TexasCHLforum.com

cb1000rider wrote:

JALLEN wrote:It is undeniably true that there are some Republicans who succumb to temptations, disgrace themselves with dishonorable conduct, but for the most part they have the grace to be ashamed of themselves, at least when caught red-handed, unlike the Communists formerly known as Democrats. This is playbook 101 for those guys and long has been.

Paraphrase below. Let me know what part I interpreted incorrectly:
It's just a problem in the Democratic party.
Republicans sometimes get caught, but they mostly feel bad about it, so it's OK.
Democrats are Communists.


Yea, no one is coming over the top here... And before you accuse me of being a Democrat (Communist) know that I'm not... The system is broken and if you're blaming it on just one party, you've only got it 50% right.

What we have now is 1 party: The "BIG GOVERNMENT" Party.

jayinsat wrote: What we have now is 1 party: The "BIG GOVERNMENT" Party.

You know who I blame big government on? Us.
As a collective group, we all want:
1) Lower taxes
2) More of the benefits that are important to us
3) To cut wasteful spending as long as it doesn't involve cutting #2 above

So we hire professional politicians that agree that they'll give us lower taxes, more benefits, and won't touch our personal sacred cows. The problem is that these promises are how we got here in the first place. We're electing the same people on the same promises. They're beholden to the special interests that financed their campaigns and allowed them enough visibility to make impossible promises.

Want to make a change? Start voting for:
1) Someone that is going to raise your taxes.
2) Someone that is going to decrease benefits across the board
3) Someone who isn't financed by private special interest groups without transparency

Know how many politicians get elected on a platform of more taxes and less benefits? Neither do I because they don't get elected.

These problems are across both parties... Sorry, if you're holding your party on a pedestal and blaming the current (or any prior) president, you don't really understand how we got in this giant mess.

cb1000rider wrote: Want to make a change? Start voting for:
1) Someone that is going to raise your taxes.
2) Someone that is going to decrease benefits across the board
3) Someone who isn't financed by private special interest groups without transparency

How about.....

1. Less taxes
2. Fewer Services/Smaller government
3. Personal responsibility

Answer: Ted Cruz

RoyGBiv wrote:How about.....

1. Less taxes
2. Fewer Services/Smaller government
3. Personal responsibility

Answer: Ted Cruz

How about.....

1) Repeal the 16th Amendment or define "income" to specifically exclude the "time-for-dollars" barter system we call work
2) Limit the federal government to its proper Constitutional role
3) Institute a national sales tax (aka an excise tax) to pay for #2
4) NO federal social services at all (these should be handled at the state, local, and community level only)
5) Personal responsibility

Wishful thinking, I know. But hey, I can dream. Right?

RoyGBiv wrote: How about.....

1. Less taxes
2. Fewer Services/Smaller government
3. Personal responsibility

Answer: Ted Cruz

I'm down with Cruz. How do you suggest we dig out of the massive deficit that we've got currently? Do we do it by having a larger decrease in services / government than we decrease our tax base?
If so, tell me which sacred cows are going to be on the chopping block. I'd really like to know. It'll be really hard without impacting one of the following:
1) Defense spending
2) Social Security
3) Medicaid/Medicare

All of those programs have massive special interest backing as well as mobilizable support bases.

Again, less taxes and less government sounds great. Course, they're pretty standard campaign promises.

Chop all three of the "sacred cows".

Reduce our military presence around the world and stop getting involved in as many conflicts as possible. Especially from the country's where they have been fighting for hundreds of years and will continue to do so. Stop providing military weapons and systems to countries that do not operate as our allies.

Provide for our current and about to be seniors through the Social Security system and require younger Americans to take the SS $ that would be deducted from their paychecks and invest it in a retirement program of their choosing.

Stop providing medicare for non-US citizens. Return those people that are not citizens and let their countries take care of them. Limit the medicare assistance provided to the ones that really need it and are capable but unwilling to work. Stop paying women to have babies and making it worth their while to crank out more babies. Stop supporting people that have drug habits and that are using the money for drugs.

Additional sacred cow
Stop sending foreign aid to countries that refuse to modernize and start working to take care of themselves. Many of the countries to which we are giving aid are the same countries we've been giving aid to for decades. There has to be a limit to the amount of aid we provide others while our own country is crumbling from the crushing weight of the deficit and debt.

All it takes is common sense and elected officials that are willing to put principle above personal gain/profit. We must start working hard to identify those people and support them for office. It won't be easy but it is necessary if we want our country to survive.

cb1000rider wrote:

JALLEN wrote:It is undeniably true that there are some Republicans who succumb to temptations, disgrace themselves with dishonorable conduct, but for the most part they have the grace to be ashamed of themselves, at least when caught red-handed, unlike the Communists formerly known as Democrats. This is playbook 101 for those guys and long has been.

Paraphrase below. Let me know what part I interpreted incorrectly:
It's just a problem in the Democratic party.
Republicans sometimes get caught, but they mostly feel bad about it, so it's OK.
Democrats are Communists.


Yea, no one is coming over the top here... And before you accuse me of being a Democrat (Communist) know that I'm not... The system is broken and if you're blaming it on just one party, you've only got it 50% right.

Sure there are corrupt republicans. Randel "Duke" Cunningham comes to mind right off the top of my head (SOURCE). And while there is no excuse for corruption of any kind in any party, the truth is corruption is more like a 65%-democrat/35%-republican proposition...........and before you accuse me of being a republican, I'm not a republican.....and the system IS broken. You're right about that. But broken-system notwithstanding, the democrat party IS the more corrupt party. The reason you think it is 50/50 is because the 527 media rarely covers democrat corruption (when it is uncovered at all), while that same media, being essentially the propaganda arm of the democrat party, makes huge hay out of any stories of republican malfeasance. So in the end, by under-reporting democrat corruption and over-reporting republican corruption, the news coverage about balances out, and you have the impression that republicans are as equally corrupt as democrats.

cb1000rider wrote:

RoyGBiv wrote: How about.....

1. Less taxes
2. Fewer Services/Smaller government
3. Personal responsibility

Answer: Ted Cruz

I'm down with Cruz. How do you suggest we dig out of the massive deficit that we've got currently? Do we do it by having a larger decrease in services / government than we decrease our tax base?
If so, tell me which sacred cows are going to be on the chopping block. I'd really like to know. It'll be really hard without impacting one of the following:
1) Defense spending
2) Social Security
3) Medicaid/Medicare

All of those programs have massive special interest backing as well as mobilizable support bases.

Again, less taxes and less government sounds great. Course, they're pretty standard campaign promises.

The solution to the debt is GROWTH.
We cannot shrink our way out of the enormity of our debt, although we certainly need to shrink the size of government and government services by 80% (I just picked that randomly as a goal ).

Defense is the only thing on your list I would hesitate to cut, but I would certainly cut it. How many defense programs are pure pork, existing only to secure votes in impacted geographies?

None of those 3 are sacred by any definition.

I live my life fully expecting that social security will be dead (or at least means tested) by the time I'm eligible (in about 15 years). Same for medicare. The best solution that's been offered has been Paul Ryan's, but I'm betting there are other good ways to dismantle that particular bureaucracy.

How about we stop providing social services to illegal immigrants? They're here ILLEGALLY BECAUSE WE BAIT THEM WITH FREE STUFF.!!!!
Sweet Baby Jesus.!! (insert Will Ferrell image here) When will we wake up and smell THAT coffee?? How much would THAT save?

Geez... Fixing the debt would be easy if I could be Dictator for 8 years.
Cut spending dramatically. Remove rule-making authority from EVERY government agency and force Congress to approve every new rule proposal. Jobs (growth) would explode.

If you've never taken a basic finance or economics course you'd be doing yourself a huge favor to sign up for one (or both) for free at Coursera. Here's the growth formula... I'm gonna screw this up, so please forgive me, it's been a long time since B-school..

P0 = D1 / (rs – g)
The value of a thing (P0) = The value of it's dividends (D1) [think of this as profitable activities flowing through the economy] divided by (the required rate of return - GROWTH)... Think of this denominator as the expected return (near zero, maybe 2% these days) minus growth.... If you can follow the math... the result is that as the growth rate increases, P0 grows towards infinity. Growth. take the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, tort reform, Obama (how many jobs is keystone NOT creating right now?), etc. off our back, cut spending to within the confines of the Constitution, and the debt will go away, ala Bill Clinton (who had Ronald Reagan to thank for planting the seeds... )

/soapbox

At times I think things would be more honest if we brought back Tammany Hall and the roaming street gangs of a particular political persuasion as the norm. At least then we wouldn't be operating under any illusions.

Libertarians run amok!

RoyGBiv wrote:

cb1000rider wrote:

RoyGBiv wrote: How about.....

1. Less taxes
2. Fewer Services/Smaller government
3. Personal responsibility

Answer: Ted Cruz

I'm down with Cruz. How do you suggest we dig out of the massive deficit that we've got currently? Do we do it by having a larger decrease in services / government than we decrease our tax base?
If so, tell me which sacred cows are going to be on the chopping block. I'd really like to know. It'll be really hard without impacting one of the following:
1) Defense spending
2) Social Security
3) Medicaid/Medicare

All of those programs have massive special interest backing as well as mobilizable support bases.

Again, less taxes and less government sounds great. Course, they're pretty standard campaign promises.

The solution to the debt is GROWTH.
We cannot shrink our way out of the enormity of our debt, although we certainly need to shrink the size of government and government services by 80% (I just picked that randomly as a goal ).

Defense is the only thing on your list I would hesitate to cut, but I would certainly cut it. How many defense programs are pure pork, existing only to secure votes in impacted geographies?

None of those 3 are sacred by any definition.

I live my life fully expecting that social security will be dead (or at least means tested) by the time I'm eligible (in about 15 years). Same for medicare. The best solution that's been offered has been Paul Ryan's, but I'm betting there are other good ways to dismantle that particular bureaucracy.

How about we stop providing social services to illegal immigrants? They're here ILLEGALLY BECAUSE WE BAIT THEM WITH FREE STUFF.!!!!
Sweet Baby Jesus.!! (insert Will Ferrell image here) When will we wake up and smell THAT coffee?? How much would THAT save?

Geez... Fixing the debt would be easy if I could be Dictator for 8 years.
Cut spending dramatically. Remove rule-making authority from EVERY government agency and force Congress to approve every new rule proposal. Jobs (growth) would explode.

If you've never taken a basic finance or economics course you'd be doing yourself a huge favor to sign up for one (or both) for free at Coursera. Here's the growth formula... I'm gonna screw this up, so please forgive me, it's been a long time since B-school..

P0 = D1 / (rs – g)
The value of a thing (P0) = The value of it's dividends (D1) [think of this as profitable activities flowing through the economy] divided by (the required rate of return - GROWTH)... Think of this denominator as the expected return (near zero, maybe 2% these days) minus growth.... If you can follow the math... the result is that as the growth rate increases, P0 grows towards infinity. Growth. take the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, tort reform, Obama (how many jobs is keystone NOT creating right now?), etc. off our back, cut spending to within the confines of the Constitution, and the debt will go away, ala Bill Clinton (who had Ronald Reagan to thank for planting the seeds... )

/soapbox

RoyGBiv for president!

I bet if Ron Paul was president, he would have fixed this all overnight, almost single-handedly.

The Annoyed Man wrote:RoyGBiv for president!

I will happily accept the nomination for Dictator, even "Benevolent Dictator". One 8 year term, non renewable.

President is not a job for me. Too much "Mother may I". Not enough "git-r-dun".

K.Mooneyham wrote:I bet if Ron Paul was president, he would have fixed this all overnight, almost single-handedly.

Nah, He'd be deadlocked by both sides of the Congress that would want him gone...

Love Ron Paul's ideas though...

When do we get to fire all the Congressmen/women?