(03-18-2009 09:20 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: The tragedy of the last presidency was not Iraq, but the exploding of the deficit. Neither gang gives two ***** about spending. What they do give a **** about is what money is spent on. Obama is the reverse Reagan. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so liberals could not increase spending. Starving the beast is what it was called. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so conservatives cannot cut taxes. Meanwhile...... the majority of Americans who are not tied to the extremes pay and they pay handsomely.
Agree 100%
(03-18-2009 09:20 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: YOU CAN NOT ***** ON ONE HAND about Obama's spending and on the other hand stay quiet about Bush's spending. It's all about priorities. YOU care about what the money is being spent on.
Disagree. If I agreed with what Bush spent money on, I could NOT complain... and if I disagree with Obama, then I can complain. Further, while Bush certainly spent money... Obama took what he had already spent and tripled it... The DEGREE of spending matters, as does where it is spent. I'm not saying you HAVE to, but you certainly can. Personally, I think we're WAY beyond rational economics here.... The biggest problem is, we're complaining about Governors who are turning down stimulus money because it would mean they had to balloon their state budgets in the future. At SOME point, spending has to be cut, and for some states, this stimulus institutionalizes the spending.
(03-18-2009 09:20 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: and another thing.................. smn talked about bums and welfare..... I can't find it and I know I read it this morning. This is another fallacy. There are approximately 14 million women and children that get Aid to Families with Dependent Children. There are no bums getting welfare. So why do you guys on the right paint democrats that way. It's not happening so quit saying it. I just wish we could at least talk the truth to each other. You guys are so caught up with your talking points you miss the forest through the trees.
Of COURSE there are welfare cheats.... and while 14mm women and children get aid, there is nothing to suggest that at least SOME of those women couldn't have jobs instead... or that there aren't men "behind" those women working and supporting the family as well.
(03-18-2009 09:20 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: Pay as you go............ that's what I call for and you all know that. I've been saying I would be happy paying more taxes. 1st and foremost is we should balance the budget. I pray Obama taxes gasoline. Have you seen what has happened to hybrid sales lately? Do any of you wonder why Oil collapsed just when we were starting on the trek of weaning off of it? Tax oil for national security. Tax oil to build infrastructure. Tax oil for socialized medicine. GOP become proponents of this I sign up for the GOP the next day. I don't care about the gang affiliation. I just want results.
(03-18-2009 03:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: Agree totally about the pay as you go part. The republicans lost their moral foundation when they began spending like drunken sailors.
Paygo SOUNDS great, but why shouldn't we be able to finance long term projects with long term debt? The problem is, we finance things for longer than their useful life. No bank would make you a 15 year loan on a car... so why do we take out 30 yr (or 100yr) debt on a road that will have to be rebuilt in 10?
(03-18-2009 03:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: Don't agree totally with the contention that there are no bums on welfare. There are some, and always will be. There's really not much can be done to prevent that. What can be prevented is the situation where we tell a pregnant 18-year old that we will pay her $1000/month to support her and the child as long as she doesn't (a) get a job or (b) get married, and then can't understand why so many families are breaking down. That's where we need to redesign the welfare system, and I think Milton Friedman's negative income tax concept is the best way to go. The Fair Tax prefund is another version of the negative income tax.
When you encourage something, you get more of it. It really is that simple.
(03-18-2009 03:29 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: As for oil, I agree that we need to tax the price up to a level that makes alternatives cost-competitive and discourages consumption, while minimizing the impact on poor people. Charles Krauthammer's revenue-neutral carbon tax is one possible approach. He gives the money back through social security, while I would include it in the Fair Tax prefund. Also, I wouldn't make it totally revenue-neutral, I'd make it a net positive to generate some revenues. I would use those revenues for infrastructure projects designed to cut fuel consumption--solar farms, wind farms, power grid improvements, etc.--but not to subsidize alternatives. With the increased tax on oil, those alternatives will become price competitive, and that's all the "subsidy" the free market needs.
I'm not for taxing oil to support socialized medicine. But that's because I don't favor socialized medicine, at least not the kind of single-payor, single-provider system that exists in UK or Canada. The people there love their systems, but only up until they reach the point that they actually need something big done. Those systems deliver routine care well and non-routine care (everything else) poorly. Our system delivers the latter better, which is why Canadians come here for elective surgery. Brits go to France for elective surgery. The French have a mixed system that is neither single-payor nor single-provider. They also spend less per capita to provide universal coverage than we spend not to; to be clear, by that I mean their government spends less per capita.
(03-19-2009 08:40 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (03-18-2009 10:01 PM)WMD Owl Wrote: (03-18-2009 09:03 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: In 1975 the US imported about 1/3 of its oil. Brasil imported 99 percent of its oil. Both countries announced plans to become energy independent. Today the US imports 2/3 of its oil, a good bit of that from Brasil. Brasil imports some natural gas from Bolivia, but recent finds offshore may eliminate the need to do that. Overall Brasil is a net exporter of energy today.
Brazil also doesn't have the EPA, the Clean Air Act and could revamp to an ethanol based economy better than the US.
I saw screw ethanol as a motor vehicle fuel. Its inefficient. If those Aggie Microbiologists can get the genetically engineered bacteria perfected that process butanol, we would be better off. You don't have to use corn for butanol, and butanol has almost the equivalent energy as gasoline.
Is importing sugar cane ethanol a perfect solution? No.
Is there anything better that's available today? No.
Is that reason enough to do it? Yes.
This is so easy it isn't funny. In the simplest of examples... running gasoline with 10% ethanol increases the amount of available fuel by 10%... with 20% ethanol, 20% etc. etc. Most cars could run on e-50 or even more with a cheap 02 sensor update. Certainly that will increase the cost, but not that much relative to the benefit.... and the ethanol is already there... and we can grow more of it, as can MANY countries not in the middle east... and it doesn't take long for a poor country to start selling ethanol, or at least sugar if the present providers go nuts (like Venezuela)
You want butanol and switchgrass, great... but why should we continue to do THE WORST thing, simply because it isn't THE BEST??
Stem-Cells may one day cure cancer... but we should still use chemo until then.