posted April 02, 2011 08:40 AM            

Make Government smaller? shrink the budgets, curtail social programs for widows, orphans and the disenfranchised?

Then why are certain factions doing the exact opposite??

Why are some people so obsessed with other peoples uterus?
why cut programs that are proven to save the public money?

Example; Planned Parenthood has a decades long history of saving Tax dollars by providing contraceptive education.
The means for which one does not become pregnant! Planned Parenthood is much more than abortion counseling.
And actually helps to prevent the filling of all those uterus's out there that certain factions are so interested in.

If a quality education has been proven to save public dollars in the long run then why are we cut, cut, cut to the bone?

Audit for sure, investigate cost cutting procedures and implementation- check. Doesn't that make more sense? And, add the shrink wrap so desired?

And what about the job losses? Jobs, Jobs, jobs was all we heard up until January. Now that January is long gone the unemployment situation is on the back burner all right. The back burner of the basement kitchen.

cutting veterans’ disability benefits?? One of the best things that has happened in the last 2 years has been repairs to the VA, funding for the VA which has been massively underfunded for years. One in 4 families has a family member that has served in some capacity in the wars. One in 4.

The Maternal and Child Health block grant, shoot, why not close the doors completely on health and human services?
Are we to go back to the turn of the last century? Are we to dismantle the New Deal and every social reform in it's wake? Are we to continue on a regressive path that ends in class warfare?

Well, here are more positive words that I read this A.M.

quote:

---

[ With so many lemons all around us, we need to get crackin’ on the lemonade stand. Tight on money? Maybe this is where we learn what’s really valuable. Don’t know whom to trust? Perhaps this is where we eliminate the dross to define what is trustworthy, gather together to celebrate what is rational and loving, what is workable and creative. The more absurd this season becomes, the clearer the need to step back and look for realism. The more battered our friends and neighbors, the more willing and determined we must be to fix what’s broken. If we put our heart into it, we can’t go wrong.

Meanwhile, the joke’s on us. The irrational folks think they’re the only ones here, and the rational ones keep waiting for somebody to step up and slap them back into sobriety. The joke is, that would be us. Every day that we wait to see what happens next is a day we lose to powerlessness and fear. Truth is, the Dalai Lama can’t retire and neither can we. None of this happened TO us, it happened THROUGH us — and that’s exactly the way we will fix it: one rational, realistic and loving decision at a time.

---

It was proved that few of the cuts would be needed were the tax break extensions for the very wealthy not allowed to 'ride'. Why are the oil companies still funded by the Tax payer? If you research how much the big oil payed last year, you might feel a little sick to your stomacher. And if you also research the changes to the amounts in tax breaks that are still given, you might feel even sicker.

That gas price is manufactured by wall street. Investors inflate the price. Even when we know that Libya has a 2% interest in the worlds oil resource lets spin the prize wheel and artificially inflate the price per barrel.....they did it before, and it was extremely lucrative. Now that the economy is easing back to the game.....

Shoot, I'm out of lemons for the moment.

posted April 02, 2011 01:29 PM            

Government support of arts pays dividends
March 23, 2011

The U.S. House is on track to cut $43 million from the National Endowment for the Arts budget of $167.5 million. That's a 26 percent cut — the deepest in 16 years. Our senators should prevent these deep cuts from happening when they take up this legislation at the end of this month.

The strength of Bethlehem's arts scene is one of the reasons this city has survived the death of Bethlehem Steel and avoided becoming a ghost town in the rust belt. And the arts mean jobs. According to Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion annually in economic activity, supports 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs in the arts and related industries, and returns $12.6 billion in federal income taxes. Measured against direct federal cultural spending of about $1.4 billion, that's a return of nearly 9-to-1.

Federal funding for the arts leverages private funding. The NEA requires at least a 1-to-1 match of federal funds from all grant recipients — a match far exceeded by most grantees. On average, each NEA grant leverages at least seven dollars from other state, local and private sources. Private support cannot match the leveraging role of government cultural funding.
Link

posted April 02, 2011 04:03 PM            

Republicans were elected to shrink the size, scope, power and cost of the federal government.

Voters still feel the same way and a majority believe that if necessary, the government should be shut down if that's what it takes to get demoscats to negotiate in good faith.

Anyone who's paying attention realizes O'Bomber grew the cost of government more than 24% in the last 2 years.

So, with a budget of $3,830,000,000,000, that's 3.83 TRILLION dollars, Republicans want to cut $61 Billion. demoscats are screeching, whining, howling and shrieking about cutting about 1.5% of the monsterous budget demoscats and O'Bomber increased almost 25% in the last 2 years. BFD.

posted April 02, 2011 10:30 PM            

Many such programs also provide jobs

I've read the last several years about various school systems around the country ending art and music in middle and high schools- I find that an abomination.

How many times have we been told about aptitude in music and arts in general stimulating the other parts of the brain?

I could go on a serious rant with that one.
So often the cuts being made are not a sensible alternative, and actually cost us more.

As far as the continuing resolution

[has] experienced extension after extension [since last fall] maybe the 2012 budget would be a more likely candidate for resolution.

since the most reasonable method to circumvent the cuts to much needed programs were never considered--that being returning to the tax rates of the mid to late 90's-- I have little to say about a poll by Razzmutation. De funding 2 wars that have always been on the Credit Card is another.

The most sensible and reasonable method to a solvency goal was not on the table. I repeat. The tax breaks for corps & Billionaires is killing us. The two wars are on credit vouchers with MIC contractors making mercenary wages through profiteering. Now they are on the official budget and they are draining a parched well.

The money is there, and will continue to grow for the megabanks and big business.

When was the last time you saw a savings interest rate over 4%??

When was the last time long term investment showed any average Joe/Jane a good return? Oh the money is there alright, but we will never see it-
how are those that had all investments loose big time in 2007-2008 expected to recoup their losses, many have lost houses. And even a pre-inflated priced house lost tens of thousands. Millions of people saw entire neighborhoods 'disappear`

Detroit has lost 25% residency.....I think it is more, can't remember the exact percentage.

You cannot expect those making a median income of 50-60K often combined! to bear the weight. Millionaires and Billionaires pay a fraction. And if you talk Steinbrenner, $500 Million in estate taxes were lost. And that is just one estate!

We are heading to class warfare.

I think revenue needs to be part of the solution, not just cuts...speaking of cuts

the F22

Never used in Iraq, never used in Afghanistan

cost? 70 Billion dollars.

posted April 03, 2011 08:59 AM            

The top 1% of income earners in the United States pay 40% of all the income tax.

Which billionaires are not paying their "fair share" of income taxes?

For that matter, what is their "fair share"?

When you talk about corporations paying income taxes, has it somehow failed to register on your radar that corporations and other businesses DO NOT PAY TAXES? How could anyone living in America consider themselves informed yet not know that businesses must pass along all expenses related to their business activities to consumers in the price of their goods or services?

When I hear/see leftists screeching about raising taxes on corporations, I know they're really talking about raising taxes on individual American consumers. Whether these leftists are lying through their teeth and trying to impose a "hidden tax" on consumers or whether they are so hopelessly lost in space as to not know the basics of business operation is immaterial; they are talking about raising taxes on individual American consumers.

When corporations and other businesses cannot pass their costs of doing business along to consumers, one of two things happens. They either go out of business or they relocate to more business friendly climes...and, they take the tax base they represent...and their jobs with them.

The United States already has the highest or second highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. Number 1 or number 2 depends on what Japan does to lower their corporate tax rates to invite investment and business to relocate into Japan.

This is another topic over which leftists screech and howl. On the one hand, leftists do everything in their power to drive American corporations..and American jobs out of America...taxes, regulation and harassment by armies of bureaucrats.

Then, out of the other side of leftist mouths we hear screeching and howling about corporations sending jobs offshore.

So, some American cities are broke or going broke. When you do everything in your power to drive business and the jobs associated with those businesses out of your city..or state, you destroy your tax base. The result is predictable.

I have come to the conclusion leftists are clueless about "cause and effect". There are no more clueless morons in America than the moron infesting the White House and some of his blithering, blathering, bloviating comrades in the US Congress.

The results of electing the Marxist Socialist O'Bomber were clear to me before the election of 2008. No one here can say they were not warned because I laid it out in plain language.

posted April 03, 2011 07:32 PM            

You have the wrong thread methinks.

Half of what you typed had little to do with what I posted. The other half are talking points and opinions.

posted April 03, 2011 10:20 PM            

"The most sensible and reasonable method to a solvency goal was not on the table. I repeat. The tax breaks for corps & Billionaires is killing us."...Node

Hello! Hello! Hello!

"The other half are talking points and opinions."...Node

posted April 07, 2011 07:46 PM            

When you goggle obfuscate + deflect + image

posted April 08, 2011 10:09 AM            

You never answered my questions. Who are those evil billionaires who don't pay their fair share of income taxes AND, how much is their fair share.

Apparently, for leftists, "raise taxes" is always the answer to any question.

The federal government has no business whatsoever funding the arts...even if you call Christ on a cross in a bottle of urine...Art. There is no authority whatsoever for the feds to be involved in funding programs which are the province of the States...or the people. That includes education. That includes funding abortion. That includes funding Planned Parenthood. That includes funding PBS and NPR. That includes subsidizing farmers to grow or not to grow certain crops and, that prohibition also includes a big chunk of what federal taxes are funding and have been funding for many years.

Yet, we find federal agencies multiplied like flies and in many cases different agencies doing the very same jobs on the very same subject or groups, each with their army of bureaucrats, office space, utilities, managers, agency heads, credit cards, government cars and budgets.

So yeah, let's shrink the hell out of the federal government.

posted April 09, 2011 04:28 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by katatonic:
but don't worry, jwhop, you may shortly have your wish to live in the yankee version of somalia, if all goes according to the plan of the neocon hardheads.

---

That quote doesn't even make sense. Even though I have read this thread 3 times, it still does not make sense.

posted April 09, 2011 10:26 AM            

"but don't worry, jwhop, you may shortly have your wish to live in the yankee version of somalia, if all goes according to the plan of the neocon hardheads."...katatonic

Yep, it's well documented that Algore invented the Internet. He said he did...and would Algore lie about something like that?