Author Topic: Ok, let's talk brass tax  (Read 5621 times)

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sirs

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Ok, let's talk brass tax
« on: February 02, 2011, 06:07:09 PM »
Or literally, deal with the complaints from the left that the GOP won't step up and say what they'll "cut" in order to bring the deficit down.  Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP, but I wonder if anyone is paying attention:

-------------------------------------------------

I Can Balance the Budget

The Congressional Budget Office says the current year's budget deficit will be a record $1.5 trillion. It also says that over the next decade we're on track for annual deficits of "only" $768 billion. I suspect the CBO has hired Rosy Scenario to do the bookkeeping, but let's take that number at face value.

I'm now going to balance the budget, with the help of some experts.

I'll begin with things I'm most eager to cut.
Let's privatize air traffic control. Canada did it, and it works better.
Then privatize Amtrak. Get rid of all subsidies for rail. That'll save $12 billion.

End subsidies for public broadcasting, like NPR.
Cancel the Small Business Administration.
Repeal the Davis-Bacon rules under which the government pays union-set wages to workers on federal construction projects.
Cut foreign aid by half (although we should probably get rid of all of it). So far, that's $20 billion.

Oops. That doesn't dent the deficit. We have to do much more.

So eliminate the U.S. Education Department. We'd save $94 billion. Federal involvement doesn't improve education. It gets in the way.

Agriculture subsidies cost us $30 billion a year. Let's get rid of them. They distort the economy. We should also eliminate Housing and Urban Development. That's $53 billion more.

Who needs the Energy Department and its $20 billion sinkhole? The free market should determine energy investments.

And let's end the war on drugs. In effect, it's a $47 billion subsidy for thugs in the black market.

I've already cut more than six times more than President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address. His freeze of nondefense discretionary spending would save only $40 billion.

But my cuts still total only $246 billion. If we're going to get rid of the rest of the CBO's projected deficit, we must attack the "untouchable" parts of the budget, starting with Social Security. Raising the retirement age and indexing benefits to inflation would save $93 billion. I'd save more by privatizing Social Security, but our progressive friends won't like that, so for now I'll ignore privatization.

The biggest budget busters are Medicare and Medicaid, and get this: the 400 subsidy programs run by HHS. Assuming I take just two-thirds of the Cato Institute's suggested cuts, that saves $281 billion.

How about the Defense Department's $721 billion? Much of that money could be saved if the administration just shrank the military's mission to its most important role: protecting us and our borders from those who wish us harm. Today, we have more than 50,000 soldiers in Germany, 30,000 in Japan and 9,000 in Britain. Those countries should pay for their own defense. Cato's military cuts add up to $150 billion.

I've now cut enough to put us $2 billion in surplus!

Can we go further?

"Repeal Obamacare," syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock said.

Reason magazine editor Matt Welch wants to cut the Department of Homeland Security, "something that we did without 10 years ago."

But don't we need Homeland Security to keep us safe?

"We already have law enforcement in this country that pays attention to these things. This is a heavily bureaucratized organization.

"Cut the Commerce Department," Mary O'Grady of The Wall Street Journal said. "If you take out the census work that it does, you would save $8 billion. And the rest of what it does is really just collect money for the president from business."

As the bureaucrats complain about proposals to make tiny cuts, it's good to remember that disciplined government could make cuts that get us to a surplus in one year. But even a timid Congress could make swift progress if it wanted to. If it just froze spending at today's levels, it would almost balance the budget by 2017. If spending were limited to 1 percent growth each year, the budget would balanced in 2019. And if the crowd in Washington would limit spending growth to about 2 percent a year, the red ink would almost disappear in 10 years.

As you see, the budget can be cut. Only politics stand in the way.
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2011, 07:47:20 PM »
Stossel is a libertarian

sirs

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2011, 07:52:04 PM »
and......................?
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2011, 08:13:14 PM »
Quote
Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP, but I wonder if anyone is paying attention:

he isn't

sirs

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2011, 08:15:52 PM »
Umm....ok.......and that changes anything posted, how again??
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2011, 08:32:34 PM »
it doesn't.

Quote
Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP

But as he is a libertarian, my guess is his priorities might be different than a republican, so what he posted does not reflect on GOP wishes nor does it address the complaints from the left.

Now you could go through Stossels recommendations and agree or disagree with them, but that doesn't address the complaints either as you claim to be an independent.


So I'm kind of lost as to the point and validity of your post.




sirs

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2011, 08:36:10 PM »
He can be a martian, the issue is what he's advocating.  And what he's advocating is a step in the right direction towards fiscal responsibility and appropriate constitutional Federal Government intervention, IF anyone, particularly the so-called party of limited Government, is listening

Hope that helped clear things up
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2011, 08:39:29 PM »
He can be a martian, the issue is what he's advocating.  And what he's advocating is a step in the right direction towards fiscal responsibility and appropriate constitutional Federal Government intervention, IF anyone, particularly the so-called party of limited Government, is listening

Hope that helped clear things up

Ah so what was the point of your lead paragraph?

Quote
Ok, let's talk brass tax

Or literally, deal with the complaints from the left that the GOP won't step up and say what they'll "cut" in order to bring the deficit down.  Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP, but I wonder if anyone is paying attention:

Christians4LessGvt

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2011, 09:14:30 PM »
Stossel is a libertarian

There are lots of Libertarian leaning people that vote Republican. (like me)
Do I agree 100% with every single Libertarian platform statement?
Uh no...but I don't agree with 100% of any political party or movement.
Stossel is a breath of fresh air and common sense.
Great article SIRS.....thanks.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2011, 09:22:44 PM »
Stossel is a libertarian

There are lots of Libertarian leaning people that vote Republican. (like me)
Do I agree 100% with every single Libertarian platform statement?
Uh no...but I don't agree with 100% of any political party or movement.
Stossel is a breath of fresh air and common sense.
Great article SIRS.....thanks.


Which again doesn't address Sirs lead paragraph.

Let me summarize.

Sirs is upset because the left claims the GOP has no concrete plans on how they would cut the deficit.

He then counters by posting a column by a known libertarian. So i'm not sure how that addresses the lefts complaints.

and that was what i posted.

I did not claim that those with libertarian leanings can not vote for Republicans, just as Republicans can vote for a Dem candidate if they fit their needs better. I voted for Zell Miller. Plane voted for Jim Marshall. I just don't see how a Libertarian becomes a GOP spokesman.

Simple as that.




Christians4LessGvt

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2011, 09:44:57 PM »
BT you assume conservatives are like Liberals
We really don't care who or what entity speaks for "whats right"
We will throw our own to the wolves in a second if they deserve it
That Republican Fag in the airport restroom...F-him....resign doochebag!
Many of us "in the GOP" really have ZERO loyalty to the party...to any party.
We would switch in a NY Minute if we saw a chance to get real conservatives elected.
So yeah....i'm in the GOP....but many of us like and want stuff like Stossel advocates.
SIRS even qualified by saying "Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP"
Obviously SIRS is saying what I am...this guy may not be a GOP spokesman but
we agree with him....and hope that "someone is listening" from the GOP & will start
pushing this kind of agenda because many like me that are quasi GOP agree with
Stossel and want this type of agenda pursued. So I say the same thing...
is anyone listening from the GOP to these great points conservatives want?
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2011, 10:03:17 PM »
BT you assume conservatives are like Liberals
We really don't care who or what entity speaks for "whats right"
We will throw our own to the wolves in a second if they deserve it
That Republican Fag in the airport restroom...F-him....resign doochebag!
Many of us "in the GOP" really have ZERO loyalty to the party...to any party.
We would switch in a NY Minute if we saw a chance to get real conservatives elected.
So yeah....i'm in the GOP....but many of us like and want stuff like Stossel advocates.
SIRS even qualified by saying "Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP"
Obviously SIRS is saying what I am...this guy may not be a GOP spokesman but
we agree with him....and hope that "someone is listening" from the GOP & will start
pushing this kind of agenda because many like me that are quasi GOP agree with
Stossel and want this type of agenda pursued. So I say the same thing...
is anyone listening from the GOP to these great points conservatives want?


So the whole thing about the left's complaints about the GOP was just ..... a strawman?

Why not just ask if what Stossel proposes is a good starting point?




sirs

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2011, 10:13:53 PM »
He can be a martian, the issue is what he's advocating.  And what he's advocating is a step in the right direction towards fiscal responsibility and appropriate constitutional Federal Government intervention, IF anyone, particularly the so-called party of limited Government, is listening

Hope that helped clear things up


Ah so what was the point of your lead paragraph?

Quote
Ok, let's talk brass tax
Or literally, deal with the complaints from the left that the GOP won't step up and say what they'll "cut" in order to bring the deficit down. 
Not sure this fella is a spokesperson for the GOP,
but I wonder if anyone is paying attention:



Because, as usual, you're trying to apply something, I never said or even implied, like thinking that I think Stossel is a Republican, or that he's some GOP operative/pundit.  You seem to be so bent on trying to find something I said as wrong, your consistent coloring of what I actually said, keeps leading you to some pretty huge erroneous conclusions/assumptions

My comments are pretty specific, not to mention transparent.  If you were to bother to drop the anti-sirs bias, you would have noted that that lead paragraph a) the ongoing accusations from the left that Republicans say they want to see cuts, but won't provide any specific examples, b) had Stossel as an unknown to me, party wise, and completely irrelevant to c) the hope that someone(s) in the GOP level of leadership is paying attention to what he's advocating
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2011, 10:40:54 PM »
So was your main thrust
a,b or c?

sirs

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Re: Ok, let's talk brass tax
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2011, 10:46:04 PM »
All were pertinent, though b) was least of which and c) was most
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle