Gloom And Doom Hits Home.

[ness]

That's a pretty sad story right there mixermarkb. I wish I had the time to respond in full to that and a couple other things that have been said here too. Maybe later on.

[MOPanfisher]

While it is an interesting analagy if the Federal Government is the farmer and we are the cattle, it is the worst farmer ever. Farmers go to great lengths to keep the cattle happy, healthy and taken care of. Lest his herd wither and die away. I have a lot of experience with the Federal Gov't and our regulations. While there are cases of graft and corruption occasionally the vast majority is simply waste or overpaying for things and we have done it to ourselves through internal regulations.

And anyone who believes a one time, short duration infusion of government funding (ARRA) will bring the economy back is confused. The private sector alone with assitance perhaps will take years to be able to return our economy to its full potential, and a strong thiriving economy will prove a lots more tax revenue.

[Flyflinger]

While it is an interesting analagy if the Federal Government is the farmer and we are the cattle, it is the worst farmer ever. Farmers go to great lengths to keep the cattle happy, healthy and taken care of. Lest his herd wither and die away. I have a lot of experience with the Federal Gov't and our regulations. While there are cases of graft and corruption occasionally the vast majority is simply waste or overpaying for things and we have done it to ourselves through internal regulations.

And anyone who believes a one time, short duration infusion of government funding (ARRA) will bring the economy back is confused. The private sector alone with assitance perhaps will take years to be able to return our economy to its full potential, and a strong thiriving economy will prove a lots more tax revenue.

I never said they were good farmers. Yet, farmers they are and we are the livestock.

[mixermarkb]

As for this milk giving tax slave minion, I kind of like having a government. I like my highways, bridges, and national forests. I like my Corps of Engineers lakes, though I get why some of you don't. I like social programs for those who need them, and I like a military who can be called upon to keep us safe.

Taxes have been around since man first decided to live in societies other than hunter/gatherer clans. The place we live is special, because we pay our taxes to a representative government, not a king.

I don't want taxes to go away. All I want is a elected government who gets up in the morning, and goes to work on something other than being re-elected. I want to pay my taxes to people who work together every day on figuring out ways to spend my money in the most efficient way possible, to help all of our country live even better than we do now. If they could figure out a way to make it so efficient that they can lower our taxes, then great. But I don't want kids like Luke to end up like the kids in third world countries who eat out of garbage piles and die of disease. I don't want our roads and bridges to fall apart more than they already are. I want relief for places like Joplin and the east coast when Mother Nature hits hard. I don't want to be a nation of serfs and lords. I want a middle class and corporations who pay people fair wages to build things here in the US. We need taxes, and we need a federal government to do these things. Taxes, regulations, laws, and Government are not evil.

We just need to elect people who get off their butt and work, and compromise with each other for our common good. It is all based on give and take. Taking a stand for what you believe is fine and good, intelligent debate and compromise is even better.

I'm gonna crawl back under my rock now. Thanks to the guys on here who can debate ideas without name calling. I'd love to fish with any of you, any time.

[Flyflinger]

As for this milk giving tax slave minion, I kind of like having a government. I like my highways, bridges, and national forests. I like my Corps of Engineers lakes, though I get why some of you don't. I like social programs for those who need them, and I like a military who can be called upon to keep us safe.

Taxes have been around since man first decided to live in societies other than hunter/gatherer clans. The place we live is special, because we pay our taxes to a representative government, not a king.

I don't want taxes to go away. All I want is a elected government who gets up in the morning, and goes to work on something other than being re-elected. I want to pay my taxes to people who work together every day on figuring out ways to spend my money in the most efficient way possible, to help all of our country live even better than we do now. If they could figure out a way to make it so efficient that they can lower our taxes, then great. But I don't want kids like Luke to end up like the kids in third world countries who eat out of garbage piles and die of disease. I don't want our roads and bridges to fall apart more than they already are. I want relief for places like Joplin and the east coast when Mother Nature hits hard. I don't want to be a nation of serfs and lords. I want a middle class and corporations who pay people fair wages to build things here in the US. We need taxes, and we need a federal government to do these things. Taxes, regulations, laws, and Government are not evil.

We just need to elect people who get off their butt and work, and compromise with each other for our common good. It is all based on give and take. Taking a stand for what you believe is fine and good, intelligent debate and compromise is even better.

I'm gonna crawl back under my rock now. Thanks to the guys on here who can debate ideas without name calling. I'd love to fish with any of you, any time.

I am not name calling just pointing out the truth. I am well aware of my "tax slave" status. You seem to like being a tax slave, I however do not. You like that the master provides you with "services" and do not wish to see the master stop doing so. Ok...great.

I ask you this: What was the primary thing that kept the slaves of the south from revolting and killing the master? Was it the threat of the gun? Was it the threat of a government crack down? Was it the masters whip? Maybe... to some point. I would argue it was the other slaves around them saying "It's not that bad here...other masters hit harder and even kill their slaves. At least our master provides us with, food and lodging. We even get to visit the pick-nick area on Sundays. So please, pipe down and get back to work.

Besides if we are all free, who's going to pick the cotton.

Slave on brother...slave on.

[mixermarkb]

Baseball is much more fun for me than Boxing.

[jeb]

If it wasn't for the federal government programs, like Head Start, Medicaid, and school lunches, and even his Dad's check, Luke would be WAY worse off.

You can't know that for sure. I'm not against those programs, but Luke may well be in a better place if the programs were administered by, say, a church. We spend among the most money per student of any developed country and our educational standing continues a steep slide. The money is not being spent wisely.

http://centerforgloballeadership.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/us-tanks-in-global-education-rankings/

If some people in DC will start working together, and coming up with ways to streamline and make things better, we can pay less.

While I agree with you, the track record in DC clearly shows that is not possible. They firmly believe they can just throw money at problems to make them go away, and they are saddling our childern with consequences, economically and otherwise.

But one side saying they pretty much don't/won't pay for any social programs, is not an idea based in reality.

This is the kind of thing that keeps us from getting anything done. Folks being brainwashed from one side or the press or the other into thinking "Oh, they don't want to pay for any social programs. And I heard they want to kill babies, too" or "Liberals don't care at all about the future of the country, they only care about their giveaway program.". All those kinds of views do is keep us grazing in the govt's pastures.

[Flyflinger]

Baseball is much more fun for me than Boxing.

Ok...I'll toss you a pitch. You say that Government and Taxes are not evil. I disagree.

Government and Taxes are the biggest evil...they both represent force...and only force. The use of force is evil, unless in self defense. I cannot point a gun at my neighbor and make him pay for my driveway repairs...but this is precisely what the government does everyday. They might cover it up with pretty parks or pave over the top of it with asphalt. Yet, nevertheless...they remain evil to the core.

In a system where the "just powers" are supposedly garnered from the people. Where did they (the government) get the power to steal?

[ness]

mixermarkb: nice remarks concerning the government. Here's hoping Luke gets out of that mess, and his dad gets well enough to work and provide a good home for him.

JD -- looks like the Indians finally showed up, so I'm outta here.

[Al Agnew]

Everyone does have the same chance, some might have to work harder at it. There are also many examples of childern that come out of "stable" homes that are complete failures. It works both ways.

Cost of living has nothing to do with it. The average person in poverty in the USA is by no means poor. The definition of poverty and poor that the govt uses is very different than what common sense tells us it should mean. Defining those based on not being able to keep up with the Jones', as the govt does, is ludicrous. Poverty means not being able to feed your family, not that you have to make do with a used car because you can't afford a new one.

You have a whole different definition of "the same chance". Yeah, everybody has a chance, but if you have to work harder at it due to external factors and not your own innate intelligence and drive, then it ain't an equal chance. That's simply a myth, and always has been. Sure, it works both ways. But it's a lot easier for the kid from a poor, badly parented home with poor schools to not make it than it is one from a better home and better schools.

Somebody above said that they are all for education, but the money shouldn't be coming from the federal government. Well, it doesn't all come from the feds. Our schools are funded primarily through property taxes. And because some areas are much more affluent than others, this is a perfect way to insure that not all schools are equal and not all students have the same educational opportunities. I would submit that ALL the funding for schools should be put into one big federal fund, and then doled out in equal amounts per student to every school district across the country. It isn't where the funding comes from that's the problem, if there is a problem, it's the strings attached to it. Make sure those strings are there to insure the BEST education possible for each student, and that problem goes away.

And yes, cost of living DOES have something to do with it. It costs to keep kids in clothing and food. Food costs. Sanitation costs. Transportation to a job costs. In the countries in Africa that I've visited, there are lots and lots of people who don't have those costs...because they live in a cardboard box, drink water and deposit waste in the same trickle of water flowing through the mud, don't go to school, eat food out of garbage dumps that they walk to, glean firewood to keep warm from either scraps miles away or construction sites, and don't have a job, nor ANY hope of ever getting one. You really want Americans to live like that? If you want Americans, and American kids, to live like civilized people, then it costs to do so. I'm not talking about comfort and keeping up with the Jones's, I'm talking what we consider to be the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing, and transportation.

And a point I tried to make a while back in this thread, if I remember, is that if you allow Americans to live like those third world poor, they aren't going to meekly submit to doing so, simply because this country is developed enough that the poor can't help but see how the better off live, and want some of the same. In those African countries I'm talking about, there are enclaves of well-off people, totally separated from the rabble, and very few really rich people who are totally insulated from the poor, never dealing with them in any way. Those poor never see a TV. They have no concept of how the better off live. Everybody they know lives as they do. That's beginning to change in some countries with cell phones, but here in America, the poor are constantly exposed to how the rich live. They want it, but they are not educationally equipped to get it. So they'll try to get it in other ways, ways that will simply insure that this country turns more and more into one of rich enclaves and gated communities, surrounded by large numbers of poor people with little hope.

And while I'm on this rant, I might as well say something about "job creators", although others have said it well. American corporations are making record profits. Their taxes were, and still are, lower than they were back 15 years or more ago when the economy was booming. If they operate in America, they ALL operate under the same regulatory regime. Yet they are not hiring, and they want less regulation. I understand wanting less regulation if you're competing against foreign companies. There are other ways to insure a level playing field in that case, and maybe tariffs are the way to go to get that level playing field. Another way to do it would be to get smarter with regulations, set goals, and instead of dictating HOW you meet those goals, leave it to the companies to figure out the best and most profitable ways to do so. Punish them if they don't meet the goals. But unless you want America to look like China, with air and water pollution so bad that even the downtrodden Chinese common people are beginning to mass protests against it, you can't get to a level playing field by simply bringing your regulations down to the Chinese level.

As has been pointed out, so-called job creators don't create jobs, don't invest in infrastructure, just because they pay less in taxes. The goal of any company is purely and simply, profit. Every other benefit in the capitalist system is a byproduct of the quest for profit. People don't start up companies and don't run companies to give people jobs, they do so to make money. If they can make more money by spending less on employees, safety and environmental regulations, etc., they will do so. The REAL job creators in this country are NOT the big corporations or even the small businesses, they are the middle class that buys the stuff. The only way you get companies hiring more people and paying better wages is if you already have a thriving middle class that is willing to spend the money to buy stuff. As the middle class shrinks and falls behind relative to the richer, they buy less stuff.

The ONLY way this changes is if somehow, there is something that energizes the middle class job market. The last time it happened in any sort of real way was in the 1990s with the tech/dot.com boom. It created a whole new class of industries, with a whole new job market. Can government stimulus do this? Not by just throwing money at existing industries. That's good enough to stave off further depression sometimes, but it would take far too much money to really get things booming again. But that doesn't mean the government can't encourage the creation of new industries. They tried with "green energy", but the problem was that they bet on individual companies at the same time that China was willing to steal the developing technology and outcompete (with massive Chinese government subsidies) those same companies. The key to stimulus money, in my opinion, is to spend it on basic research and development, and green energy is a perfect place to do so. It might take longer, and it might still fail, but there's still a chance that green energy could be the next big development that would result in a huge new economic boom, one that would sustain itself for many years.

I see as I'm typing this that there have already been several new replies since I started. Hope I'm not repeating somebody else here. I'm off the soapbox now.