Bedtime Thoughts [1]

I loved it! It's true too. I hold no hope for monumental change, but I actually hope for fundamental change. I know - he's still a "cat," but I honestly believe he holds out more hope for a new course than any "cat," in decades.

If I had my way, we'd have a Social Democratic party resembling the SD parties of Europe and Canada. That's not going to happen in America.

Like more and more people becoming dependent on the government that ends up being votes for those who want people to become more dependent on the government.

Not true.

When Reagan convinced congress to cut taxes the economy sky rocketed. A certain party that ruled the House of Reps, where ALL spending is created, couldn't stand the thought that he was right. The pain of the Carter years were finally over. Everybody benefited. It was awful so the House created spending bills of the likes no one had seen and tried to blame everything on Reagan for the big spending party.

George Sr. could have continued the great economy but instead caved. Clinton did little to boost the economy. He continued the status quo of Bush Sr.'s cave. George W's cuts have been very positive. My meager middle class life has improved.

We need more tax cuts for everybody including the rich. After all they own businesses and hire musicians for their parties. A lot of less government would be nice, too.

No, like your parents or grandparents receiving Medicare for health care and Social Security being there as expected. Like safety net programs for people who have no health insurance (as minimal as it is), like children receiving hot lunches in our schools, like helping rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and make our highways and bridges safe, like having a FDA that protects our food and drug supply.

All rabid rightwingers see are handouts to "welfare queens" when far more money is handed out to rich men in suits who feed at the trough of the federal government. It's not a matter of the government spending money - it's a matter of who they're spending it on. Corporate welfare far outweighs the kind of U.S. assistance we define as "welfare." AFDP (Aid To Families with Dependant Children) ended in 1996 when Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law. The replacement, Temporary Assistance To Needy Families, is welfare-to-work and has a five-year lifetime limit......but billions continue to flow into corporate coffers from you and me. That's the kind of dependance I don't like!

Not true. Check your facts. The Reagan administration never offered up a balanced budget to the Congress. In fact, in each of Reagan's years when Democrats controlled Congress, the final budget allocation (total spending) was LESS than President Reagan had requested. That old dog won't hunt.

I don't like welfare any more than anyone else.. but not that much is spent on real welfare (food stamps, etc). Corporate welfare hurts competition which kills jobs and makes people more dependent on government assistance. Try competing with a company that receives tax dollars, you can't.

Tax cuts are stupid. I put my fingers in my ears and scream, "LALALALA!" when people talk about them. I would prefer they raise taxes high enough to pay off our debts, stop inflating money, and stop borrowing money. Make people pay the bill up front and they will know what is going on. The money comes from somewhere and you have they have to stop spending it before they can stop taxing us directly OR indirectly.

* Through Sematech, a consortium of very large U.S. computer microchip producers, the Pentagon provides nearly $100 million a year of support to the industry. But of the more than 200 chipmakers in the United States, only the 14 largest, including Intel and National Semiconductor, receive federal support from Sematech. Originally designed to help U.S. firms compete against foreign competition, Sematech now subsidizes the largest producers to help fend off smaller domestic competition.

* An estimated 40 percent of the $1.4 billion sugar price support program benefits the largest 1 percent of sugar farms. The 33 largest sugar cane plantations each receive more than $1 million.

* Through the Rural Electrification Administration and the federal power marketing administrations, the federal government provides some $2 billion in subsidies each year to large and profitable electric utility cooperatives, such as ALLTEL, which had sales of $2.3 billion last year. Federally subsidized electricity holds down the costs of running ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado, five-star hotels in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.

* Last year the Forest Service spent $140 million building roads in national forests, thus subsidizing the removal of timber from federal lands by multi-million-dollar timber companies. Over the past 20 years the Forest Service has built 340,000 miles of roads -- more than eight times the length of the interstate highway system -- primarily for the benefit of logging companies.

* The Department of Agriculture Market Promotion Program spends $110 million per year underwriting the cost of advertising American products abroad. In 1991 American taxpayers spent $2.9 million advertising Pillsbury muffins and pies, $10 million promoting Sunkist oranges, $465,000 advertising McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, $1.2 million boosting the international sales of American Legend mink coats, and $2.5 million extolling the virtues of Dole pineapples, nuts, and prunes.

* Last year a House of Representatives investigative team discovered that federal environmental cleanup and defense contractors had been milking federal taxpayers for millions of dollars in entertainment, recreation, and party expenses. Martin Marietta Corporation charged the Pentagon $263,000 for a Smokey Robinson concert, $20,000 for the purchase of golf balls, and $7,500 for a 1993 office Christmas party. Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Lancaster, New York, spent $243,000 of funds designated for environmental cleanup on "employee morale" and $37,000 on tennis lessons, bike races, golf tournaments, and other entertainment. Such activities give new meaning to the term "corporate welfare."

Welfare spending accounts for a whopping 1 percent of the US Budget. Most welfare recipients stay on welfare for a year and then they're off, hardly the culture of dependency described in popular myth.

Most of the poor in this country are working poor: people working more than one job, often without any health insurance. The myth of the "lazy" poor has been perpetuated to dismantle social programs.

Obama is proposing a tax cut for everyone making less than $250,000, and a slight tax increase for everyone above. The tax increase he proposes is the same tax we had under Clinton, which, despite the poison rhetoric against it in 1993 when it was enacted, did not stifle growth.

The Republicans in Congress did their part during the 90s to thwart spending. For that they deserve credit as well (I'm trying to be fair here!). Then, when they took the White House and had both houses of Congress, they spent like drunken sailors -- and Bush didn't veto a single one of their spending bills!

I agree we need to be more fiscally responsible, and as a Democrat, I will hold leaders of my own party accountable that they restore fiscal sanity to our government. If they don't, the Republicans will be taking over in four years.

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$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. FAIR: Immigration and Welfare

$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as foodstamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Center for Immigration Studies

$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Center for Immigration Studies

$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../01/ldt.0.html

$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
CNN.com - Transcripts

$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
CNN.com - Transcripts

30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
CNN.com - Transcripts

$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. CNN.com - Transcripts
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Do they generate any economic benefit to offset these expenses?

Prunepicker, I love that one of your heroes is Ann Coulter. What did she do to earn that rare designation, rescue you from a burning building?

I've checked facts. There was no need to submit a balanced budget because there was more than enough money generated by the revenue from the tax cuts, to balance the budget.

my great grandfather was an illegal alien, how about yours?

My great grand father was the son of a legal immigrant who came from Denmark at the Port of Galveston. They settled in New Braunfels, Texas. I had other great grandfathers but I don't know anything about them.

I' WISH my great grandfather was an illegal alien...Instead of being the red blooded American killer that he was.

mmonroe...You want to keep yourself up at night?

Read for 30 minutes on how bad the Social Security and Medicare programs are going to completely SCREW us.

Or start going to bed listening to Rosetta Stone's Chinese lessons.

MMM.. hostility. I like it.

I've already started saving for retirement, and i'm only 21.

Greenspan weighs in on recession:

Economy on brink of recession, Greenspan says: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

How dare you take personal responsibility!

The stages of the housing debacle...

1. The people aren't getting loans because they can't pay them back.

2. The banks must give these people loans. It's only fair.

3. Oh My! The loan payments aren't being made. Why? Some evil entity (read conspiracy) must be behind this.

4. We must bail them out.

5. The banks must give these people loans. It's only fair.

I pay more into my savings out of each paycheck than I do in taxes on the paycheck. Once I hit 100k, then i'll look into some investment bond or something. At the moment, i'm only seeing that reach in another 9 years.

Once you hit $100k, that $100k will be worth $5

Look into mutual funds and bonds now. We've been using that in our IRA and have been very happy. You'll hit 100K faster.

Rule of 72. Divide 72 by the interest rate and that's how many years it takes to double your money.