What the spending situation really comes down to is that, leaving ideology aside, it’s in the interest of the party in power to get what they want (and therefore, spend) and the interest of the party not in power to criticize that spending. So, rather predictably, we end up in the situation that everyone is a dick.

Those Republicans are not good. What they did is, they want a big government for their needs, and instead of raising taxes, they borrow.

The Democrats are even worse. they want a big government for their needs, and they raise taxes directly.

Anyone with some economic knowledge will know, higher taxes equal lower productivity. there is a balance between how much service you want from government and how much tax you want to raise.

It is best to leave the tax to local level, the local people knows how to spend their taxes best (roads/police/fire etc).

When the tax are raised to the federal level, it is far removed from local people. And instead of spending wisely, the politicians will spend it on their interests instead of ours.

Both MaCain and Obama want to increase spending, BAD.
Obama wants to increase taxes too, BAD.

We need to go for the Libertarians, check out lp.org

Actions speak louder than words. Look at what a Republican House, Senate and Executive did from 2001 – 2007.

Wake up.

Actually our health care system is paid for by those that need who can pay. That’s why an aspirin in the hospital is literally $25.

Rather than dispersing the costs of health care across the entire payer base the cost is dispersed among those who need service and can pay at the time of service.

Ever seen those plastic buckets at gas stations begging for money for a child who needs medical care of some major sort?

Understand the scenario. It’s not about going to the ER with a cough.

The number one cause of bankruptcy in America is Medical costs. Over half of the people going bankrupt have medical insurance. Most people really don’t understand how limited their coverage is.

Yes, you can get services even if you can’t pay but the hospital turns you over to a collection agency, puts a lean on your house, and garnishes your wages…

The American health care system is broken.

Actually, we already have a socialized healthcare system. In many ER’s patients with zero insurance, zero ability to pay, and in many cases zero citizenship recieve hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars of free healthcare every year. All thanks to the tax dollars of those that actually pay taxes.

1) You’re admitting that government services aren’t all bad. Roads are good, airports are good (as are planes that don’t fall out of the sky), police are good, presumably the military is good.

2) You’re repeating (probably without understanding) the talking point that Democrats are Socialist, and socialism is bad. Not a given that socialism is bad, but at any rate Democrats are not socialist for any meaningful definition of socialism.

3) “Tax the rich.” Wealth is made possible by the infrastructure provided by government. You can only become and stay wealthy as a result of the social environment made possible by road networks, airports, regulation of markets, and enforcement of contracts and laws. By definition the wealthy have benefited the most from society, and it is not only right that they should pay more, it is necessary.

3) There’s no point in taxing the poor. They don’t have any money. Almost any reason you can come up with for not taxing the rich will apply even *more* to the poor. And somebody has to pay taxes.

4) What you say about taxes increasing the cost of a good applies to sales or VAT taxes, not so much to anything else. Taxes on the wealthy reduces the bidding for luxury goods, and that’s about it.

5) Socialism. You people keep using that word, but I don’t think you actually know what it means. Just as a hint: Although single-payer or truly nationalized health care would be socialized medicine, that’s not what is on the table. On the other hand, trillion-dollar bailouts with no attached regulation or nationalization is “socialism of the losses”. Socialism for the benefit of rich people.

5) Capital gains has fuck-all to do with pensions, 401K’s, and IRA’s, because those are not taxed under the (much lower) capital gains rates, they’re taxed as income. For the most part, only the wealthy get to pay capital gains.

6) The answer to everything from Chicago School economists is tax cuts and de-regulation. We’ve been following their advice slavishly for the last 8 years, it isn’t working so good. Somehow I don’t think restoring the tax structure we had under Clinton or Reagan seems so bad.

7) GDP growth that consists of money swapping back and forth between Wall Street firms, or between insurance companies and healthcare companies, does fuck-all to help the real economy, and in fact both have been slowly strangling the rest of us for 3 decades.

Do you people actually understand *anything* you say about politics and the economy, or do you just regurgitate what you hear from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?

–Dave

I don’t think you get where I’m going. Despite what the Republicans did in the earlier part of this decade, the conservative idea of government (which is not necessarily the same as Republican) is small. So you cut taxes and *gasp* cut spending as well. If you look at 1995 (when you had more conservative Republicans) that’s what happened.

But the Democrats seem to think that the Republicans had it upside down (and they did to a large extent for a while) only because they can’t ever see cutting things out of the budget. The cornerstone of the Democratic party is big government.

On top of this, do you really think that an Obama presidency with trillions in new taxes is going to pay down the debt first and only? They might pay some down but Obama has over one trillion dollars in new entitlements promised, things I see little change of him reneging on while in power (more Democrat ideals of big government) and most of them would be permanent increases in the federal budget (healthcare being chief).

Because, you know, some of us on the right still have brains and use them.

Over ten trillion in debt.

While I love to read the right wing’s cliff notes on money and taxes, I’m always amazed at the right wings lack of understanding of currency strength and what massive debt does to a country that uses debt as currency.

God forbid you might actually think for yourself… Listen to Ron Paul on the Dollar. While most of the right wants to make him out to be a “loon”, he isn’t. I wish he was a loon, I really do. Sadly for all of us he isn’t a loon on money policy.