The DMV is so insidious. They are allowed to tax used property sales.

If that is the only thing you read in that post about which to
comment I must have made my point. Who said they protested
together, not me? The picture aside both Kerry and Fonda
protested the war to the disadvantage of our troops in time of
war. In W.W.II the federal deficit was 125% of GNP for four
years. The deficit in this war is only about 5% of GNP. Doesn't
anyone find it strange how the party that ran the county for over
forty years, with a deficit most every year, is now concerned
about a deficit but they still want to spend more to get your
vote?


mike hunt

 

Whether you consider it giving money back to taxpayers or not is
irrelevant. The net result is the same -- the government receives less
money. Why does the government take in money? To pay for a well-equipped
military, to pay for law enforcement and emergency services (fire, police,
border patrol...), to pay for roads and other components of
transportation. Why do they do it? Because people on their own
wouldn't/couldn't do it as individuals or small groups. The government
isn't stealing your money -- as was pointed out earlier, we have taxation
and we have representation in bodies that tax us. We do it to ourselves.
In absolute dollars, the rich pay the most taxes and they get the
biggest tax cuts under Bush. That's fine, but it doesn't do much for the
economy. Rich people don't need more money -- that's why we call them
rich. Extra money given out to the people who already have adequate funds
doesn't significantly increase spending. In my opinion, if the tens of
billions dedicated to tax cuts had instead been spent on hiring companies
to improve our roads, schools, whatever, that you would have had increases
in income taxes from those companies, increased income taxes from the
employees, increased sales and income taxes from the places where they all
spent their wages . . . I think we had an incredible opportunity 2001-2,
and the government blew it. Instead, we're having to borrow tons of
money, which down the road will just mean the government needs to take
even more of our money.

 

x-no-archive: yes

That is true---in the immediate short term. But over the longer term (3+ years)
the government collects much more money because of the economic growth that takes
place when people can spend their money as they need to. That is why the economy
and the treasury receipts have increased following tax cuts, although there is a
slight delay of course for this to happen. But I'll take long term economic
growth over a short term fix any time.

 

"He complains because he had to go to Vietnam and Bush didn't, but
when he came back he protested the war with Jane Fonda."

So did the Republicans when Clinton was in power. The war was wrong
and it was acknowledged as such later on.

WWII had nothing in common with Iraq. In fact, take a read of this
from the US Army War College:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.pdf
"The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a
deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for
Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from
securing the American homeland against further assault by an
undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the
GWOT, but rather a detour from it."

Keep in mind *why* you went to war. Saddam had WMDs and was ready to
use them. Whoops. Saddam was tied to al-Qaeda. Nothing provable
yet! What ministry was secured as soon as the US moved into Baghdad?
Why, the Oil ministry!

Let's see, they left office with a record surplus, didn't they? One
would think that those responsible republicans would have the total
debt paid off by now, wouldn't they? And it's not just "a deficit",
it's a record breaking deficit that doesn't even acknowledge billions
of dollars that they know they will have to spend.

What do you consider those tax breaks to be if not a bribe?
--
Brandon Sommerville (remove ".gov" to e-mail)

Her name was Valerie Plame, and she was a NOC. She was keeping weapons of mass
destruction out of the hands of terrorists. What was the Bush administration doing?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/022404A.shtml

 

The document cited was an opinion by a visiting instructor at the War College, and is
not a position of the War College.

I'm sorry you so mournful that Hussein's death grip of Iraq has ended. If only we
could go back to the good ol' days of gassing, lobbing off ears, and mass grave
filling, eh?

"Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we
take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this
program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the
sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then
conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating
destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."
Bill Clinton, speaking on Iraq and Saddam Hussein - 1998
Listen to the Audio Clip: http://tinyurl.com/67rz

Hamas had been working in Iraq with the support of Hussein for years. Al-Quaeda was
found in Iraq and is there right now. Should we have counted on the kindness of
Hussein to keep Al-Quaeda out?

Among dozens and dozens of other targets.

A surplus that arrived, do not forget, only after the Congressional elections of 1994.
Unfortunately the Clinton budget left us a faltering economy that was going down fast
even before Bush was sworn into office.

It is interesting to find that a party that ran deficit after deficit is now more
concerned about a deficit than fighting people who want to destroy the country. The US
Debt after WW 2 was over 12% GDP. Today it is about 5%, and will be grown out of as
the economy expands again.

Allowing the people to invest in the economy, thereby leading to economic expansion.
And judging by the spectacular growth in GDP over the last several quarters, it has
been extremely effective.

 

It was people like you that kept the US out of WW II for three
years, a delay that caused millions of innocent people to die
needlessly and nearly resulted in the axis powers of Germany,
Japan and Italy ruling the world. Your naive' parochial comments
indicate you are just yet another one who still doesn't
understand the US and the rest of the world has been at war with
terrorism around the world since 9/11. Will it take another such
attack somewhere in the US before you wake up? The Presidents
willingness to take on, along with the leaders of over thirty
other countries, the worlds terrorists and terrorists government
like Iraq, or any terrorist wherever they are, or whoever they
are, or whoever harbors them that has shown the world terrorist
countries like Iran, Libya and North Korea that the US will do
whatever it takes to protect our freedom. Thank goodness the
majority of Americans understand that, as well, and they will
re-elect the President.


mike hunt

 

growth over a short term fix any time. >[/QUOTE]

I only wish that I thought our President was interested in the
long term economic health of our country. If he had taken the time to
construct a genuine multinational force to take on the problems of Iraq,
we wouldn't be burning $4.2B/month (and we might not have lost so many
soldiers over such a long time). I think that would have been the more
prudent course and would have greatly benefited our nation in many ways,
economically and diplomatically. I think the current administration is
more interested in short term takes though.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that infrastructure
development is a short term fix. I see it as a short term fix that has
long-lasting benefits (you get tangible benefits (e.g., less wear and tear
on transporation equipment, better schools, who knows -- maybe even less
crime) from a short term injection, and the money goes through a lot of
hands before it goes back to the government, meaning that the income of
lots of individuals (as well as the government) are boosted. It gets
large numbers of formerly underemployed people consuming again so that the
growth becomes self-sustaining).

 

I only wish that I thought our President was interested in the
long term economic health of our country. If he had taken the time to
construct a genuine multinational force to take on the problems of Iraq,[/QUOTE]

I consider 60 nations to be a genuine multinational force. What is the minimum
required integer that you consider to be "genuine?" In fact it is more countries
that participated in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Yet, I don't see anybody
criticizing (past or present) that there were not enough countries in the force
then. Why?

How many nations did Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, construct in a
multinational force when taking on the problems of Iraq during his military
strikes in 1994, 1996, and 1998??? (More missiles were fired at Baghdad in 1998
than the entire 1991 Gulf War!)

How many would we have lost?

I didn't say otherwise. A growing economy will (if desired) assist your
infrastructure development far more by a stagnant one.

But in the case of high tax rates, that is lieu of the greater future revenues in
the future that would be generated by a growing economy, and you loose those
improved benefits on transportation equipment, better schools and maybe even less
crime in the future.

That is hardly likely to be the case. An improved (growing) economy is what gets
people consuming, both employed and previously unemployed. And tax cuts do
improve the economy, witness the 6% GDP growth for the past six months, although
the majority of the benefits have yet to be seen.

The fact is the economy is doing as well as desired, and that is the worst time to
have high taxes. Example: Japan. Despite a recession, Japan's government
INCREASED taxes to fix short term revenue needs. The result was a long term
depression that still haunts Japan's people and its tax revenue today.

Oh, ok, now your post makes a lot more sense!

 

Yes, and also didn't invest what was needed to counter terrorism before
it was too late. Keep in mind that virtually all of the planning and
preparation for the 9/11 attacks took place while Clinton was in office.
And Bin Laden and Al Qaeda largely came to power and organization
while Clinton was in office. If Clinton had went after terrorism even
half as aggressively as Bush is now, we'd quite likely have never had
9/11. Of course, doing that would have cost money and then the budget
wouldn't have been balanced. Also, much of the budget balancing came
from tax revenue during the tech sector bubble that simply wasn't a
sustainable economy and Clinton just happened to be the one in office
when this bubble was growing and left just as it burst.


Matt

 

I only wish that I thought our President was interested in the
long term economic health of our country. If he had taken the time to
construct a genuine multinational force to take on the problems of Iraq,
we wouldn't be burning $4.2B/month (and we might not have lost so many
soldiers over such a long time). I think that would have been the more
prudent course and would have greatly benefited our nation in many ways,
economically and diplomatically. I think the current administration is
more interested in short term takes though.[/QUOTE]

I agree had that been possible in a reasonable time frame.
Unfortunately, most governments in place today are too much like France
and don't have the spine to take on terrorists. We simply no longer had
time to wait to try to achieve UN consensus.

Infrastructure development is a good thing, no doubt. However, if we
don't have a secure nation, it is like putting lipstick on a pig.


Matt

 

The White House could only list 48 on March 25, 2003. A few evidently
joined after that but it doesn't seem like they would have even had
time to put their boots on before the war started.

It is a matter of quality not quantity. The "coalition of the
willing" was mostly a collection of minor nations who couldn't say no
and risk the pittance of financial aid they were getting from the US.
The problem with such allies is that they don't have much to give.
Not much military and certainly no cash. Among our valued partners
were Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria,
Columbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvador,
Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Hungary, Georgia, Honduras, Latvia,
Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Philippines,
Poland, Palau, Iceland, Costa Rica, Marshall Islands, Rwanda,
Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Micronesia, Oman, Romania, Slovenia, Tonga,
Turkey (most noted for what they didn't give us - a base for US troops
despite the offer of a $26 billion dollar bribe), Ukraine, Uganda and
Uzbekistan. Of the few major contributors, most were bribed to do so
against the expressed wishes of their own citizens. Bottom line: We
are paying about 90% of the cost of this fiasco, which is pretty much
as it should be. I feel sorry for the Brits who are paying for most
of the rest despite the clear sentiments of the people not to do so.

Because that time our coalition members paid more than half the cost.

Was Clinton spending a billion dollars a week on it?

 

x-no-archive: yes

"Only 48." 48 or 60 or 10 nations would all meet the definition of "multinational,"
which was the issue addressed above. Or does you definition of "multinational" only
mean a 48 nation minimum?

BTW: I'm curious, if a house is built for two families, do you consider that to be a
multifamily dwelling?

The earlier poster said, "If he had taken the time to construct a genuine multinational
force to take on the problems of Iraq..." What are your concerns with the quality, of
say, Australian forces?

You conveniently forgot Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, S Korea, United
Kingdom. Other countries are doing what they can, including permitting overflights.
What other nation did you have in mind to be the necessary ingredient to be
"multinational"?

So a force is only "multinational," according to you, if somebody else is paying more
than half the cost. By this criteria of yours, where is your outrage at going after
Al-Quaeda in Afghanistan? I sure hope that the USA can take action in the future,
without inquiring if somebody else will send the bill on time.

Thirty five + billion dollars was spent on "containing" Saddam, with no end in site
for this recurring cost. The US will withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible and Iraq
will be able to support itself.

I'm sorry that you appear to be so regretful that Hussein's rape rooms, torture
chambers, and mass grave fields are no longer being actively patronized. That's a real
shame, no?

 

This was forwarded to me by a friend recently. It seems to apply quite well to
this OT discussion.

----FORWARD---

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in
the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The
University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian
Republic" some 2,000 years prior. "A democracy is always temporary in
nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A
democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover
that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From
that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise
the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every
democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is)
always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of
history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations
always progressed through the following sequence: From Bondage to
spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to
liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From
complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back
into bondage."

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent
Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million
Bush=143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000
Bush=22,427,000

States won by:
Gore=19;
Bush=29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by :
Gore=13.2
Bush=2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was
mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.
Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned
tenements and living off government welfare..."

Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and
"complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with
some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the
"governmental dependency" phase. Pass this along.

 

The key is the word genuine. How many Australians are there? How
many billions of $US did they contribute? Other than the US and the
UK, the coalition hasn't pitched much into the pot.

You can throw in Japan too. Overflights are nice, but lets get to the
bottom line. What percentage of the total monetary cost of this war
is being borne by American taxpayers? Be sure to add in the cost of
bribing some of these nations into nominally supporting it.

What is your definition of "multinational?" Having a bunch of
countries that contribute virtually nothing but don't oppose you (even
if their citizens mostly do.) It seems by your definition, all we
needed was Eritrea to have a multinational coalition.

$35 billion over eight years? We could have contained him until his
kids died of old age for what Bush has spent already. Not that even
the $35B could really be justified as money well spent.

Define "soon."

Oh please spare me. Bush I and Reagan never made a peep while this
was going on. Bush I even let Saddam fly his helicopters to crush the
Shiite uprising after the Gulf War. This was after Bush had
encouraged the uprising with his remarks.

 

There is only one definition of a multinational coalition that is accepted
by
anyone who knows anything about warfare. That is, when the war is won,
is a coalition in control or is just a few governments?

The Iraq war was was not a multinational effort. The US and to a lesser
extent, Britian, are calling the shots there now. The other "coalition"
partners are in name only.

Contrast this to Afghanistan which was truly a multinational effort. When
that
war was over, the UN was left in charge and is still in charge there today.

All true but you do have to give Bush credit for once thing that he did
accomplish. This is, that Bush has made a statement to the world that
the US military is superior to all other countries military, and that the US
population wants it that way, and furthermore that the US had taken up
the mantle of being the world's policeman, and that the US population
pretty much approves of this.

Now of course, nobody likes a dictator or bully and being in the role
of the world's policeman makes the US a lightning rod for accusations
of this. But the fact of the matter is that without a policeman, things for
the vast majority of people in the world would be a lot worse. Take what
just went on in Haiti for example. The threat of US invasion has kept
the revolution there as bloodless as possible. The rebel military
commanders
did not end up looting the country after they won, which is the usual course
of action, because they know that the US is looking over their shoulder.

Ted

 

The US and the rest of the world has been at war with terrorism
for the last 150 years. Unfortunately, due to Vietnam, the US public
soured on the idea that you have to get your military out into the world
to protect the country. So we had a generation of government
bureaucrats and such that didn't want to take any risk of losing any
soldiers to hostile fire, and so they kept the US military on US soil
as much as they could.

If you look at the failed Hostage Rescue Mission for the Iran
hostages that took place under President Carter that is a perfect
example of how bad the military had sunk after Vietnam. There's
a good argument to be made that if the US military then had flown
in, guns blazing, even if all the Iran hostages had died, that
9/11 never would have happened.

What we are seeing today is that US foreign policy and the US
military is going back to the way it used to be, back in the latter
half of the 19th century and the earlier part of the 20th, through
WW1 and WWII.

I think they do now. 50 years from now, who knows? Perl Harbor was
as horrible a disaster to it's generation as 9/11 was to the current one,
but people eventually forgot.

I think that most people have the sense to understand that Al Gore would
have done the exact same thing in Afganistan as Bush did. And as for
Iraq, I think that if Bin Laden had been captured, that neither Bush or
Gore would have ever invaded Iraq. It was the failure of capturing Bin
Laden which really made it necessary to demonstrate that the US means
business, thus invading Iraq was a necessity.

Ted

 

The college hasn't spoken against it, has it?

No one said a thing about gassing when he actually gassed them. In
fact, Rumsfeld was over there around that time, wasn't he? Saddam was
a danger only to the Iraqi people, much like he was when the Americans
were providing him with weapons and military advice.

Irrelevant. Up until 2002 the CIA put Saddam as a low grade threat.
Suddenly, for some strange reason, in 2002 he became a high grade
threat despite the fact that nothing changed. In fact, the
information that was released to the public as coming from the CIA
bears very little resemblance to what the CIA sent to the
administration as George Tenet has pointed out.

In fact, the UN acknowledges that Iraq didn't have squat in the way of
WMDs since '94.

Regardless of how nice a guy Saddam was, doesn't it bother at least a
little that Bush flat out lied to you? Vast stores of WMDs, remember,
yet not a trace. A mushroom cloud in the imminent future,
particularly because he's trying to buy uranium from Niger.
Completely baseless, but terrifying in the post- 9/11 world. This
from a man who can't even prove that he served his full term in the
Guard.

Iraq was supporting minor pro-Palestinian groups, not Al-Qaeda, who
hated the secular government in Iraq as much as they hate the
Americans.

Yet nothing to protect the people themselves. Looting was rampant and
nothing was done about it, period, despite the fact that under the
Geneva conventions (remember those? Bush apparently doesn't) it's the
responsibility of the occupying army to ensure security.

And Bush has presided over the loss of over 2 million jobs and
encourages more offshoring. That'll help the economy.

Everyone in the world was running huge deficits then. That doesn't
excuse it, but taken in context it's not as bad as it seems. It seems
that the Democrats have learned from their mistakes, Bush seems intent
on reliving them.

Why is Bush not including Iraq and Afghanistan operational funding in
the budget? Doesn't that strike you as a tad dishonest?

Amazing that the GDP is rising so much yet there is no commensurate
rise in jobs, isn't it?
--
Brandon Sommerville (remove ".gov" to e-mail)

Her name was Valerie Plame, and she was a NOC. She was keeping weapons of mass
destruction out of the hands of terrorists. What was the Bush administration doing?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/022404A.shtml

 

Yet interestingly enough around the world no one but Americans seem to
think that the world is a safer place from terrorists.

There is also proof now that Bush had reason to suspect that Al-Qaeda
was planning an attack using commercial planes up to a year before the
attack happened, yet the claimed complete surprise.

Why are Bush, Cheney and Rice refusing to testify before a full 9/11
commission?

Don't you find it interesting that Ahmad Chalabi has pretty much
acknowledged to lying through his teeth to get the Americans to
invade.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/162728_thomas02.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=6

But no, more chest thumping is certainly in order from you, isn't it?
Any president that yells "Bring it on" to terrorists from behind the
protection of his troops is pathetic, particularly when he was never
truly one of them.
--
Brandon Sommerville (remove ".gov" to e-mail)

Her name was Valerie Plame, and she was a NOC. She was keeping weapons of mass
destruction out of the hands of terrorists. What was the Bush administration doing?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/022404A.shtml

 

|
| | > x-no-archive: yes
| >
| > Louis Hom wrote:
| >
| > > In article <>, <>
| wrote:
| > > >Tax cuts are not an attempt to 'give' you anything. When the
| > > >government cuts the tax rates, as it has under Kennedy, Reagan
| > > >and Bush they are merely taking less of your money not giving you
| > > >money it's your money.
| > >
| > > Whether you consider it giving money back to taxpayers or not is
| > > irrelevant. The net result is the same -- the government receives less
| > > money.
| >
| > That is true---in the immediate short term. But over the longer term (3+
| years)
| > the government collects much more money because of the economic growth
| that takes
| > place when people can spend their money as they need to.
|
| This is just the old conservative rubbish spewing again. Re-read a
| statement Louis
| made " Extra money given out to the people who already have adequate funds
| doesn't significantly increase spending"
|
| Like it or not, our economy is driven by consumer spending. Only consumer
| spending
| on goods and services creates jobs because someone has to make those goods
| and
| do those services. Thus a job is created.
|
| Our economy is not driven by investors investing money, like Bush & Co. want
| you to
| believe. If you cut taxes on the rich, as Bush has done, the rich just take
| their
| extra money and put it into investments. They don't spend it on buying more
| goods. And
| investments are all designed to keep money from reducing. Let's look at
| some common
| investments that the rich make. Well there's treasury bonds for one. And
| why are those
| bonds issued? To fund the deficit that is created by reducing taxes on the
| rich. Nice
| little circle that Bush has going there to get the government to fund his
| friends. There's
| land, for another. This just drives up property prices so that even more
| businesses end
| up leasing instead of owning their property, and more people end up renting
| instead of
| homeowning, the end result is to create an entire economy of landlords who
| get money
| for nothing, just because they have a deed in hand. There's bonds issued by
| governments
| like local governments for school and road construction, for another. This
| creates some
| jobs in the short term, but in the long term it doesen't because most of
| those projects
| are just upgrading old roads, schools, bridges and such that already have a
| staff of people
| running them.
|
| > That is why the economy
| > and the treasury receipts have increased following tax cuts, although
| there is a
| > slight delay of course for this to happen. But I'll take long term
| economic
| > growth over a short term fix any time.
| >
|
| So would anyone. But with all the supply side economics of cutting taxes on
| the rich
| that has gone around this time, it isn't working. The Feds continue to
| lower interest
| rates in an attempt to stimulate growth, it isn't working. Job creation has
| fallen far below
| the minimum needed to keep pace with population growth. February's figures
| for example
| are a miserable 20,000 jobs created. We need a minimum of 150,000 new jobs
| every
| month to keep pace with population growth.
|
| It would have been much better if the tax cuts never would have happened.
| Because what
| would have happened then is the extra money the government was getting off
| the rich
| would be spent on buying things, which would create jobs. Instead, federal
| spending has
| been constricted and the rich that got extra money as a result of the tax
| cut have not
| been spending this money.
|
| Ted
|
|

I have to admit, except for Paul Krugman of the New York Times, I've not heard
any other economist explain it quite the way you did.