_________________________________________________ I don't know what is short term or shallow about it. If if you add all the regulation and taxes you can go much higher on the overall cost of the house. Meaning no tax cuts, just a redistribution to big business. And in fact actual disadvantages to some small business owners. However for simplicity sake, I get about $1,000 under the Bush Tax plan. If I buy a house that is built with imported lumber, by any stretch the tariffs that protect big business will more than absorb my tax cuts. Pretty Simple. All through Reagan we heard ohh its the dems its the dems. Now we have ALL REPUBLICANS and you know what, it is same old same old. Bush could have vetoed the farm bill that even Clinton wanted to phase out. He could have stood up to big steel, but he cracked. In fact, I just did a goggle search on Lumber Tariffs and this was the first link, feeling lucky that pops up. It is even low compared to other studies I have seen, but will say one I exaggerated and two will except this article as the full gospel. And bingo there goes my $1,000. http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/rtcpages/20020606_lumbertariffs.htm Sorry for the shallow view, but I think the world would be a better place if capitalism spreads. That means that people will have to get new skills or learn to live without two suvs and a bedroom for each child. That means that rich white guys born on third base may have to earn the run rather than stealing it.
And here is a link of fortune 500 companies who receive farm subsidies. http://www.ewg.org/farm/subsidies/fortune500.php Estimated cost to taxpayers over the next 10 years 150 million or is it 170?? Average income of a farming household getting a subsidy, 60,000. Same old washington, just a new set of lies.
OK, assuming your "guarantee" works as you say (forget the exaggeration; let's say it takes a whole 'Congressional year', and even that is absurd), where would the money go? Could it be better spent? Really that's all that matters. Look at the percentages spent on EDUCATION..criminal! JOB TRAINING..criminal! Now, eliminating the entire defense budget it an obvious impossibility. But eliminating the wasted part of it would easily save an incredible amount of money. The development of weapons systems to counter enemies we don't have is just a waste; and a HUGE waste. SDI? Who would that protect us from? Space aliens? Stealth bombers and fighters? Very stealthy from the ground, but easily seen from satellites above. And every potential enemy has satellite technology. Hell, my golf course has it. How big do our next generation of tanks need to be? How much money was spent on developing the "amphibious" Bradley fighting vehicle, which isn't amphibious at all? And of course, any guess as to the cost of a Carrier Fleet? Which according to Admiral Rickover himself (30 years ago) has a life expectancy in a nuclear war of less than 20 hours. (Hint: pick a number, and add NINE zeros after it!). Etc., etc, etc. MarcD
1. Farm subsidies. Total outrage. Ripoff of urban constituencies. Most benefits go to rich or corporate farmers. Cheaper alternatives exist to preserve rural countrysides. Problem not only in US but even more so in Europe. Dem leaders like Daschle curiously silent on eliminating this. 2. Steel, lumber tariffs. More complicated issue. Thousands of trade lawyers battle to clients' last dollar over these tariffs. Basic rule requires damage to a US industry from surge of imports or foreign subsidies that disadvantage domestic competitors or below cost export sales. Steel clearly has been victimized by unfair import competition. The policy qiestion is, are we better off taking the low prices or preserving a domestic industry? Tough question in my mind. I'm surprised that liberals are raising the issue of cost to consumers. What is the cost of logging restrictions forced by treehugger environmentalists? In addition to imports, Big Steel has been destroyed by poor management, lackof investment, absurd union rules and contracts and environmental costs. Are liberals in favor of rolling back environmental rules? Do they favor restoring some balance and equity to labor/management equation? 3. Defense budget. Like insurance, the defense budget is a total waste until you need it, then it is too late to spend the money. For better or worse, our country has decided we will not pursue an isolationist foreign policy. As a result we need the means to project power, particularly in view of the importance to world commerce of middle eastern oil. Liberals and environmentalists have pretty much blocked any feasible alternatives such as nuclear and domestic drilling. Sorry, but in this life you make your choices then you have to pay for them. With Iran and N. Korea nearing nuclear status, And China pouring vast amounts into its military, few responsible policymakers view this as a time to cut back the defense budget, particularly given how it was shortchange during the previous administration. 4. Alternative uses of funds. Liberals are fond of wringing their hands over the supposed lackof funding for such issues as education, job training and children's programs. Leaving aside the serious issue of why the federal government should be invovled in these issues at all, we search in vain for any real benefit from the vast amounts spent on these areas already. Education is the best example. The Department of Education is a monument to waste and abuse. Every meaningful measure of educational achievement has been in free fall since its creation. Liberals' solution? Pour even more money down this rathole. There is little to no correlation between spending and results in education. Urban schools systems run by the Catholic Church achieve high results wiht miniscule funding levels. Maybe we should be studying them instead of throwing money at education research that seems to get more outlandish by the year. In fact, we know what produces high achievement. But we haven't figured out a way to have a government department to produce responsible, stable families.
1. Farm subsidies. This is such a big and very complex problem that understanding is almost impossible. The google searches don't scratch the surface. Take only one portion The CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) this is a major one but nearly every liberal environmental organization there is supports this payment as do most urbanites. Liberia wants us to end our cotton subsidies so they can gain that market. Another factor in the subsidies is the complying with liberal environmental regulations for producers in this country. The producers cannot compete with foreign competition when they have this 1000 pound weight of regulations around their neck. The liberal urbanite wants it all low cost products, from wherever, hamstrung domestic industries, and crippled rural communities for their recreational pleasure. There are tons of real stories playing out across fly-over country about the urban mandated rape of rural communities due to misguided liberal regulatory policies. I do not favor subsidies but neither do I believe in destroying communities, businesses, and families by ridiculous and crippling regulation. Liberals can't have it both ways destroy our production and not have domestic problems. I say drop the excessive regulations and the subsidies and let our producers compete on a level field.
I agree with this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your use of "Liberal" 5 times should earn you a Rush T-shirt at a minimum. I would appreciate any links that you could provide where I could read up on all this excessive liberal regulation. I hate to think profits would be cut by minimizing pesticide run-off into rivers and streams and senseless things like that. And to take another page from Rush, the poorest americans live better than 90% of the rest of the world. I think 50% of the world doesn't have a phone in their house. So cry me a river that someone may have to get a used car so that some 12 year-old in liberia may be able to play splinter cell rather than living it. I still do not see how anything other than a flat tax (preferably on consumption) could be considered adequate in a "Capitalist" country. That would let people decide how they want to spend or invest their money. And finally, being a LEADER means taking the first step, not boohooing about how unfair the world is. You know just like the poor city kid with the dad in jail and the crack addicted mother can really make it if he wants it bad enough.
Bush just doesn't get it The US president has allowed himself to be comprehensively bamboozled by Ariel Sharon, says Simon Tisdall. Peace is as far away as ever Thursday July 31, 2003 Not a little hope attached to this week's talks in Washington between the US president, George Bush, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians has fallen sharply in recent weeks. Both sides have spoken in positive terms about the prospect of peace; both have made gestures, albeit mostly verbal, towards attaining that goal. Not a little fear attended the talks, too. The fear, for Israelis and Palestinians but also for the many others who yearn for a just end to this interminable conflict, is that without urgent, substantive steps forward - along the lines laid out by the international "road map" - a golden opportunity may be lost. Mr Bush put a characteristically optimistic spin on his discussions with Mr Sharon and, last week, with the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas. "I think we're making pretty good progress in a short period of time," he said. He might think that is the case. He might wish it to be so. But there are three basic grounds for challenging Mr Bush's rosy judgment. The first cause for concern arises from the sight of Mr Sharon, standing alongside the US leader, reiterating in uncompromising terms his preconditions for negotiations on the fundamental issues that separate the two peoples. If anything, Mr Sharon hardened his position. He made no mention, as he has in the past, of Israel's acceptance of a future Palestinian state; he made no reference, as before, to the unsustainability of the occupation of Palestinian land; and perhaps most ominously of all, he omitted all direct reference to the "road map". "I wish to move forward with a political process with our Palestinian neighbours," Mr Sharon said. "And the right way to do that is only after a complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement, full dismantlement of terror organisations, and completion of the reform process of the Palestinian Authority." The key word in this sentence is "after". What Mr Sharon was saying, indeed demanding, was that Mr Abbas disarm, disband, and possibly lock up, leaders and members of militant organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, before Israel does anything substantive by way of reciprocal measures. Mr Sharon appeared to anticipate failure, even to expect it. "We are thankful for every hour of increased quiet," he said. "At the same time, we are concerned that this welcome quiet will be shattered any minute as a result of the continued existence of terror organisations which the Palestinian Authority is doing nothing to eliminate." His remarks, in a prepared statement, also seemed to imply that Mr Abbas must achieve complete political control within the authority, including ousting Yasser Arafat from any position of real influence or executive authority for good, before Israel would act. Mr Sharon is asking for the impossible, as he must know very well. For the second reason for challenging Mr Bush's optimistic assessment is that Mr Abbas has neither the political nor military power to satisfy these Israeli demands at this stage, even if he were fully minded to do so. His position remains weak, as is to be expected after only a few, controversial months presiding over a government divided and impecunious after years of intifada. He cannot issue fiats or make demands without risking his own downfall, or worse, an inter-Palestinian conflict. If he makes promises he cannot deliver, his credibility will be undermined among his supporters, opponents, and among the Israeli public. He has no choice but to tread carefully. He needs real Israeli concessions, not mere gestures. So far they have not been offered. Mr Abbas is already accused by some of his own people of collaborating with the Israelis, of being a dupe or a stooge. They say his policy of engagement, before and since the Aqaba summit, has brought few tangible results. They say the handful of prisoner releases, the charades over the uprooting of "unauthorised outposts", and the very limited military withdrawal, are proof not of Mr Sharon's good faith but of his duplicity. They say, in short, that Mr Abbas is being taken for a ride, that the Americans are not really pushing Mr Sharon, and indeed, that Mr Sharon is to a lesser extent taking Mr Bush for a ride, too. It would be comforting to reject all this and say it is merely the product of years of bloodshed and abiding distrust, that all will be well in the end. But when Mr Sharon in Washington went on to defy the US president, to his face, over Israel's construction of the West Bank security wall, and to ignore the road map's requirement for a freezing of settlement activities, Palestinian suspicions that he is engaged in the old game of talking peace while seizing more and more Palestinian land understandably deepen. In terms of the bottom line, all Mr Sharon committed Israel to do was to take unspecified "additional steps ... if calm prevails and we witness the dismantlement of terror organisations". This is no commitment at all. And still Mr Bush kept smiling. In truth, Mr Bush himself is the third reason why optimism seems misplaced at the end of this week's talks. He says things are moving forward quickly. But he ignores the fact that he wasted two years after he came into office, during which time the conflict grew ever more embittered and entrenched. The opportunity for action is now very limited, partly as a result. Mr Bush says he and his advisers are committed to the "road map" and making peace work, in line with the timetable for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005. But in reality, they are massively distracted by Iraq, where problems mount, and by broader domestic controversies that are building as the US election year approaches. Enforced regime change in Iraq is not facilitating the Arab-Israeli peace process, as Mr Bush has frequently claimed it would. If anything, the controversial US policy is obstructing it, just as it did for different reasons before Saddam Hussein's downfall. Mr Bush also seems quite happy to be almost blatantly bamboozled by Mr Sharon, who is a much more wily and subtle politician that the former Texas governor will ever be accused of being. The Israeli leader must be privately delighted to have a US counterpart who is so easy to handle. The way Mr Sharon flatters him so outrageously suggests just a smidgin of an older man's condescension. But Mr Bush's biggest blind spot stems not from his vanity, but from his utter, simplistic determination to cast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the fundamental, black and white, for-us-or-against-us terms of his "war on terror". "Those who want to destroy the peace process through terrorist activities must be dealt with," he said this week, "There will be no peace if terrorism flourishes... The rise of a peaceful Palestinian state and the long-term security of the Israeli people both depend on defeating the threat of terrorist groups." He went on: "The Palestinian Authority must undertake sustained, targeted and effective operations to confront those engaged in terror." In other words, Mr Bush seems to have bought, in its entirety, Mr Sharon's Machiavellian proposition that any act of "terrorism", however loosely defined, may constitute justification for more foot-dragging by Israel, or even for a de facto suspension of the entire peace process. On this basis, logically, terrorists who oppose the "road map" process (like those politicians in Israel and the US who also oppose it) will always win. For Mr Bush, the definition of "terrorist" appears to be almost infinitely expandable in the Israel-Palestine context, as in Iraq and elsewhere. There is no apparent thought given to notions of legitimate self-defence, or deterrence of prior aggression, or struggle against the most provocative breaches of international law - or simply, against the daily theft of land, liberty and livelihood. His few, supposedly balancing phrases about Palestinian rights and Israeli obligations are hopelessly inadequate. Mr Bush, it seems, just does not get it. He cannot be bothered to undertake the hard grind or to work the issues, as Bill Clinton did, preferring instead to grandstand, to clutch for credit and compliments and for "leadership moments" that look good on television. As a result, he is dangerously, and sadly, off the pace. For Mr Abbas, his complacency could be fatal. For Mr Sharon, it is a gift. When a few Palestinian extremists finally run out of patience, or when somebody gets killed by the Israeli army, maybe by accident; and when somebody else retaliates and then, if and when the ceasefire collapses, the two sides turn on each other again, it will not be enough to say it is all the "terrorists'" fault. It will not be enough to shrug and say "we tried". Having finally, belatedly taken charge of the peace process, Mr Bush is already running out of time and squandering rare, hard-won momentum. Before our eyes, the fragile hope of peace is being dissipated. But the US president, now off on holiday to his ranch in Texas, does not seem to realise it.
Most of their consituents don't pay taxes. When they raise cost issues it is just to put it in the face of the actual people that pay taxes how much power the dems have and make the conservatives look bad because they don't want to pay. The Dems spend on ANYTHING that will increase the public sector's size except roads, military, etc. When the Republicans take over they have to spend on the real stuff that we need and take the blame for the expansion in spending or take the blame for reducing services. That is why I believe that the situation is actually hopeless and will only spiral downward because the Dems can find enough people to vote for them, even if they have to bring them in from the neighboring country. Meanwhile people who got AIDS for example, by their own actions, or have no money because their culture is anti-money are screaming at these weak politicians for more money, and getting it in exchange for votes. High paying jobs are leaving for India nowadays, not just boring code hacking jobs but really good jobs. Everything that can be outsourced is being outsourced. Hqve you gotten a really badly written response from a cutomer service department? Probably from India. I would say that the outlook for the US is bleaker than even I would like to admit, what with the loss of tax revenue and insane public sector leadership. Look at California. Dems got control of the two legislative houses and the governorship and they screwed around because they are intellectually and morally bankrupt and got ripped a new one by Enron instead of building some power plants because environuts won't stand for it and went from an 11 billion surplus to an 80 billion shortfall and near junk bond ratings in only one term in office!! One term is all it took to get the process of driving businesses away from the state and attaining a junk bond rating. So what is their answer? Borrow more money!! Yeah, they refuse to shrink the public sector. Their idea of a reduction in spending is to slow the increase!! They are borrowing more money to keep up the public sector and maybe hoping for prosperity in the future to bail them out, but the prosperity is leaving the state. Just look at California for a textbook example of liberalism at work.