Platforms you wish to hear
 

Ok, so we're less than a year away now from the election and months away from primaries. It got me to thinking, what platforms, what issues do you want to see addressed? In other words what would your perfect candidate run on?

Here's mine: My candidate would

- raise import tariffs lower income and domestic business taxes. I'm tired of paying my hard earned dollars while knowing that some guy in a foreign country is laughing at us as his goods get delivered with minimum import taxes. China and Japan get to bring their steel here dirt cheap, and yet our steel industry (that is dying) gets taxed here at home, then gets the Hell taxed out of it elsewhere. Free trade does not work one way, yet we keep doing it. It has to end, we are destroying ourselves by allowing minimum import tariffs and taxing the people and domestic businesses into oblivion. Enough is enough.

- close the borders, perhaps give an easier route to citizenship, but no more illegals. They committed a crime getting here and are a burden to the nation. NO MORE. The cost to taxpayers, jobs and crime rates are horrendous. We cannot support this any longer and the borders must be closed.

- give every LEGAL citizen $1Million dollars. Then completely get rid of welfare, social security, Medicaid and restructure Medicare so that retirees still have some insurance but it is based on income and a sliding scale. That Million is your retirement, investment in health care insurance, and life. What you do, how you spend it is up to you, but if you are 65 and it is gone, don't look to the taxpayers and government for support. If you choose to, the government can and will contract investment firms and invest the money for you so that you can't touch it until retirement or necessary (buying a house, etc.) Education is not a part of this, there is aid for furthering education available.

- Invest more into education, but colleges that raise tuitions more than 3% every 2 years and cannot show a true legitimate reason why, lose accredation and student aid no longer will be allowed at those schools. Colleges and Universities are there to teach and to help generations grow, not to be businesses and fleece the populations. They are a public service and their job is to keep the citizenry educated and competitive on an international level. They need to be kept affordable.

- End the war in Iraq, it's a money pit and hurting us in many ways. America does not need to be the policeman of the world. It is time to take care of our own and start a regrowth.

- End all financial aid to other countries. If Israel can't make it on their own, then all well. If a country needs humanitarian aid, that's what the UN is for.

- Invest in small new companies and growing bigger companies. Open up no interest to low interest loans to entrepreneurs and give them chances to grow by having a 5 year period of tax free growth.

- Work on eliminating the income tax and figure out a true system that will not penalize people for what they make but promote growth and economic stability so that we don't have the drastic economic swings we have been having.

- Regulate security. No open bids for out of country companies to watch our ports, airports, build our highways, etc. We are the UNITED STATES of AMERICA it is time we act like it and let our own work to protect and build our future.

- Strengthen the military by raising wages on the enlisted men, put money into research and development, only companies owned by Americans, with factories in the USA will be contracted to work.

- Rebuild the infrastructure, put the money into the cities and states (match funding) so that highways, water systems, dams, electric plants, etc can be rebuilt. Work on building more nuclear power plants, wind powered, hydro powered dams, etc.

- Invest in fuel research, offer the DOMESTIC car companies some serious R&D monies if they can produce cars that run on renewable fuels or hybrids that get massive MPGs.

Now, if only I can find a candidate that most closely resembles my wish platform, I would be a happy man.

Im not American, but if I was....

The nationalisation - without ANY compensation - of all utility, energy and health care resources in the US.

In the current climate there is scope for private ownership of capital in many "markets", but the provision of health care, of electricity and water and fuel... it is vital that these are democratically controlled immediately.

It is critical also that compensation for the owners of these corporations is not even considered. The fat cats will be allowed to stay on as employee's of their former corporations and earn a salary of 40,000 a year... a very aedquate wage that they can more than easily live a comfortable life. This is the ONLY renumeration that can be considered.

I really like most of your ideas.

Totally agree, it's not fair that we have to compete with countries that don't have our enviornmental regulations and labor laws without a tarif to balance it out.

No, arguments there.

$1 million dollars to every citizen seemed crazy when I first read it, but after realizing that the budget is 2. something trillion, I think we could afford a couple hundred million. I'm all for phasing out social programs in some manner like this. Giving people back the money they put in while allowing people like me to get out of these programs when we have no hope in seeing a return on our investment.

Disagree somewhat here. I feel education isn't a federal issue and should be run as a business.

Definetly.

-Agreed, its unconstitutional and we could use the money here anyway.

Agreed.

Yes, outsourcing security is treasonous.

Agreed.

Only thing I'd really like to see in addition is the elimination of the Federal Reserve. It takes away buying power from the lower/middle classes and hands it to the upper 1% through fractional reserve banking.

Honestly, this platform is very Ron Paulish with a few differences.

Because that wouldn't wreak havoc on the economy. If everyone has money, nobody has money.

Members of the previous administration will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

All foreign military bases, that is US military bases on non-US soil, will be closed, given to the country where they are located, and American soldiers will all come to serve on military bases in the US.

Full independence for the territories of Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, and the Commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. We will also support their entrance into the UN and forgive any debts.

Amnesty for all undocumented workers and a clear and straightforward naturalization process.

Disbanding of NAFTA.

Strong Middleclass support.

Incentives to private companies who are successfully testing and creating alternative energies.

Ending poverty.

Leave the WTO.

Recheck the math, that would be over $400 trillion.

Wow, I guess I need more sleep haha.

Why Picard?

BTW, $1m x 300m = $300,000,000,000,000. That's $300 trillion. The current tally of the Iraq war is about $467,191,300,000.

Pan46..'s manifesto is a call to cast aside the vulnerable... a call to cull the least protected member's of society in a frenzy of "law of the jungle"... I hope all decently thinking people would reject such idea's on instinct.

Of those who speak for the progression of humanity... we do not talk of ways to translate the law of jungle into human life again in an especially clean way... we do not speak of closed borders and wars over oil and divisions based on the shade of skin of accent of speaking of a person.

We socialists speak of real action towards human brotherhood. We do not speak of the doomed capitalistic system, we speak of the world after the impending collapse. We speak of a world in which humanity is not laid helpless to prevent itself from placing 1/5 of the population of the world underwater.

Let us be clear... we examine the current method of distribution of wealth. We see clearly a world in which more than 20 million a people a year die of not having enough to eat, while the America's and Euope is filled with people who die of , physically, eating too much. We call this method of distribution pathetic and seek to work to one which is based on human need rather than one based upon the capacity to grab what you can, whatever the cost.

Let those who have the stomach to do so defend Dafur, defend the North Korean famines, defend Iraq... I call for a political power who will not accept such things.

You may talk all you like about voting for this or that capitalist,,, the current arrangemet WILL fail.

Let Ustwo call for the law of the jungle and the triumph of the strong and the protection of their right to trample the vulnerable. Let him rejoice as his society poisons this earth through sheer helplessness to stop because the profit mechanism demands to whatever accumulates the most capitals. Perhaps he does not care becauce he does not anticipate having children who will pay for his actions, or perhaps doesnt care for them if they do.

Let all decent minded people reject this.

40k a year is hardly a salary that provides a comfortable living, just about anywhere in the US.

So in other words, not even close. We could devote the entire GDP for the next 23 years to giving this year's taxpayers a million dollars.

That seems unlikely to happen.

really?

so people who work for Wallmart earn much more than 40K do they?

No? Well, I wonder they live....

Precisely. $1m per person isn't a logistically feasible amount. Not even $100k per ($30t) is feasible.

We should concentrate on brining unnecessary costs (wars) down and stabilizing the budget so that the government can save up to pay back what we owe and spend money with a more stable budget on programs that are ultimately beneficial and necessary to all Americans. Was that a run on sentence?

They are living in poverty, usually.

then the owners of the corporations may live lives with 60% more pay than the average minimum wage worker.

Since they have campaigned very hard to keep the minimum wage at an "appropriate" level, we should assume they will be very happy with such a salary, yes?

I think we agree there. :thumbsup:

They live in poverty, they have multiple jobs, or multiple incomes within one house Strange_Famous.

I think the amusing thing is I pay members of my staff more than SF thinks the top people should be getting.

I think we should subtitle this thread 'numbers pulled out of my ass because they sounded good to my political point of view.'

As someone who has recently just sold his soul into a loan for a new office, and still feel pretty shaky about the whole thing, I wonder what makes some of you think you are even remotely qualified for deciding possible fiscal policy.

listen to yourself Ustwo

"you have sold your soul"

"this makes you more qualified than other people here to talk about fiscal policy"

I could post as much political talk as I could summon, and I couldnt say a worse thing about you than you just said about yourself.

____

For those who want to sell their souls, by all means... follow what he says.

If you think 40k a year provides a comfortable life, you're totally out of whack with reality. I make more than that and am living paycheck to paycheck.

The platforms I'm interested in are

1) A government that works within the framework of the constitutional powers they've been assigned....and no more than that.

2) Supreme court justices who will actually rule according to the constitutional text instead of stretching interpretations to suit political needs or emotional feely wants.

3) reducing the size of the government beauracracy, i.e. removing or limiting powers of the ATF, IRS, DEA, DOJ, HUD, DOE, and every other alphabet agency that doesn't have a constitutional exercise to exist.

4) actually using the veto powers assigned to a president to invalidate crap amendments like 'bridge to nowhere', etc.

5) invalidating unconstitutional gun laws currently on the books and not allowing any more of them to exist.

6) cut the spending budget by half, remove the federal deficit, cut taxes by the %age equal to all cuts, allowing people to keep their money, and enforce equal protection of the laws for corporation and citizen alike.

40 K is well in extension of the minimum wage

Therefore it is a MORE than apporpriate award for the capitalsts who's assets will be stripped.

They are welcome to go to the "open" market if they think they can earn a better wage somewhere else.

Only thing I have to say, really.

then start showing numbers of how many people make above minimum wage, then how many of those live comfortably.

I'm telling you right now, from hard life experience, that if you think 40k a year is making a living, you are out of touch with reality.

goes along with other pictures like this that caption 'oh jeez, not this shit again.'

I interpreted it as "Why the fuck don't Ursa and B'Etor wear fucking bras? No one wants to see that shit..."

Dude, it doesn't work that way. 40,000 is shit. I'm not going through 4 hard years in a college of engineering and 3 years of grad school to earn a paltry 40,000 a year. Your reasoning is flawed; your logic weak. Nobody *wants* to have that kind of life. That's why it's the MINIMUM.

I think the 40k thing is clouding the real issue.

We know SF is just pulling numbers out of his ass here, so they really aren't even worth discussing.

The real issue is why would I bust my ass for 10 extra years in school like I did to make 40k at the end of that raman noodle eating rainbow?

Some of the deeply infected socialists seem to think that good people will continue to do good work and make the required sacrifices to do so even if they are getting paid shit for said work. These people are of course delusional, and it shows just why socialism can't work on this level as well as capitalism. What happens is people like me decide its not worth busting their ass for a decade for no gain and work no harder than the wallmart greeter.

I didn't bust my ass, put off having a family, and take myself out of the social scene for years just for you.

$40,000 does sound like an arbitrary figure. It sounds like the owners will not only lose ownership, but will also be handed a starting salary (for a manager of a utility/health care company) despite being amongst the most experienced in the industry. Why is that? Would they be shifted into the mail room or something?

To get back on track, my candidate would:
Dismantle the DEA and regulate "illegal" drugs, decriminalize pot at the very least. ( I am still of the thought that if weed were a product like booze, the country would never be in a deficit again, regardless of leadership)
Allow gay marriage-why should just heteros be miserable but with great tax breaks?
Close the borders. What part of "illegal immigrant" is so difficult to understand?
Dismantle NAFTA. Instead of rewarding corporations for moving offshore, reward them for staying put or penalize them for taking their operations elsewhere. "Oh, you're moving to Costa Rica and laying off 3,000 Americans? That'll be 4.5 million restitution tax, please."
We could get a vast majority of those on welfare off the dole if some daycare was provided. Workfare isn't working because of that, in part. If you have 200 moms on welfare, take 100, train'em in childcare, then put them into the daycares as workers, get the others at least ground level employment.
Incentives for urban renewal. Stop building on pristine land and get the builders and landowners to invest in our cities.
Promote and give incentives for alternative energy sources. Landfills produce methane, yet it's just burned off instead of recycled, for instance. And do you really need that Ford Excursion to drive around your two kids? If so, it'll cost ya an energy consumption surcharge.
There has to be some sort of regulations with this gas pricing. Here in NJ, we have major refineries owned by local gasoline corporations, yet they're charging the same as say, Exxon. Why? Speculation coupled with greed. Gas wars wouldn't be a bad idea right now.
Treat our veterans better. Period. 44% of homeless men are vets. That's disgusting.

the previous owners will not be expected to be on the premises.

40 K a year is the only compensation that will be considered when the loot and assets which they have taken from working people is repatriated.

If they insist on working, and the new democratic structure of the company gives them permission, i would suggest toilet cleaner would be an appropriate role. Once they find other employment, at whatever rate they can get it, the 40K will no longer be paid.

This is a compassionate policy. We certainly wish for ownership of these entities to be transfered to the public immediately... but we do not propose for the former fat cats to starve.

I will also propose, although it really goes without saying, a 100% tax rate on any salary of over $500,000 a year. It is unacceptable in a civilised society for the richest people to earn more than 10 times than the minimum wage. Certainy different jobs will pay different rates - depending on skill, experience, value added, and the violence of the invisible hands - in the existing form of society anyway. But let us be realistic and set the scope, the range of salaries, at a level that is not obscene.

I'm sorry, did you say democratic structure of fascist structure? :confused:

The public ownership of key utilities and the public provision of health care is hardly fascism, it is normal in most of the industrialised world.

Yes, I know. I was referring to your specific action, not the idea of public ownership. You would suggest that someone with the skills, talent, experience, and desire to head a utility/health care company should be a toilet cleaner? That doesn't sound democratic; it sounds authoritarian. Why don't we just execute them instead?

/hyperbole

It is our opinion that an individual who is skilled in the accumulation of capital in the face of and in oppositition to every human and social consideration will be found lacking in the necessary skills to run a corporation which is based on achieving public good, bot ammassing capital and profit.

By no means to I especially want the biggest capitalists to clean toilets... I said if they insisted on working in their former organisation then this is appropriate.

When someone leads a private company we must understand that the wealth they have ammassed is directly the result of the exploitation of their workers and of society. To allow them to maintain any kind of power within the democraticised corporation would undermine it.

These capitalist fat cats have exploited sometimes millions and billions of dollars by exploiting the working class, pillaging the environment and ripping off the consumers.. We do not propose ANY punishment for this. We even allow a VERY COMFORTABLE living wage to be paid to these individuals after we have returned all assets of the business and their person to the public, where ownership rightly belongs.

I think that the "specific action", is the opposite of "fascism", or corporatism. Corporatism is "fascism lite", the government taking direction from, and acts in unison with, at the expense of the best interests of nearly everyone else.

We've experienced, in less than the last 60 days, the spectacle of the largest US Bank, Citigroup, the largest financial brokerage, Merrill, and the largest industrial corporation, GM, all experience significant up moves in the prices of their common stock, on public assurances of their CEOs or CFOs, that "the worst is over". The stocks have all declined at least 25 percent in price, since, rocking the markets. Government regulators have done nothing in response, even though the false pronouncements of these giants greatly influenced the broader move up to new October 9 record highs on both the Dow 30 and S&P 500 stock indexes. Blatant manipulative, criminal fraud, and no federal regulators have announced objection or an inquiry.

This is the same stock market that president Bush attempted to feed the public's social security assets to, in the name of "privatization". Since the financially secure retirement of so many hinges on the soundness of the stock market, would not "toilet cleaning" be a generous punishment for the thugs of the top executives of the following corporations?

IMO, this is an episode more reminiscent of fascism. Nationalization of utilities and health care sectors is associated with socialists. My ideal platform would include an SEC investigating and regulating in a pro-public, instead of in the present, pro-business manner....

My example of deception began with the false assurances of a major, but lesser investment bank on September 19:
If you've read the preceding excerpts, <h3>the following opinion almost seems muted:</h3>
We also witness the spectacle of the US president urging congress to pass retroactive immunity to insulate the largest US telecom firms from potential damages of civil litigation after they secretly and unlawfully agreed to provide government intelligence agencies with the details of private domestic telephone, internet, and email communications, without requiring lawful search warrants from the agencies:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...007-11-08.html

My candidates would support:

-Preservation of the constitution, with executive orders immediately overriding laws in blatant violation, and referral of any questionable laws to the appropriate courts. The job of the government should be to protect its people, not to oppress them.

-A constitutional amendment explicitly separating church and state and preserving individual religious freedom. If prayer occurs in public schools, it should happen privately, and if accommodations need to be made to allow people to pray in private, then it is reasonable to expect those accommodations to be made. Any religious display placed on public land should be funded, maintained, and monitored by private citizens who are given equal opportunity and space to do so, and should be restricted to holiday times when such displays are expected. If a public employee wants a religious symbol in their own private office or desk space, that's fine, but the ten commandments on the courthouse steps isn't. Public funding of religious programs must end.

-A flat rate income tax at a rate (I'm thinking somewhere in the 40% range would be sustainable) will be levied on all income above $25,000 per person per household (dependents can either claim this deduction for themselves or allow a parent to claim it.) Businesses will not be treated as individuals under tax, criminal, or civil law, and therefore the only tax on these businesses will be sales tax on what is purchased. This will free small businesses from the tax burden on money reinvested into the business that can crush them, and large businesses will no longer be able to hide their assets in tax shelters. Personal expense accounts will be taxed as income with no applicable deductions, and the tax on those account will be paid by the business, not the individual.

-Property tax will be outlawed at all levels by federal law. Local governments will be retained as suppliers of last resort for utilities and services and will charge for infrastructure. When functioning as a supplier, they will bill only for service delivered and may not markup the cost of service. State income tax will pay for public schools and parents should have the option of sending their children to charter schools if public school performance is not up to state standards. Schools that consistently fail need to be examined for causes of failure and those causes addressed.

-Welfare as we know it is out. People who are unable to provide for themselves should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living, people who need education should be minimally provided for while seeking that education, and people who need a bit of help to get back on their feet should be given a bit of assistance. People who are able to work or go to school but don't shouldn't get anything from public funds.

-Drug laws and the drug war hurt people. Rehabilitation should be out there for people who have problems. People who are receiving public assistance should be expected to refrain from buying drugs including tobacco and alcohol.

-Giving foreign aid is harmful to the United States and foreign intervention is contrary to national sovereignty except in extreme cases. The UN should be responsible for these functions, but also must be brought into the present; the cold war is over. We can be the driving force behind the needed changes.

-Those who damage the environment should pay for all cleanup and restoration. EPA-sanctioned limits on polluting need to end and fees for emissions need to be implemented and grow exponentially above a certain limit. Carbon offsets are part of the solution, but not the whole solution. Making it prohibitively expensive to pollute and making environmentally friendly technology profitable will drive innovation.

-Eminent Domain used for private development is government-sanctioned armed robbery. When used for the true public good, there should be no problem paying property owners no less than double fair market value for their property in order to discourage abuse and compensate them for the inconvenience.

-Gun control beyond basic measures to ensure that those who are a risk to other s do not obtain weapons is abusive and violates the human right to defend the self and others. It is a right that may only be deprived through due process, and only for the good of the public. The right to own guns should not be granted out of need, only prohibited when there is an overwhelming need to do so.

-Immigration is what mad this country great and it should be simple for those who are not wanted criminals or terrorists to enter the country legally and be able to work. Anyone who graduates from an accredited post-secondary school should be granted citizenship.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's enough for now.

How about a system in which the workers are partial owners of any company they work for. If the company profits, they profit. If the company does not profit, they do not. It's an incentive for everyone to work hard and do their best, and rewards people in a way directly proportional to their contribution. It seems fair to me.

I'd call that a good start.

If that's just a good start, then what would be the ideal end that's fair for everyone? I think that the heads of a company (who would ideally be elected by the workers/owners) should be compensated more heavily for positive decisions and penalized more heavily than negative ones than the average worker because of the higher risk associated with decision making in their position. I'm not sure that you'd agree with that.


And to expand on my view of welfare, I think that the only way we can realistically break out of the ghetto and slum poverty cycle is to offer free public education to those who cannot afford it. A GED is a basic need in the modern economy, and providing community college or vocational school tuition will allow people to achieve their potential. I see it as a different facet of supply-side economics, the proverbial teaching a man to fish instead of giving him fish.

Elected company heads? It would be awesome to see someone elected head of our family company after running it for 12 years. I'm sure they could handle the responsibility even though they don't take care of their families or keep their court costs paid. The heads of a company already get compensated or punished based on their decisions, it's called the free market. Under your plan our company would be gone in less than a month and dozens of employees would be out of work as well.

Family businesses and massive corporations are different things. In an environment where thousands or tens of thousands of people can be fucked over by a bad decision at the top, accountability to the stockholders of the company is important in my mind. That post was more of a stream of thought than something I really thought out, so I generalized much more than I intended to.

Just four posts before http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=33
your post #37, I made the exact opposite argument of your <h3>"it's called the free market"</h3>, and I supported my points with three examples from 2007, two of those just happened in the last 75 days....

All three examples SCREAM the opposite of what I quoted above from your post.
Here's more from one of them:
Note where the stock price was when E. Stanley O'Neal was misleading stock holders, just a few weeks before the addtional, $7.9 billion write down. Nothing material had changed in those few weeks, O'Neill knew of should have known that his company had refused to mark down mortgage backed "instruments" that had become unsaleable because of declining housing valuation and risks of mortgage lending fraud that increased the risks that the "instruments" could be "put back" on issuers such as O'Neill's firm. What do you think O'Neal's september complicity in the "cover up" of impending additional write downs, <h3>cost stock holders who believed him and bought or held their shares?</h3>
<img src="http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/3m/m/mer">

From post #33, above:
Read post #33, Citicorp's CEO did exactly the same as Stan O'Neal:
Can you differentiate between a worker who is fired for poor job performance and misleading statements, having little impact on the rest of the world, but leaving the company with possibly a few thousand dollars, vs. the outcomes of O'Neal and Prince? O'Neal walked with a huge fortune and free office space, and Prince:
It boggles my mind that I'm here posting this "S old S", just a few posts apart.
I'm taking pains to more clearly spell it out:
The CEO of the largest US financial broker, assured the public that "the worst was behind", as did the CEO of the largest US bank. Stock prices after the assertions were stable to higher, the market believed the two CEO's.

No later than in five weeks after that, the brokerage announced an additional $7.9 billion writedown, and the bank:
Four days ago, I <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2347452&postcount=15">posted</a> the following on another thread, the well documented reporting of Citicorp's 1920's ancestor, National City Bank, and the criminality of it's top officer:

<h3>Your "leave it to the freemarkets" opinion does not do well if you click the preceding link and read my post, and it's not a new problem. The predecessor of Citicorp, National City Bank, was rife with similar corruption, 75 to 80 years ago:</h3>
samcol, "the stuff" that I posted four days ago was intended to overwhelmingly support my contention that the "free market", "free" because of a lack of 1920's government regualtion and oversight of banks and brokers, was the reason for the creation of the SEC, FDIC, and the passage by congress
of
The "free market".... the banks and brokerages...lobbied for years for repeal of Glass-Steagall and they were partially successful in the last few years.

Now we're seeing a blurring of the former separation of bank and brokerage activities, and banks are less financially sound becaue they were newly permitted to take larger stakes (added risk) in their brokerage subsidiaries. This imperils the FDIC bank deposit insurance fund.

The bullshit O'Neal and Price presided over and misled the public about, along with partial repeal of Glass-Steagall acts, lead us to this:
samcol, the FDIC insures bank deposits and it's reserves covering insured deposits of $100.000 per account, benefit the "little guy", and are paid by the little guy. FDIC member banks pay lower rates on insured accounts than they would it they were not paying FDIC deposit insurance. O'Neal, Prince, et al, have weakened the FDIC, as the preceding article makes clear.

Samcol, I urge you to rethink this:
<h3>I've done my damnedest to argue that the exact opposite is closer to fact.</h3>

The SEC should be filing charges against O'Neal and Prince for pimping their stocks and playing a huge part in influencing the DJIA and the S&P 500 to climb to new record highs on Oct. 9th.....

O'Neal and Prince, instead, "walk" with more than $200 million in combined final payments from the companies they led. The leadership of the SEC was appointed by Bush. The SEC was created to act in the public interest. It doesn't "need" to be dismantled, it needs to have a board appointed that will follow it's mandate.

It appears the laws are in place. Why aren't they being enforced?

Is there something else going on here?

I know you lean towards thinking I'm overly fond of "conspiracy theories", but I'll risk giving you my "take" to attempt to answer your question.

No one could downgrade the civilian and military components of government, in the short span of six years, at such greatly increased borrowing and spending levels, except by intent:

26 years ago, there was at least a fifteen year federal plan, in place and designed to dramatically lower US dependence on petroleum imports.
I detailed in these posts,

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=47

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=49

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...23&postcount=2

...the Reagan administration's almost immediate steps, upon taking office, to dismantle the program, crony-ize it, and prematurely privatize it. There was also a push to abolish the cabinet level department of energy. The poor and delayed appointments at the Synfuel Corp. were not unlike the rushed appointment by Bush of now indicted Bernard Kerik as directore of the Dept. of Homeland Security.


<h3>From this, six years ago: </h3>
09/30/2001 .. <a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm">$5,807,463,412,200.06</a>

To this debt level, today:
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np">$ 9,125,236,872,835.68</a>

and the complaint about government was:
We are where we find ourselves now, and it shouldn't be a surprise. They hate government, they have no faith in it's potential, only in exploiting and
downgrading it's effectivenes, always at a higher cost than before.
[quote]http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...an#post2342862
...and I'm seeing a number of posters on this forum posting opinions that "government doesn't work", and we need Ron Paul to.....

So, is there a disconnect? Isn't the reason it looks like government "doesn't work", a result of an intenional movement to demonize the idea of government working?
<h3>Or, do you have the correct take on things. I'm "too partisan", or the government needs to be reduced in size to the point that it performs only security functions, the courts, and the military, under the reforms of Ron Paul?</h3>

Doesn't anybody else see that what is happening directly parallels what Grover Norquist said the republican agenda was?

Actually Host if you paid attention to my posting history you would know that I am not for reducing government for reducing's sake.

I am an advocate of a social saftey net, universal health care, etc. If I were to advocate for any reductions it would only be in an effort to maintain cost efficiencies. Many government bureaucracies can become bloated with fat and can afford to be trimmed from time to time.

As for the Reagan and Bush Admin having intent... of course they have intent. They both ran on platforms of reducing government. The philosophies that sit at the heart of the neo conservative (or whatever they are being called today) agenda is to lower taxes and reduce the size of the government.

People like Karl Rove devote time to making sure that their message is absorbed by the populace at large. It's what selling your position means. It's how you get your agenda carried out.

Why would you be shocked to see that they did what they said they would do?

Charlatan, I didn't assume that you are favoring the Norquist/Reagan/Bush/Bush/Paul attitude about role and potential of government or methods for reducing it's size. I think that you're reaction to the damage that has been done by the current administration is too mild, but I wouldn't bet on it....

My frustration and protest is because of the huge amounts of money the Bushes and Reagan borrowed while the size of government grew, while it's effectiveness decreased. They profess to have had no faith in improving the effectiveness and benefits of government, but signed bills that had the consequence of increasing it's size, even as they lowered morale of government workers, via policy, criticism and cronyism.

They didn't attempt to hire the best people...political appointees committed to improving government, they hired like minded folks who also do not believe in the role of government as an instrument to mitigate wealth inequity and abuses like those of O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Prince of Citicorp.

They reduced taxes of their financial backers, and left all of us with huge new treasury debt obligations, and some of us with the impression that "government doesn't work". It's an impression strong enought to cloud the improvements that were achieved in between the two Bush administrations, reduction of federal non-military employees by 300,000, and annual federal debt increase (see my last post...) from $346 billion in year ending 9/30/93, to $18 billion in year ending 9/30/00.

Dramatic achievements...discounted, downplayed, ignored by the "government doesn't work", let us "reduce it in size", deregulate what remains, and let the "free market" "grow us" into a Randian utopia.

The approach of the newly installed, 1981 Reagan administration, towards the Carter energy independence plan, and towards the Dept. of Energy, heavy on a shift towards privatiization and reductions of federal incentives and research subsidies, combined with appointments of like minded cronies with profit motivated conflicts of interest, is an example of the approach taken toward the entire government these last seven years, especially evident in the "no bid" military and state dept. contracts related to Iraq and Afghanistan:
They've conducted a slow motion coup that has looted our treasury and marginalized our bill or rights as effectively as if they had openly carried it out, the way Musharraf has in Pakistan, and the response from too many is "more privatization", less regulation, let "the free market" proceed!

Charlatan, I perceive that you are "on the fence", as far as what is playing out in the tug of war between the executive branch and a senate controlled, with the slimmest possible majority, by democrats (Lieberman I-CT) is the 51st vote, and he sides with the administration too often, so there is no clear democratic majority...)

<h3>You asked why there is no regulation or enforcement.</h3> It is because it has been thwarted at the highest levels. If Steven G. Bradbury can continue to serve illegally at DOJ, what does it say about the executive branch's commitment to "the rule of law"?

What would it take to "fire you up"? What could the administration of GW Bush do to truly offend your sensibilities? The 28 seconds long "session" in the Seante today will have no effect on a president unconcerned about whether his recess appointees even serve legally:

Host, as a Canadian, I don't have any real desire to get "fired up" about how the US has decided to fuck things up. I am merely a fascinated spectator when it comes to America's internal operations.

I only get fired up when those policies extend beyond its borders.


As for being on the fence. I am much more of a centrist when it comes to the discussion of right vs. left politics. I see positives from a capitalist system and I see positives from a socialist system.

The can bring balance and rationality to the worst elements of either when they are viewed in their most extreme forms (as I have suggested, neither is system is ideal in its purest form).

What Bush and Reagan's lot have done is to enact (or attempt to enact) a particular philosophy. Doing so, take more than just changing the laws, it also takes changing public opinion.

They have been masterful (as you point out) in changing public opinion. The one thing they have proven though, is that their execution of this "brave new system" has been largely a failure. It has been rife with the same corruption and nepotism that they claimed was rife in the preceding system.

Here, in my opinion, is what is missing from the picture.

The Bush-Reagan agenda has managed to control public opinion. As I have suggested elsewhere, they are winning the media war by controlling the discussion.

The opposition hasn't offer a coherent counter message. They haven't been able to sufficiently change public opinion in their favour. And the kicker is that the time is ripe. Bush's ratings are in the basement. A new election is on the horizon. People are hungry for a new plan. A new deal. A fresh start.

Yes, a lot of damage has been done to the infrastructure but it isn't impossible to fix. It will take time and imagination and... leadership but it can be fixed.

Where is this leadership?

Well if it means anything, a lot of us are doing our best to stop the irresponsible leaders while simultaneously trying to get better leaders. Really, though, what happens in the US does effect the rest of the world including our neighbors to the north, Canada.

The capitalistic environment (if uncorrupted- regulated in the wrong direction) stimulates innovation, encourages good customer service, and produces quality based on freedom of choice.

If company A produces a better product than company B, then company B will be forced to raise its standards.

Employees are not forced to work for their companies (at least in the US). If an employee views their wages, benefits, or anything else they view as disagreeable from their employer there is nothing stopping them from looking for other employment opportunities.

Uncorrupted is the key phrase here. Walmart didnt become what it is because of being good to its employees or putting out good products. In many cases where employees have ownership in the company the products and services are usually outstanding. If your suggesting that this be forced would go against many of the reasons why we had a tea party a few hundred years ago.

A vision that always comes to mind when having this discussion is- if we were all taking a test, and it was common knowledge that everyone is going to get a C- there wouldn't really be a need to study.

Pan Im almost aligned with everything you stated except the $1000000. Although you wouldnt see me out in the streets protesting it either.

Capitalism promotes corporatism. Corporatism can easily become an economic form of fascism or fascist corporatism, much like the international oil industry.

Will capitalism does not promote corporatism per se. Corporations are a way that certain capitalists can hide from their responsibilities. Change the laws a bit and the benefits of a corporation will remain while the more egregious problems of corporations will fade away.

And in the days of serfdom, the peasant was not forced to work the Lord's land... he was perfectly free to starve to death instead.

Capitalism offers a choice marginally less stark, but fundamentally the same.

I would not speak of the American Revolution in terms of freedom personally... it did not create much freedom for the blakc population, who were enslaved; for the Indian people, who were butchered - did it?

The American Revolution was simply one band of exploiters fighting another band... the common people merely were forced to die for the rich.

The position of the slave in America was horrific even in comparison to the many crimes committed by the European colonialists; the murder of the Indian's carried about by the invaders a crime almost without equal in all human history. And what benefit for the working men and women of the nation, whether the gang master and the capitalist exploiter will pay some tax to a bigger exploiter, or keep it all for himself?

None. The American Revolution was meaningless to the ordinary citizen, other than a symbolic thing.

The Working People of the world have no nation, they are one people - united against the master class and the exploiter in cause, and divided by those exploiters in order to maintain the misery of the people.

It was my understanding that pure capitalism basically operates in a governmental vacuum, with no interference whatsoever. My economics teacher my freshman year was a raging capitalist just like most economics teachers I know of here in the US.

Governments can step in and make the necessary rules to prevent corporatism, and then the corporations that do make it buy politicians and you get corporatism again. With no government interference, it just skips the bribery (or rather lobbyists, same diff) phase.

A very passionate, but exaggerated comparison. Not forced to work the Lord’s land? They weren’t allowed to leave the manor either- so it sounds as close to slavery as I would define it.

Capitalism offers this certain reality- the greater the reward, the greater the sacrifice. The level of what a person is willing to sacrifice (time, work, etc) is going to dictate what they create. Serfs and seignorialism had a caste system which a person was born into. Here in the United States anyone is capable of creating anything they choose to, it comes down to their level of intention.


I agree with your point here. It is the great paradox this country was founded on, but I see you have your interpretation of history, I have mine. As I learned it, the colonies didn’t agree with the King’s vision what their economic future was going to be. So much, they were willing to go to war over it. Yes indeed, as any other point in history, and in virtually all regions; there were profiteers. There were also people of honor that gave thought about the generations that would follow them. There was a division between those that were pro-slavery and those against it. The side against it knew they would never beat England without being unified with the slavers. They acknowledged the reality that the slave issue was a fight that would be fought in the future. They were confident enough the verbiage of the Declaration would set the stage for a future constitutional amendment that would ultimately set them free. Have you ever heard of picking your battles?

I don’t understand, where did the colonists originate from? What crimes are you comparing to slavery? (which was a crime).


The common people? What are you talking about? The “common people” were the ones fighting the King. Untrained militias went against a well equipped army for reasons that were clearly obvious, if you have another historical perspective please provide a link to it, I would be very interested to research it.

Without equal? I'm not going to get into that even though I disagree. As far as what happend to the Indians, there is really no arguing that. The Native Americans were shafted. America has done actions (usually by a small group influencing political policy that was not in the best interest of the US) that are not very nice. So have allot of countries. I don’t agree with how the Indians were treated. At this point all I can do is acknowledge that, and accept that I was born in a country known as the United States. Hopefully all anyone can do is do their part to strive for the global mindset that humanity as a whole has progressed from then, and such actions are not acceptable in the human community. The way the British handled the Palestine issue is going to have far more implications in the years to come.

It still happens, but not all of us agree with it. Blemishes of the past have little to do with 21st century free enterprise, unless there is private influence corrupting national policy. That I disagree with, I believe it is possible for one to exist without the other.

Believe me, I think there is a small group of elite that have big plans and are currently implementing them, just as they have done for hundreds of years. I call it the parasitic society. If you want any clarification of how deeply I think this conspiracy goes, go over the to the Tilted Paranoia area and enter the Endgame thread. That sums up what my views on that are. I don’t think the answer to this is socialism.

It may seem this way to some that observe our evolution. It may also seem that some of our leaders haven’t taken any wisdom from lessons that should have been learned studying the history of other empires, but I disagree with this statement on so many levels that it would turn into a thread jack to list them. I will just leave it as you being entitled to your opinion.

This sounds very similar to slogans that were being promoted by the Germans just prior to WWII.


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Marxism