First of all my post was NOT in support of Hillary, I simply wanted to point out that taxes is the least of your family problems. As far as your post is concerned: The constitutionality of public education has never been challenged or questioned in a serious way, I am sure you, your wife, your parents and your wife's parents did not question it either when you and she attended public schools. After Ron Paul kicks Hillary's ass and gets us out of Iraq the savings may well be wiped out by a civil war involving the entire region and $300 oil. The real life is unfortunately not as simple as Ron Paul and his supporters believe it to be. FDA/SEC/FBI are not doing a good job, that does not mean we should get rid of them, that means their work needs to be streamlined and improved. I agree on welfare/education/healthcare for illegals. I'd agree on trimming the public sector to 10% current size if you could show me what specific programs can be eliminated. I asked this question before, repeatedly on this and a couple of other forums. I never got a straight, specific and detailed answer from a conservative/republican.
How do you figure $300 oil from this. Also do you support a war with Iran ( I suspect you do)? What would a war with Iran do to the price of oil ? Where was the price of oil before we invaded Iraq?
How much do you think oil will cost if there is a civil war in the region involving Iraq, Iran (supporting iraqi shia), Saudi Arabia (supporting iraqi sunnie) and potentially some other ME states? Your guess is as good as mine of course, I simply wanted to point out that actions have certain reprecusssions which Ron Paul supporters tend to ignore. I did not support the war in Iraq, as far as the war in Iran is concerned I am on the fence. The price of oil is clearly a factor if we bomb Iran but it will also be a factor if Iran develops nuclear weapons, attacks Israel and Israel retaliates. Frankly I think Israel, not the US should destroy Iranian nuclear facilities but I am not sure Israel has sufficient capabilities to pull it off. If the US ends up attacking Iran, I'd rather the next president (republican or democrat) do that. Bush is incompetent and has lost all credibility in the world.
Why would Iran attack Israel with nuclear weapons ? Quit fear mongering. This is what got us in Iraq in the first place. WMD's that didn't exist and a slick marketing campaign to sell more bullshit wars.
AAA once attempted this by suggesting that we should cut Dept. of Energy. After I showed him what DOE does, he backpedaled on it. BTW, two biggest items in the fed budget (if we don't count soc. security) are defense and interest payment. I dare anyone on this board to suggest that either should be cut.
He didn't question the constitutionality of "public" education. He questioned the constitutionality of federal support of local education, and he has a very good point. Why even have the states if Washington is going to control every aspect of life? Is there a more uniquely local concern than running school systems? Clearly the federal Department of Education was put into place as a payoff to teacher's unions. It's easier for them to lobby one department than thousands of local school districts. It's also far easier to use the carrot of federal grants to force local schools into line than it is to convince parents and voters to support loony liberal schemes. We would go a long way to ending our budget problems if we eliminated all those departments and programs that are not allocated to the federal government by the constitution. You could eliminate half the cabinet departments right off the bat, eg Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing, Education, Commerce, Agriculture. Then you could cut the Justice Department in half, because they wouldn't need hundreds of attorneys running around intervening in local issues. We could get by with a far smaller military if we used it for defensive purposes and forced the rich nations of europe to shoulder their fair share of the burden. It is a measure of how far we have strayed that arguments like these are considered radical and far out of the mainstream. That's why the Ron Paul phenomemon is so important. If he is in the race until the end, the other candidates will be forced to address his issues. They won't be able to shut him up by implying he is not patriotic as Giuliani did.
We can close military bases all over the world. We have troops in Germany for christ sake. The cold war ended 15 years ago.We have been in Korea for 50 years. I don't feel the need for them.
Cutting Dept of HHS: say goodbye to FDA, CDC. Cutting Labor: Goodbye to wage and benefit regulations, goodbye to unemployment insurance, goodbye to discrimination enforcement. I know, these are all things conservatives want to rid of. But I don't want to return to 18th century. Cutting HUD: Do you want all the homeless to go to your neighborhood? I don't. Cutting Education: Most dumb headed suggestion. Education is NOT a local matter. Cutting Commerce: No patent office, no trade agreements, no commerce. Surprising someone who trades would suggest this. Cutting Agriculture: Why not? Idaho or Nebraska don't vote Democrat anyway. We need to get rid of farm subsidies. But I guess we have sacrifice to USDA beef for that - yeh, don't worry about mad cow disease.
You're illustrating why it's next to impossible to make progress on wasteful spending. No matter how absurd the program, someone somewhere has an interest in it and will fight to the death to retain it. And anyone who suggests cutting anything will be caricatured as wanting to allow bogus drugs to get into commerce. Cutting these departments would make little or no difference to most people. Certainly, some individual programs with a clear relationship to interstate commerce or constitutionally delegated responsibilities should be retained. For example, there is a constitutional provision regarding regulation of patents, so it is properly a federal function. Trade treaties? Why can't the State Department do it? USDA beef? If it travels in interstate commerce, it can be regulated, but you don't need a huge department to grade beef. Housing and urban "development?" Clearly a payoff to developers and urban race hustlers. Why anyone would claim the federal government should be involved is a mystery to me. Education is the easiest. We got by without this joke of a department for over 200 years. Certainly education has not improved since its inception. In fact, it has gotten demonstrably worse. There is no constitutional justification for federalizing education, and experience has shown it to be a terrible idea from a practical standpoint. But liberals never learn. They want to separate decision-making as far as possible from the people who are directly affected and who end up getting stuck with the bill for liberals' schemes.