has not done a damn thing to
reduce overall spending, and the rare few cuts he has made have been
in areas where the money is at least justifiable.

Neither of the Parties running of this country has a fucking clue, we
are just about due to blow the whole thing up and start from
scratch...

 

LOL. I think he has vetoed 10 bills in total, and I can't recall a
single one of them being a spending bill.

 

Right now, Social Security is bringing in more money than it is paying
out. The surplus is being used to pay for (among other things) the
war on Iraq. If we stopped collecting social security tomorrow, we
would either have to borrow more money on the open market (aka the
Chinese) or raise other taxes to cover the shortfall. Medicare is
also funded by a separate tax.

I don't know how old you are or what your financial situation is.
However, if you are lucky you will someday reach the age of 65. Maybe
you will have enough money that you won't need Social Security. But I
doubt you would be able to afford private health insurance, even if
you could get it.

If you have at lest $10 million in the bank to self insure, your
position on this issue is rational. Selfish but rational. If you are
of more modest means, you have been drinking the neocon Koolaid. Wake
up.

 

Get real, every bill he vetoed was vetoed because of excess spending by
non-germane amendments inserted into legislation like the defense spending
bills

 

Where do you come up with that idea? SS funds, by law from day one, have
always been held in US government bonds, there are no SS funds

 

The one that we know about, anyway.

 

There was a time when they could have convinced the general public of
this, but people seem to be waking up. Nothing like $4 gas and the
prospect of job and healthcare loss coming on the same day to clear
the mind.

Watch for them to flee the country with their money as soon as they
think taxes might rise for them.

One sign that you are being lied to is when the rationale changes but
the proposed action doesn't. When Bush ran for President, he favored
a big tax cut because the budget was running a surplus and it was only
fair to give the money back (never mind the huge Republican debt.)
When the economy weakened and the surplus vanished, we had to have a
big tax cut to stimulate the economy. Even though the tax cut was
long term and the economists (with conservative blessing) had long
disparaged use of fiscal policy to regulate the economy.

I am a firm proponent of the theory that the lesser of two evils is
less evil.

 

And I'm a proponent of the theory that the lesser of two evils is still
EVIL. Bill Clinton was the most morally deficient president we've had in my
lifetime. As I often said, the best president Chinese money could buy. The
only reason he actually was able to pay down the debt was the
Republican-controlled Congress finally refused to spend money on entitlement
programs without limit. (Thanks, LBJ for bankrupting the country
financially and morally. The SECOND worst president in my lifetime.) The
US Government is not supposed to be a sow with 250 million teats. Please
reread the Preamble. Provide for the COMMON defense, promote the GENERAL
welfare.

Charles the Curmudgeon

 

He didn't send thousands of US troops to their deaths in Iraq. Nor did
his actions lead to disruption of millions of lives of Americans and
their families who had to fight in Iraq, had family members (husbands,
wives, brothers, sisters, parents) go to Iraq multiple times, nor did he
disrupt a country based on shaky intelligence.

 

I am pretty skeptical of this. Certainly hitting al Qaeda in
Afghanistan was a no brainer and very disruptive of their operations.
Unfortunately, instead of focusing on that, we got distracted with
Iraq which had little to do with international terrorism.

I don't buy the "flypaper" argument - that we are attracting
terrorists to Iraq so we can fight them there. The overwhelming
majority of who we have been fighting in Iraq are Iraqis who either
hate us for invading their country or Shiite radicals who used to hate
Saddam but now hate us for dominating their country. It doesn't seem
likely that a cell of terrorists ready, willing and able to attack on
US soil would be deterred because we are waging war in Iraq or
Afghanistan. Most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden
is a Saudi currently living in Pakistan.

Prior to 9-11, Osama stated three objectives for his organization: 1.
Force the US to abandon military bases in Saudi Arabia which he saw as
a desecration of the holy land. 2. Draw the US into a war in the
Middle East where they could be punished for their offenses against
Islam. 3. Drive oil prices to $144 a barrel as lower prices
constituted US/Western theft of Islamic wealth. With the help of his
accomplice, George Bush, he has achieved goals 1 and 2 and is within a
few dollars of achieving number 3.

Except for the two attacks on the WTC over the last 15 years, I am
hard pressed to think of any Islamic terrorist attacks in the US.
Given this spotty record, it is impossible to say what effect our
adventures in the Middle East have had or will have in the future.

 

In message

If you lack of conscience permits theft from voiceless future generations.

Interest on the national debt is a transfer of wealth from the US to China.

Interest rates are already ridiculously low, not because of debt but
because Ben Bernancke won't stop printing money out of thin air.

And the name of a nation that taxed itself into prosperity is....?

___________________________

Didn't think so.

Politicians are only as powerful as the voters who elect them. Put more
people like Jeff Flake and Ron Paul into Congress and spending will return
to reasonable, constitutional levels.

Which is why spending needs to be cut, first and deeply.

Such numbers can be found in any World Almanac or on the CBO website.

I didn't say I wanted to CUT the tax RATE; I want to ELIMINATE the income
tax COMPLETELY and replace it with NOTHING.

Yep.

 

WOW apparently you can`t remember crap. Clinton put us into more
military situtations than any other pres has ever done. We are still in
most of then too. none of them were for our defence. He was getting a
blow job at the same time he was on the phone sending troups into harms
way for Fuc*ing nothing to do with our defence. he cut military spending
at the very same time he was deploying more troups than since the viet
nam screwup. KB

 

At least it is more fiscally responsible and you get some benefit from
it.

 

You really don't know WTF you are talking about. Entitlement
programs, by definition, are immune to the whims of the Congressional
appropriation process. These include Social Security and Medicare.
The only significant change to these benefits in recent years was the
Republican directed Medicare Drug Plan which provides meager and
confusing benefits at outrageous cost to the taxpayer and obscene
profits to the drug companies. Even the Republicans wouldn't have
voted for this if the Bust Administration hadn't lied about the cost
and twisted their arms to the breaking point.

If everyone in America is a piglet by your analogy, then it sounds
like the GENERAL welfare is being promoted.

 

The benefit is...?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

No - only that of those sucking on the teats and not those going out and
working for what they get. The term "welfare" has a bastardized meaning
today due to gubmint programs. Originally it simply meant wellbeing -
not programs of handouts.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')