Wow. This thread is really refreshing. I suppose everyone in the thread except for guinM would rather not pay taxes and not have any roads to drive on. Saying that taxes are evil or bad is a display of ignorance, pure and simple.

 

Arnold is an enviromentalist, but he's also reasonable & pro-public. I don't think this will fly w/ him.

No disagreement there. But Clinton ran surpluses & Johnson reaped the benefits of Kennedy's tax cuts in the mid 60s.

Actually, Dean was a moderate Vermont governor. He was a fiscal conservative and a social moderate before he went national. Then he went a bit dovish on us.

If Denmocrats wanted to go far left Liberal, they could have gone with someone like Nancy Pelosi.

Again, this is a stereotype. His policy was to suspend Bush's tax cut to those earning over $200,000 per year. If you make over $200K per year, you'd pay more..... I'd probally also ask you to adopt me.



That is the sole issue I have with "W"! I don't mind spreading democracy to the middle east, he's done a bang up job with terrorism, he's served as a counterbalence on alot of the excesses of society, and he is genuinely unprejudiced with other races. But the thing that just floors me is that he has never vetoed a spending bill, and created deficits big enough to get the Feds to start hiking intrest rates, which isn't exactly the way to boost purchases.

 

For the record, Congress controls spending. The president only submits a suggested budget. FWIW Reagan submitted a balanced budget to Congress every year of his Presidency. But, congress doesn't like cuts (as we can see by the reaction to Bush's new budget) because somebody's bridge or pork project always gets chopped. The only power the president has over the budget is the veto.

And on a topic somebody else brought up. Price of oil does not = price of gas all the time. Gasoline refiner Valero has seen its stock price DOUBLE in the last year. That's not big oil at all, its big refinement. Supply is tight globally as China's demand has skyrocketed, yet somehow this is all Bush's fault for padding the pockets of his oil buddies. The oil companies aren't making off like bandits in all this, its the OPEC countries reaping the greatest gains from the high oil prices.

Funny though, we finally have a wave of hybrids hitting that could reduce emissions, reduce consumption and reduce foreign oil dependence, yet some do gooder politicians can't do without the tax money and in all of that SOME people here have succeeded in making even that Bush's fault.

I often wonder why Liberals are so afraid of being called liberals? I don't shy away from the Conservative label, in fact I'm proud of it. Liberals want to be called "progressives" instead.

And Guy, Rudy and Arnold are moderates here and moderates in CA. If you guys really all thought Arnold was a true blue Conservative he wouldn't have stood a chance getting elected. That much was obvious.

 

A Conservative counters deficits in spending with program and benefit cuts... A liberal counters them with tax increases...

Taxes, in all forms, are a nessacary evil for our world to function as it does. Howver, I, and at least a few others on this board have a slight problem paying the government nearly a quarter of what we earn, with the prospect of some Washington democrat trying to make it so we pay more as we make more. Thats just not right. It stifles creativity and innovation, and makes people want to stay where they're at, rather than earn more, and contribute more to the economy.

 

Of course all are moderates. That's why I used them to demostrate why I feel terms are meaningless.

All support abortion rights and gay rights. Enough to get them branded conservative with some people. And up in San Fran, anyone who even mentions fiscal responsibility over pet programs giving the homeless better apartments than I can afford over useless pet programs for the homeless (full medical coverage in San Fran, I kid you not) they are a red meat conservative.

Point is that it depends where you throw your hat and where your priorities are.

 

Yeah... that's it.

I don't want roads.

I got an idea...

Since you apparently have no issue with the amount of taxes you pay, and feel we all should be paying more, how about you just write a check to the government for an extra $2000 this year? You can do that, you know... just make it out to the Treasury.

You know, do a little more for your country and put YOUR money where YOUR mouth is, instead of MY money where YOUR mouth is.

 

A strong case can be made that Clinton:

1) Inherited a robust economy from the first Bush and Reagan - particularly because of Reagan's tax cuts.

2) Indisputably inherited a financial windfall from the fall of the Soviet Union... due to good ol' RR's laying the smack down on them economically.


A "bit"? Ghandi would've probably kicked *** in Iraq first.


Trust me, the Hillary and Dean duo is left enough to ensure they and the Dem. party both go down in flames in 2008.

The Republicans could run Satan himself in 2008 and beat Hillary. I can hear the voters now:

"Sure he's the Prince of Darkness and all... but he's better than Hillary."


PUH-LEEEZE. If the truth were ONLY people making more than $200,000 a year were going to see increased taxes I'll eat a torque converter.


Agreed. Gotta lower the spending.


We're probably a little closer politically than first indicated. I tend to be an economically moderate, socially conservative, and fiscally conservative.

 

Hello... I did just by a Colorado Z71.....as in Z71 off road package

Not all Democats are liberals, and not all liberals are Democats. Same goes for Republicans and conservative. I sometimes wish the moderates would just join forces and run them both out of town

guionM - Me and the latest CIA report would have to disagree with you on Terrorism. "W" is doing more harm than good, CAI reports Al Queda is bigger than ever and the Middle East hates us even more than they did before. His admins intelligence failure is also responsible for my state being short 2 skyscrapers. On top of that, he took the good will the rest of the world gave us after 9/11 and turned it into anti-americanism like we've never seen. You don't stop terrorism by pissing people off.

 

I disagree.

I think you stop terrorism by killing terrorists, which tends to **** them off.

 

that is true and not true.

Killing terrorist only stops the current terrorist, it doesn't stop terrorism. You need to take out terrorist leaders and funders, but it is best to do it in a non public way. Send in CIA ops and Delta force guys, terrorize the terrorists. You can't just bomb up and down the country side killing civilians while the terrorist hide.

If you have termites are you going to burn the house down to get ride of them?

 

Well... making a household pest equivalent to a group of folks who kill defenseless civillians for giggles is kind of stretching it, but...

I guess it depends on how bad the termite problem is.

The other problem with the analogy is that it doesn't take into account state-sponsors of terrorism like Iran and Syria. Personally, I'm all in favor or a few Arc-Light strikes to get their full and undivided attention.

 

It's a good start though.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Delta Force operator hadn't just double tapped a badguy in the forehead, somewhere in the world, while I was writing this sentence. In a "non-public way" of course.

Maybe give our guys more credit than that. Seriously.

KILL the termites, save the house.

 

No that is the entire problem. The "old timers" on the whole seems to have no problem with spending (besides lip service), and yet don't want to pay for it. In a sense you are making me pay an extra whatever years from now when it is time to pay off the interest.

In short, you may stop whining about taxes and cease making silly hypocritical statements such as "pay my taxes for me, cause it is good for the country."

 

His point was that we have too many taxes levied on us as it is, and need more like we need a 4 cylinder FWD Camaro, not that he wants you to pay his taxes.

 

If this passed in my state, I'd buy a Hummer. If I'm going to be taxed by the mile, I'm going to get the best-damned value per mile that I can.