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It turns out that the government actually spent several million dollars on this major case taking on one of the wealtiest corporations in the US! Who would've imagined such a thing!

CAGW also seems to believe that the entire notion of a microsoft monopoly is some sort of hoax

See also:

CAGW CHEERS MICROSOFT VERDICT

It turns out that the government actually spent several million dollars on this major case taking on one of the wealtiest corporations in the US! Who would've imagined such a thing!

CAGW also seems to believe that the entire notion of a microsoft monopoly is some sort of hoax

See also:

CAGW CHEERS MICROSOFT VERDICT

It turns out that the government actually spent several million dollars on this major case taking on one of the wealtiest corporations in the US! Who would've imagined such a thing!

CAGW also seems to believe that the entire notion of a microsoft monopoly is some sort of hoax

See also:

CAGW CHEERS MICROSOFT VERDICT

How do you suppose progressive taxation actually helps small business ? As a business makes more money (i.e., they grow and evolve), they are taxed more heavily, thus making it less rewarding to make more income. Small businesses in particular are sensitive to progressivity in the tax code because they are less able to increase their prices to the consumer - who will walk, not run, to their nearest Wal Mart, Home Depot, or ebay to get a better price. Thus, the incentive to grow and produce more is stifled. Multiplied by the thousands of small businesses out there, this effect results in lower economic growth. This has been proven time and time again, and why so many people don't get it is a complete mystery to me.

As for illegals, to my knowledge, no one is brought in against their will. They're coming here for some reason, and not Sweden.

And as far as stupid taxpayers go, Quick question: Did you pay taxes this year ? Or did you get a refund because you outsmarted the IRS ?

Answer: lots of smart people will tell you it was the latter without realizing that what they got back was their own money that they paid to the treasury over and above what they owed.

As to your last comment, I am not jesting. It's not funny, and the continuous popular misunderstanding about the nature of taxation and spending by government boggles my mind.

We need government. It provides a framework that protects us from outside adversaries (...provide for the common defense, U.S. Constitution, preamble) and conduct relations with other nations (...shall have the power...to make treaties, Article II, section 2) , and keeps the peace within, otherwise known as "the rule of law" (...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, preamble). But aside from these vital pursuits, government is a drag on the economy.

Government spending picks winners and losers based on the fiat of legislatures. The free market rewards good ideas and products by buying more of them, it punishes dumb ideas and useless products by ignoring them. A by-product of the free market is that people with good ideas and products often have other good ideas and products which they use their profits to go pursue. This is what we call 'economic growth', as measured by the change in the sum total of goods and services generated known as Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Government does not produce anything. It is at most a service provider. Anything it does is by definition not included in GDP. At most, government provides a service that costs some amount. That amount over the last century has run at about 18% of GDP. In the last eight years, that percentage has increased to 21% (source: Wall Street Journal), yet we are not fighting a world war, nor are there any other factors at work that should drive that number higher (the Iraqi war is a drop in the bucket compared to the Cold War).

A serious tax cut is overdue, at all levels of government. Taxes at the beginning of the last century were on the order of 3-5%. Taxes on most individuals - sales, income, property, social security and medicare - exceed 50%.

I don't know about you, but if I had a little more of those funds appropriated by the government, I would put it to use, either for purchasing goods and services or investment. Oddly enough, this pays the wages of the people whose goods and services I purchase, or provides working capital for the businesses I invest in. This is how the free market works at its basest level - except on a scale of millions of individuals.

I sure as h*ll would not waste my funds on "Shrimp Aquaculture Research" or "Sweet Potato Research" (source: Citizens Against Government Waste).

Given that the preamble of the contitution also says ...promote the general welfare..., it is arguable that too much government is in itself unconstitutional...

Please mod this up. If the editors don't get why this is really clever, here's a good place to start.

In other words, it's funny--laugh!

a) don't wear seatbelts while driving
b) smoke
c) eat fast food
or
d) think with their mouths open.

Unfortunately, the world is run by idiots. Look at George W Bush, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, the number of spelling / grammar mistakes on /., or even Stan Jones.

Is it any surprise that people get bilked so easily? P.T. Barnum had it right, "There's a sucker born every minute." I'm not usually so negative (oh, wait, I am...), but this sort of thing is no surprise to me at all.

In addition, people are innately greedy. Check out the CEO scandals, the number of people who drive SUVs needlessly, the people who beg online for donations to relieve their credit card debt, pork-barrel politics, or people at a buffet. Greediness, combined with the stupidity of the general public makes for a bad combination. I'm not one of those nuts who thinks that everything should be regulated into some hippy-like hell, but people need to think before they act.

ObArticleRelatedComment: I wish I could get my company to switch to AbiWord; it's pretty cool.

Todd

They (the wanna-be big-spenders) are trying this type of crap in North Carolina too - althought probably not with maglev.

I'm so tired of everyone jumping up ready to spend tax dollars on unnecessary crap. Don't we waste too much already anyway? I know I'm sick of it and want either 1) my money back, or 2) some f*cking accountability at the fed and state levels.

Seriously - haven't these people heard of Amtrak.

I'm suprised they haven't tried to pass it as the "Floridian Travelers Bill of Rights" because after all, who would not support a bill of rights?

Florida... c'mon

Thats a region, not a country. A country called Israel inhabits most of the region.

Failure? I think not.

"I understand how you feel regarding people profitting from advances they really didn't work for."
It's the only country in the middle east, which isnt a backwater oil-rich empire with 'royal families' while its citizens live in squalor.

They have a minuscule landmass camped between enemy nations armed to the teeth, by the U.S. (Eygpt, Suadia Arabia, Iran) and the former USSR (Syria/Lebanon, Iraq), and despite the lack of oil to feed it, it still leads the world in medical, engineering, and of course in the computer/internet fields.

"Personally, I use to be a republican, but after seeing so much of this crap, seeing the resources of humanity being used to find cures for baldness..."

It's easy to blame the Republicans, but hey, they arent the ones who willingly go funding all these queers with AIDs spending. Do you really know where AIDs spending goes? To homo groups, so they can teach blow-job courses.

Hollings is ranked pretty high in the pork ratings, too. He's appropriated $15 million for a couple of 'Hollings' institutes in his home state CAGW Oinkers 2002. He still doesn't even come close to Sen. Stevens (R-Alaska) - $451 million, or Sen. Inouye (D-Hawaii) at $432 million. That's nearly $1 BILLION dollars of unnecessary government spending, unless, of course, you happen to live in Alaska or Hawaii.

As I see it, the Democrats spend a lot of money and take a lot of taxes, while the Republicans spend a lot of money and don't charge a lot of taxes, thus exacerbating the federal debt. And people still fall for it.

There's one component you've missed. Motivation. Democrats would spend much of the tax revenue on social programs. They would redistribute wealth in order to buy votes. Democrats are socialists. Republicans are not known for buying votes - but they are known for reducing government waste.

In short, I'd give GWB a little more leeway when he says he's going to increase spending for two reasons: 1. He isn't a socialist. 2. there is at least a non-zero probability that the increase will be accompanied by a reduction in government waste.

Let me also recommend Citizens Against Government Waste's report on the US Post Office's financial indescretions

I smiled when I read this. Naturally many grandiose arguments can be made about the relative importance of discovering new planets circling distant suns (that is to say, confirming something we all more of less knew anyway) versus keeping, for example, several million impoverished families in warm clothes, food, and medicine for a year (that would be the 'useless liberal fedbloat' I suppose).
-- -
Thats all good and well, until you realize that the US goverment damn well spends its money where it wants to. With its billion dollar budget, don't you think they could do both? Instead, the EPA tries to spend $19 MILLION studying COW FARTING (search the senate text linked above, for "$19 million"), $375 MILLION earmarked by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss) for a helicopter carrier the military DOESN'T WANT, and a myriad of other wasteful programs. So the point is that the government HAS the money to do both fund NASA projects and feed hungry and homeless, but instead decides that fart studies and other useless projects are far better uses of resources.

The NASA program, with all the studies and tests they do that directly benefit the private sector, (zero-g studies/experiments on materials, etc) far outweigh any drawbacks from losses.

Goto Citizen's Against Government Waste for a list of pork barrel projects.