Uh, in Bush's defense 9/11 was not planned in 9 months. Clinton struck at al-Queda exactly once during his 8 years in office. Seems our bad terrorism intelligence goes back decades, not just years.

If we've ever learned anything about the USA while we've been alive, it's that we don't care much for what the world thinks about us. We have to do what we feel is best for us, and what we feel will best protect our lives and our interests. For God's sake, should we really care what France thinks of our foreign policy? Just wait until something happens to those whiny pantywaists again...we'll probably be their best friends in their eyes. People are going to hate us no matter what we do...that is the price we pay for being the most powerful country in the world both economically and militarily.

WOW this thread has gotten off topic.

 

"His admins intelligence failure is also responsible for my state being short 2 skyscrapers."

HINT: Campaign '04 is over. The voters heard this crap all last year and made a clear choice.

 

Actually, the opposite is true. Look it up. Not too many SUV's back in '85.

I'm worried that the governments response to a decreasing tax revenue base is to track and monitor people.

They could just increase the gas tax. They'd get the exact same result. They'd get more money, people would drive less and everyone would still move out of California.

Funny thing is, if you look at any government scheme to track and monitor you, there is inevitably another method that will yield the EXACT same result with less beauracracy and no invasion of your privacy. The most worrisome thing of all is that most people just go along with the government propoganda and don't even realize a non-invasive solution even exists.

 

I don't doubt it. I'd consider myself a fiscal conservative, a social libertarian, and probally would be considered an internationalist.

Fiscal conservative? Live & let live outlook? Imperialist? Doesn't believe in breaks for alternative fueled & electric vehicles? Non-treehugging performance car lover? Living in California?

Oh my God..impossible!

 

Killing terrorist is a good thing, but it is only a short term solution, we need to stop terrorism, and stop peoples desire attack us.

I'm sure a ton of secret missions have already gone down, I've read about some of the CIA stuff in afganistan and its crazy. More money should be spent fighting that way. Our actions need to stay out of international press too, "oops...the Saudi princes plane just blew up in mid air, must have been an AirBus defect "

It just seems that a lot of people want to fight a 21st century war with 1940's methods.

I agree there is no incentive for buying a green friendly car with that tax.

read the 9/11 commision report, The Bush admin blew it many many many times. As far as caring what the world thinks that attitude is fine if you don't want rest of the world to buy American products. would you do bussiness with someone you consider a di¢k?

NYC only went 17% to "W", Washington DC went only 9% to him. 9/11 cities made their choice clear. Are you saying Americans should we only question those that govern them once every 4 years? That doesn't seem like the American way, that is more of the communist way.

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back to the topic of gas just imagine how many people will border jump to buy gas in the next state should something like this pass in that state and not the nieghboring.

 

"NYC only went 17% to "W", Washington DC went only 9% to him. 9/11 cities made their choice clear. Are you saying Americans should we only question those that govern them once every 4 years? That doesn't seem like the American way, that is more of the communist way."

What I meant by the quote is that the time for trying to sway people's minds over 9/11 is over. People have made up their minds. It's time to move on.

Re-arguing all of this is pointless. It's over. Give it a rest. You're not winning hearts and minds here. Talking politics in a fuel economy debate is unavoidable, but Bush-bashing isn't going to help the discussion one bit.

 

I don't know about that, I think we're using some very innovative tactics....across the board.

 

what do you mean by move on? people should just except gov't incompentance? Should we brush 9/11 under the rug and pretend it never happened, or learn from the mistakes? If the government was private industy a lot of people would have been fired a long time ago.

Thomas Jefferson said a few things that a lot of people should think about

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson

"A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." - Thomas Jefferson

I wasn’t talking about the technology used (USA has some bad @ss high tech toys) I was talking more about strategy and peoples mind sets. I see it more in older folks and those that don't keep up with current events. A lot of people have a brut force, nuke the world mentality when in reality things need to be done a lot more cleanly and surgically. World is different now and the enemy isn't as clear as it was in the old days of war. It's no longer bomb county XYZ, it's stop and distory groups A, B, and C that are working out of 30 different countries including the USA

I'm not Bush-bashing, I have no problems with him and fuel economy, Me and bush both agree hydrogen is the future. I'm also very glad he supports the mission to mars. I think that will help the auto industry BIG TIME with new advancements in battery and H tech that will need to be developed. No politician will ever do everything right or please everyone.

 

"what do you mean by move on? people should just except gov't incompentance? Should we brush 9/11 under the rug and pretend it never happened, or learn from the mistakes? If the government was private industy a lot of people would have been fired a long time ago."

This is an attempt to re-argue the whole issue. As far as I'm concerned, 9/11 was BY FAR, a result of the Clintons failures, more than anything else. Plus, the dems stonewalled the appointments of Bush's cabinet, thus delaying his effect on national policy and oversight.

So, Do you see? We've argued this. What do you really, truely hope to gain now by continuing the same old arguments?

 

I have a feeling this is going to get locked before to long...

 

No, its not. Taxes are bad, period. They are ALWAYS a drag on the economy. ALWAYS.

Yet, at least some taxes are necessary for road building, defense, etc. That doesn't mean they aren't bad, they are just necessary.

Ever here of a necessary evil? Ideally we would have zero taxation. That's not possible, so we have to put up with a certain level. I happen to believe we are well above that certain level because government has grown almost unchecked as a percentage of total GDP for decades.

Even when the money goes to do good things, taxes have negative effects on economic activity. its a drag on the system because its always an artificial inflater of prices.

Say you are going to wash my car for me for $10. Now, say you have to pay a sales tax on that transaction, like retailers do. Since consumers pay ALL taxes, you just pass that along and now my car wash costs, lets say $12.50, just for the sake of argument.

Now I was willing to pay $10, but I may not be willing to pay $12.50. Out of 100 car washes, you might have 20% that decide its not worth $12.50. YOu have just lost 20 potential customers due to this added cost. So you can see, taxation depresses economic activity, and that in the end is bad for the little guy, because he's always the first laid off.

So yes we need some taxation to do essential things, but as taxation goes it is imperative it be kept as minimal as possible so economic growth stays high and unemployment low.

 

Guy, go back and look at the data. Clinton did run surpluses toward the end of his term. How did he do it?

1. Raising taxes. the 1993 tax increase was the largest ever in the history of America.

2. He was blessed with an incredible economy. That economy GREW us out of the deficits. The reason we are running deficits now is not the spending per se, althought that is a part of it, but when the stock market corrected in 2000 and then the terror attacks in 2001 it basically knocked the economy back a couple rungs on the ladder, and tax collections dropped. Most notably capital gains collections went into the toilet, because nobody was making any money on stocks anymore. Clinton's suggested budgets spent like a druken sailor, don't you remember all the laundry lists of programs in every state of the union address? The GOP controlled congress kept some of it in check, but do you remember the government shutdown?

That was the GOP trying to control spending and Clinton wouldn't have it. He successfully demagogued the GOP and they had to relent to his budget.

Its a flawed approach to give a president too much credit or too much blame for the economy, this is a free market after all, not a command and control system.

 

...and to top it off Gov't isn't much better with spending and handling money than your avg. crack head. I work for NY state and is it all the time, it is amazing the stuff they spend money. Most divisions or groups get an annual budget and have to "use it or loose it". If you are given $XXX and only use 90% of that, the next year the big guys look at that and say your division doesn't need all the money it is getting, they see it as surplus they can take back in the following years. So come the end of the fiscal year it is like Xmas if you didn't already spend your money. you have to spend it before they can take it back.

I assume I don't have to tell you guys about state road crews? You know, 1 guy working 3 guys watching, all making $19/hr. The solution with gov'ts is to trim fat and increase efficiency, not raise taxes. At least in the south west you guys can hire the Mexicans for $3/hr. for manual labor.

Private industry can do twice the work for half the money.

 

 

Might as well throw in my two cents on most of these issues, ive spent enough time reading the whole thread already.

About the miles driven tax-While my initial knee jerk reaction to this was that it was absolute insanity for the govt to do this, after thinking about it for a little bit, it still seems bad, but not as bad as I initially thought. While it is stupid to put all this money into research and incentive to buy the cars, then take away some incentive to buy the car, its not THAT bad. While you are still being taxed on the same basis for driving one mile as someone with a Hummer is being taxed, you are STILL using way less fuel that he is. So why you are being taxed equally for miles driven, you are still payin way less for miles driven, by way of using less gas for those miles.

Taxes in general- I hate taxes like almost every person out there, unfortunately they are very necessary. Our roads, our civil servants, our beautiful national parks and forests, and most importantly to me(for many reasons) is that our military is payed for by YOU AND ME. Personally, i wish we would get out of Iraq for many reasons, but with us there, we are paying through the nose for it. Granted, we dont feel it directly, but we will eventually. Personally ive never seen why tax breaks are the god send that everyone makes them out to be. With Bushs WONDERFUL tax break, whenever the hell that happened, me and my family got back something like a couple hundred dollars. But what did that couple hundred dollars do for us? Not that much. What did that couple hundred dollars, multiplied by the millions in this country(not even counting the exponential increase in return for the filthy rich), do? It brought is into debt way more and forced us to make cuts in programs that should not be cut, ever. And subsuquently, some of our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers and friends in Iraq and Afganistan were not properly equipped with what they needed. Many died as a result of this. I would gladly have given back those couple hundred if it meant that ONE soldier had been saved because he had the right body armor.