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McCain Decries "Hobbits," Accused of Ringbearing
Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "Senator McCain decried Tea Party 'Hobbits' on Wednesday for their failure to support the GOP's debt deal, at times reading from a WSJ editorial that began the analogy. The Tea Party fired back, with a prominent member noting on CNN that McCain had been corrupted by the ring of power. The full text of his floor remarks should be in the Congressional Record later today."
... if the US Government had the same budget as a Peter Jackson movie we wouldn't be in this fiscal mess, now would we? ;-)
One does not simply walk into Metaphor.
Ok, which one of you hacked his teleprompter?
McCain was the last Democrat I voted for in a Presidential election
The Tea Party aren't Hobbits by any stretch of the imagination - hobbits are more like 1970's back-to-the-land hippie organic farmer types.
No, the Tea Party seems to be much more like the Easterlings, who's society has been thoroughly corrupted by promises of power regardless of the decency or lack thereof of the individual members. And Obama seems to be playing the role of Denethor, trying to hold back the tide but not really being able to do so and kinda ambiguous about where he's loyalties really lie.
I am officially gone from
I think we have to admit that McCain does bare some resemblance to Smeagol. I think the problem with the Tea Partiers is that they see it as being their way or nothing. I understand their perspective and conviction but I think the issue is that they want to do it ALL at once. No compromise, every vote they make must include everything they think has to be done for the next 20 years of government. I think the problem is if we do it their way the whole economy is going to come crashing down. People complain about government spending but then seem to forget that a large % of the US is employeed (directly or indirectly) by the government. You YANK that out all at once and I think we'll be reminiscing about the good old days of only 10% unemployment.
He is not aware that Hobbits are the good guys (at least in LOTR)
So with Tolkien done and Superheros on the way out what's next?
Krispy Kreme the movie?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I thought Hobbits where the good guys. He meant to say trolls. Yeah, that's it. A big ugly mountain troll. Hobbits aren't real anyway.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
If you hate government so much, move to Somalia. Seriously.
So with Tolkien done and Superheros on the way out what's next?
Crossovers! "Saru-man, Saru-man, does whatever a Saru can"
The price of civilization is a bitch, isn't it. I read that Pakistan is closer to the libertarian ideal than Somalia, btw.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
There are some things that we need that you cannot trust the individuals to properly fund... Most of us doesn't really understand how expensive stuff is or why it is so expensive, and just assume that someone is ripping us off.
If you want the government to run a lot cheaper, be prepared for a very scary government where corruption is very common. A lot of the government funded money goes into making sure that it isn't abused. Managers on top of managers all making sure each other isn't abusing their own power, or getting secrete deals making sure no mistakes are made, and workers who are afraid of making mistakes will avoid being innovative. We can cut a lot of this overhead and things will still run... However there will be groups running illegal deals and giving money to corrupt officials for service. However it will be cheaper, but not better.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you hate government so much, move to Somalia. Seriously.
If you love water so much, why not move to the middle of the Atlantic?
The problem is not government in general. The problem is TOO MUCH government, and too much CENTRALIZED government. You have much more power influencing your local and state government than you will ever have trying to influence the federal government. This should be obvious when you consider that 48/50 US Senators don't care about you or your state.
If we had more local control over our lives, your argument would carry much more weight. You could say, "If you hate government so much, move to Mississippi. Seriously." and you would know that the person you are talking to could truly move to Mississippi. Of course, if they are already in MS, you could tell them to keep their noses out of your state's business.
It's all clearly explained in the 10'th Amendment. Unfortunately, all three branches of our government seem to ignore it, even though they've all taken an oath to defend it. Clearly, the 10th Amendment means SOMETHING. I mean, the founders wouldn't have put in there for nothing. It's not like they had nine amendments and said, "Let's make up one more to make in an even 10."
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
No. It would not, unless, of course, you have some facts to back up this remarkable assertion. No? Didn't think so. Please stop parroting stuff you've heard parroted by various Fox News personalities. Simplistic "solutions" like this sound attractive until one spends more than ten seconds thinking about them. Then their absurdity becomes obvious. And no, I don't mean fiscal responsibility is absurd. I mean that it's absurd to suggest that the government we want can operate on a tiny fraction of it's current revenue. Not even close. So this suggestion, one that is near and dear to Tea Bagger hearts everywhere, is nothing but an absurd distraction from the critical process of meaningful reform, reform that actually has a chance of solving the very real problems we are facing. It is the folly of indulging this absurd distraction that Senator McCain refers to, and (I can't believe I'm saying this...), he's absolutely right.
Tea Party, is just a revamp of the Religious Right. They kept the craziness and took God out of it. Figuring they can get others to join... It worked.
Palin was chosen because she was a Young, Woman who had a position high enough to carry the title and do the work as president... To counter balance Young Minority President Obama. Just to make sure if you voted for McCain you are not feeling bad about voting against a history changing moment.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Everyone thinks some of government should be cut.
No one agrees on what that some should be.
That's the entire problem.
This whole tea party thing is as much smoke and mirrors as any of it.
The Tea Party is the biggest astroturf of all time, heavily funded and orchestrated by the Koch brothers. The only people who don't know this are the useful idiots who are members. The TP message is tailored to appeal to the politically naive, and it is working brilliantly: an army of idiots who think that the next time a project is behind schedule they should stop working on it and instead spend all their time agitating for senior management to change the company's articles of incorporation to include a "No Missed Deadlines" amendment.
This is not to say the TP's aren't sincere in their rather belated concern about Federal spending, which somehow never once managed to come to their attention during the 80's, the 90's or the Bush II presidency. But don't for a moment think that they are suddenly getting all this media attention and organizational competency because Joe Plumber has finally realized he's a slave to the oligarchs who have borrowed America into servitude. It is because the oligarchs need something to further diminish American democracy.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Remember back during the health care debate when the nice old lady stood up to President Obama to say something along the lines of "I hate socialized medicine and don't touch my Medicare?"
I don't think people are stupid, but much like with technology they often lack the bandwidth in their daily lives to learn as much about politics as they probably should. People want more responsible government, and smaller government until they see how it's going to affect them personally. Everyone's happy with the idea that we should cut "stuff" out of the budget, but when the "stuff" gets personalized to "My Medicare", "My defense industry job", "My road project in my town" or whatever the happy starts to wane. Then you start hearing the "Well don't cut stuff like that, cut stuff like funding for research on the affects of cow methane on the local owl population (or pick your ridiculous government project of choice)" crowd starts up; blithely ignoring that fact that a) some of that research actually is valuable, just not in obvious ways, and b) it represents a really small portion of the federal budget.
We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it. I'm not saying we should move to the European model of 40% taxes (yes, I pulled this number out of my butt, your European taxes may be higher or lower than this figure), but we can easily balance the budget with some prudent and moderate cuts to spending, along with very modest tax increases to say, where they were just 10 years ago. I know that real "small government" people like you probably understand the cuts that would be needed for true "small government", I'm not saying that you don't full understand your position. I'm saying that if most people truly understood what it meant to cut government this way, far fewer of them would support the idea.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
... the result being that Congressmen will be people who either are independently wealthy, or are doing backdoor deals which will get them lots of pay, benefits, and retirement money.
Of course that happens anyway, but you really don't want to encourage it even more.
Maybe we are addressing it wrong. If we don't all agree (for some large fraction of "all") that something should be part of the government, maybe it shouldn't be part of the government.
Great Depression is your answer to what? Because Great Depression was created by the Fed, who monetized UK debt (yeah, English debt). Fed was printing obscene amounts of greenbacks and buying UK debt to prevent UK from defaulting (sort of like Germany is doing with Greece).
The 1921 saw a depression that had higher unemployment than what is observed today, but by 1923 that depression was over. The difference? Government spending was cut by 70%.
1925 US Fed started monetizing UK debt, this inflated the agriculture bubble, which burst by 1929, similar to what Fed was doing starting with Greenspan and Clinton, when they set discount rate at 1%, and later Bernanke and Bush, who set the discount rate at 0% and since gov't was mandating that Freddie/Fannie and FHA subsidize 30% of substandard mortgages by 1992 and 50% of them by 1999 and 65% of them by 2006, it's not a surprise that the bubble that burst 3 years ago was in housing and not in agriculture.
The Great Depression started because the burst of the agriculture bubble inflated by the Fed was actively fought against by government bail outs and stimulus. I provided a time-line earlier on this topic, just like the bail outs and stimulus printed and given out by Congress and the Fed in 2008 and ever since. In 1929 this started the Great Depression. I am expecting the Greatest Depression this time around, because this time around USA doesn't have the savings and manufacturing (production capacity), that US of the twenties had and today USA is the biggest debtor nation with no savings and no understanding of economics on all levels and a enormous, all encompassing government, who completely abolished the idea of freedom by its mere existence.
So you are going to make smart ass comments, maybe you should try and understand the subject first.
You can't handle the truth.
And so it comes full circle.
People originally wanted to escape the corruption, massive taxes, distant and uncaring government, and miles of paperwork and red tape that existed in Europe. We have become that which we fought so hard against.
Except that there is no place to escape to any more. I'm not trying to be fatalistic, so much as if there was a solution that easy, half of the people in the World would be trying to take advantage of it as well. So we have to start cleaning it up. And grabbing back power from the Federal Governemt and giving it back to the states is the only rational course.
Either that, or we have states simply leave and create their own nations in a few decades. Texas keeps talking about how they made a mistake in joining the U.S. And, while it used to be mostly crackpots talking about it, it's suddenly maybe not such a bad idea at this point. You actually hear normal people talking about it now. It's kind of scary that it's gotten that bad.
That's completely incorrect. The Democrats have been willing to compromise; Obama's facing a backlash among his own party for being too willing to compromise. If you've been following the news you know where the Democrats started and where they are now and can see what they've compromised on. The Republicans still refuse to compromise at all on taxes. The trick to a healthy government is for the population to pay attention to what they do, don't just wave your hands vaguely in the air and say both parties are equally culpable.
I'm not convinced that it is the quantity of government, but rather its specific content. The government is doing things that it should not, and not doing things that it should. Reducing the size of government might reduce the number of things it is doing that it should not, but I assure you the other side of this imbalance will only get worse, because the government will likely also stop doing several things that it should be doing.
www.wavefront-av.com
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
They've been doing this since the 80's. Not sure if I see the point in having Congressmen who paid into the previous system get switched at this late date; it disrupts predictability (people planned for their retirement according to assumptions that you'd now retroactively upset), and many of them are probably retired from Congress already, so it's not as though this can be used to pressure them into doing anything to help everyone who pays into Social Security out of self interest.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
Already done in the big health care reform last year. Of course, I'd be happy to see more substantial reforms along the lines of real universal health care.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
Basically already true.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.
So... what are you suggesting happens to a Congressman who took out a mortgage, or leased a car, or borrowed money for a student loan? Does he get a windfall, or does he lose everything? In what universe is this possibly a good idea?
Your chain email makes no sense, everyone who read it is now dumber for having done so, I award you no points, and Snopes rated it as 'mostly false.'
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What are you basing this on? In the 19th century the USA wasn't a super power and wasn't doing all that well with pretty much slave labor camps otherwise known as textile mills just to get started. In the 20th century we became a super power due to massive infrastructure investments giving us our highway system and DARPA helped us build the Internet as we know it today. Sorry, government played a huge part in all of that. Everything from establishing minimal wage to setting fire codes help improve the way of life of every American and not just the robber barrens of the 19th century.
I don't see anyone leaving this country because they feel the government is too oppressive, if they did I'm not sure where they would go since Europe has a lot of the same policies, Asia is even tighter on freedom of expression and Africa is filled with strike. I guess that leaves Australia? While full of nice people and hot aussie chicks, they too have been spying on their citizens and doing the same things as our government including failed regulation leading to a massive oil spill off of their shores. So I guess that leaves Antarctica? Of course there are our dear friends to the north but Canada has its problems too, the grass is always greener on the other side. So I guess I have trouble picturing what a freer nation is. There aren't many nations out there where you will pay less in taxes, usually twice as much and don't forget the artificially low cost of gas here.
The grandparent was referring to Somalia being in what we in the US consider a state of anarchy, but in fact most of the country has fallen under traditional tribal leadership and obeys tribal law for their various tribes and the central government has dissolved. No tribal leader has the influence or power to take control of the central government, so there is no central government, which has led to some areas being in a state of lawlessness. In some ways that is not necessarily a bad thing, because depending on who is in power, it could be a very oppressive dictatorship (think Taliban).
As for the 10th amendment, it is and pretty much always has been filigree with little substance - States are considered subordinate to federal law in all cases, which is understandable in some ways - for example, the South could potentially still have slavery if it weren't for the government stepping in. Before you argue that slaves are human and should therefore have rights under the constitution, remember that up until the end of the civil war slaves were considered more like an animal than a human (by the South).
Flash point is not the problem. LEL/UEL and autoignition temperature are the problems.
In an oxygen-rich environment, the LEL is lower, the UEL is higher, and the autoignition temperature is lower. The flash point does not change.
Flash point is the temperature at which a flammable liquid (at STP) releases a flammable vapor (Wikipedia says "the lowest temperature at which [a volatile liquid] can vaporize to form an ignitable mixture in air").
Now, for a short quiz to verify that you understand the concept of flash point: What is the flash point of propane?
How dare he be old! Stupid jerk...he should know that once you get old, you are instantly disgusting and should report to a Sleepshop on lastday.
Unfortunately, the argument that the current federal government should be cut to 1% of its current size amounts to exactly that - no federal government. Heck, it wouldn't even be able to fund the various military branches at that level. Heck, $40 Billion won't even fund NASA and the Department of Justice. You'll fund a bit of administration, a couple of foreign embassies and a small army that is less than 1/10 of what it is now (just going by budget figures). Furthermore, lack of a central authority will result in exactly what you think won't happen: every faction with its own government and laws and living in a state of nature with the other factions. Or do you really think that Americans from Maine to California will pull together on all topics, just because their American? They won't even care about the same foreign issues.
The only utterly stupid argument is that you can have a unified country that is a super power in the world without a central government that can provide a single direction for business and foreign affairs.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Please don't mention Switzerland. Despite living there, you have no clue what "economic freedoms" means. The only economic freedom you care about is the one to reduce the taxes you pay.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The "lowest taxes in the developed world" isn't quite true when you take into account state and local taxes.
However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the states have more power, state elections will be even more contested, and better representation will result.
Social Security should probably be in the federal realm, since plenty of people move after retiring (and thus there's an imbalance of retirees). Medicare/Medicaid is already 50% funded by the states. If individual states really need help with Medicare costs then we can implement a "transfer" similar to the system used in Canada.
Defense spending certainly does need to be cut. Britain ruled half the world with 125,000 troops. We've got 1.4 million active troops. However, the time would be best spent finding a few large defense projects that can be cut for quick savings, and leaving the rest to an independent committee.
The Social Security wage base should be removed, so that it applies to all wages, not just the first $100K.
My bet is that if all that was done, overall taxes would still go up, but federal taxes might actually go down. Some laws would also change, without the threat of losing federal funding, states might be less willing to implement federal programs (e.g. drinking age at 21, abstinence-only education, etc.)
Federal road tax shouldn't exist either. There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.
Direct Payment and Grants to the states total $2 trillion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_spending_by_state.php?year=2010&chart=Z0&units=b&rank=t
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Well, that is what happens when you kill the government, isn't it? Reverting to tribalism or feudalism. The secret hope of right-leaning anarchists is simply that they would come out on top and fill the local warlord position. The secret hope of left-leaning anarchists, on the other hand, is so utopic, that you gotta view Marx as a stone-cold realist in comparison.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Wow. You are so off-base with reality.
Social Security has long ago been reduced to a line on paper. Our Government currently cooks the books and manipulates the fund to make it appear as if it's not broke. Also, Social Security was never envisioned by our Founding Fathers, and knowing their disdain for Rome and its history of corruption, I doubt if they would have ever have voted for it. (the fall of Rome can be attributed to the same pattern of social and military over-spending and lack of leadership)
The largest single deduction on my paycheck is for Social Security. What really happens is "You can buy into another retirement plan with that's left after The Government takes its pound of flesh" (and then wastes it, naturally)
The issue isn't any of that stuff that you posted. It's that Goverment Pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and Interest on the Debt account for almost 100% of our current budget. That leaves only 25 billion (less than 1.5%!) for our entire defense department, military, and, well, literally thousands and thousands of programs and agencies. Until we get rid of these four items, we're broke. We could cut the military to $0. Kill off every single social spending program. Get rid of student aid. Stop patrolling our borders. Stop foreign aid. Close down NASA. None of it would make any more difference than spitting on a bonfire. Those four items alone are literally killing our nation, and until we get rid of them entirely, we are doomed.
Now do the "slashdot geek" thing and head over to www.debtclock.org and add up the numbers yourself. Everyone should have that site bookmarked, since it's not only useful by itself, but it also helps with arguments and getting your statistics correct when you post here.
Not exactly true. The only "economic freedom" roman is caring about, judging by his posting history, is the freedom to shit on his fellow man from a high perch, unchecked and unchallenged.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
All power to the Counties! All power to the Cities! All power to the neighborhoods!
What is the deal with States, that they're so awesome? Maybe it's because I live in Oklahoma at the moment, but I'm just not seeing it. When we talk about mobility, you have to remember that the reason it's relatively (not absolutely, by a long shot) easy to pick up and move between states is that there's a certain amount of standardization provided by the federal government. Even something as simple as "states must recognize marriages from other states" makes a huge difference in where people could/would move for a job, for economic reasons. And it just goes up from there.
Also, do you really think the people of Missouri have sufficiently different needs and wants from the people of Oklahoma, that they need different laws? Maybe Utah does, and Texas just needs it for its ego, but really? We're all humans [for now], we're all potential works and employers. You might argue that when economic trouble hits, different regions need different economic policies applied because of local industry variations, but that's not prevented by the federal government; it already doles out money to various industries selectively, affecting regions differently. We decry the International Criminal Court as a violation of our sovereignty, we despise super-national unions like the EU, but really we're just drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. This far, and no further.
Are some states "red" and others "blue"? Maybe, but does that mean that we need states that are right next to each other, with either a 49/51 or 51/49 ratio, to be run entirely differently? Do you think that the resulting "sloshing", as people move out of their current states to escape overly-partisan policies, is good for us in the long term? Do you think polarizing our populations even more will solve our problems?
I realize this is about ideology, whether you believe that we are generally smarter or dumber as a group than as an individual. And I think that it's both, depending on the issue. Maybe we're smarter individually when running a small business, but we're dumber when it comes to planning health insurance, the military, etc. All of that is debatable, and actively debated, and that's healthy. I guess we could just split the union. Two countries. One centralized, one completely decentralized. Tear families apart. Break our economy. Increase tensions. Lose power in the world. And then split again, when each side disagrees on how much centralization is good.
States' rights sound awesome, but what would you *do* with that power and granularity, that can't or shouldn't be done at a higher or lower level?
The reason USA became the wealthiest country in the world in 19 century was capitalist free market and industrialization, which only became possible because the US was so free to do business in because the government was so limited, so small and so insignificant.
My, you are persistent. No, the reason that the US became the wealthiest country in the world is that it was able to harness enormous amounts of cheap resources without much interference by neighboring countries nor effective resistance by the native populations. The resources of the Western US (and various marine bodies) untapped (except by the locals who were rather quickly marginalized).
This behavior also had a number of deleterious effects - raping of resources, the environment (would you want to live in a 19th century urban environment?) and impressive social inequities.
So, government did step in and attempt to mitigate the hellbent robber baron / beggar they neighbor system. It was partially successful. Yes, we have problems that stem from going the other way - to much regulation, too much governmental control. But your slavish devotion to an anachronistic and time limited system (not much of the West available for plunder at bargain prices) suggests you really haven't looked at some of the finer points in American history.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Democrats have been willing to compromise;
Really? When? In fact, the Democrats haven't even proposed a single bill to correct this situation in either house. They just sit there and vote "No" to all options being presented without presenting one of their own. They are, in effect, refusing to cut spending, period. They want to raise the debt ceiling and taxes and not make any real cuts in spending. True to form - Tax-and-Spend-Democrats bankrupting this country, one election at a time.
Exactly. People will bitch and moan about the government all day but then they get to drive to work on paved roads with traffic moderation and other amenities. There are several superfund sites in my state left over by the mining industry when it was policing itsself for years and years. Now who has to clean the mercury out of the aquifer so these ignorant a-holes can drink clean water? It isn't the company that created the mess I can tell you that for sure and it isn't the state government. The Federal government does have a very needed purpose in the lives of the people and anyone that doesn't think so is completely ignorant. I'm not saying everything they do is great, but there are some things that the market simply wouldn't care to do even if they had the opportuninty to do so. Safe food? Government. Safe housing? Government. Safe infrastructure? Government. Clean air and Water? Government. State government can only do so much and a lot of what it can do is pretty ineffectual when you consider the broader implications of interstate commerce.
I got here through a series of tubes
technically 96/100 is the same as 48/50 as 24/25.
fractions are fun.
Um, actually it's 98/100, so the fraction you're looking for is 49/50.
Why is it that all of a sudden reducing government (which has only grown over the years) is tantamount to becoming anarchy? Some nutjobs do believe in almost no government, most of us believe in a weaker federal government because what people in California want doesn't matter to people in Ohio, and what people in Ohio want doesn't matter to people in Florida. Example: Federal law has it that we can't use marijuana for medicinal purposes. California is in violation of that law, but most Californians don't care, and a lot of people outside of California would like to move there specifically for that. Wouldn't it make sense that people outside of California not have a say in what happens in California? This kind of bullshit happens all the time. It's about granularity. Small democracies work way, way better than big ones. It makes no sense to have the biggest, most diverse, least related group of voters doing the most powerful governing.
The federal government, as the least representative government of any specific person does a whole hell of a lot it was never intended to do. It's not a matter if government should do it, it's a matter of if a government so far removed should do it. If every single person in Montana wanted to opt out of Social Security in favor of their own locally run version, where do the assholes in the rest of the states get off telling them how to run their lives? If you want to be a dictator to the minority, instead of respect differences of opinion, maybe you should leave. Your ideas of how the government should be run are further out of touch with our laws than small government fans. You obviously don't have the support to change the laws or the constitution would have been ammended to make a lot of these illegal, overreaching programs legal, so you get out. There is nothing stopping any state from implementing any of the federal programs for themselves, they just want to impose it on everybody else whether they agree to it or not so they can get the benefit of other state's resources. That is the evil of strong central government, that is the purpose of the electoral college, and that is why changes to the constitution require more than a simple majority. But you can get around all of that by simply ignoring the constitution, and that's what we as a country have done. Somehow the people that don't support it want to send us back to a third world country? No, not at all. But I guess it's easier for you to cover your ears and scream than to challenge your own beliefs.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
The end of the 2008 election gave us two good things: Obama in the White House, and McCain saying things that make sense again from time to time.
Yeah, I used to be a fan of McCain pre-election campaign. He used to be a sensible, moderate Republican. He seems to be very (VERY!) slowly moving back towards rational territory after his unfortunate excursion into fantasyland.
He actually thinks being from Texas is a source of pride instead of a shameful laughingstock.
The Tea Party wasn't even a concept until the Rick Santelli broadcast of 2009.
So, you're saying John McCain propped up, and played to a movement 2 years before it existed?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I agree with ArcherB; when people complain government is too big, immediately people jump into Washington Monument Syndrome and claim that shrinking government will take away the really valuable things that most people want... but more than that, it conflates different kinds of tax revenues and where and how they are collected and what they are used for.
If you take a look at the huge debate going on in Washington right now, you don't hear people complaining about gasoline taxes - which is what is supposed to be used for transportation infrastructure. In fact, despite the very high cost of gasoline (from a U.S. perspective), I don't hear people complaining about the fact that the government is making more revenue off a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies.
One of the reasons we can't have honest political discourse in this country is the knee jerk reactions to some people's stances:
too much government != no government
lower taxes != no taxes
government spends too much != no fire departments, no schools, no police, no roads, no nothing!
What he's saying is most taxes should be local. If that means the state government keeps track of the mining industry, so be it. Most local roads and transportation infrastructure should be done at the local level (except perhaps interstates and agencies like the FAA). There were half a dozen stimulus projects making major upgrades to intersections in my town... the upgrades (what's finished, anyway) are awesome... but here's the rub: I would have paid an extra $0.02/gallon in local taxes and not burdened people in Alaska and Hawaii with millions of dollars in road upgrades done in my little town in GA. Why should someone in CA care about fixing up a park in Lilburn, GA? If the people in Lilburn, GA want to fix it up, they should fix it up... it's really just that simple.
That's the kind of spending people complain about - 95% of governance should be at the local (state and below) level in times of peace (which we, more or less, are, despite troop deployments). If they'd stuck by the constitution and by the 10th amendment, the federal government wouldn't be in the mess it's in now, and all the while they could still be protecting you and me from the big businesses that don't "play fair." Win-win.
It's not even that we'd necessarily be paying less taxes... just paying more to the cities and states and less to the federal government. I have 1/330 millionth voice in the federal government. I have a 1/10 millionth voice in GA... I have a 1/790 thousandth voice in Gwinnett County, and I have a 1/12 thousandth voice in Lilburn, GA. THAT'S why governance should come more from the local levels.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
My state pays more to the government than it collects as do 90% of the blue states in the union. I also happen to work for the state so I know the limits of what the state is allowed to do. So in your model, a company from Va. comes to my state and mines gold then leaves a huge mess to clean up. The company then leaves a huge toxic mess and goes back to Va. My state goes after said company for the cost of the cleanup. There are 2 scenarios here under your schema: 1. Said company cannot be pursued because it is a Va. company and my state has no actual juridsiction over it or 2. Said company then dissolves the corporation and reforms under a different name leaving no actual entity available for recovery of funds. (This is what actually happens) Then my state is left with the associated costs of cleaning up a huge toxic strip mining mess. Oh wait, the state doesn't have enough money to pay for the clean up because the Va. company signed a contract stating they would be a good corporate citizen and not do what they just did. Does that then mean my state could go after Va. for the cost? If not, then who do we turn to? Like it or not, we are a union, not a series of countries, and no matter how much your cry "states rights" nothing is going to change the fact that we need a large centralized entity to watch over the country as a whole. Keep in mind, I'm not saying there is no place for states rights, but there has to be a federal government to oversee things like the military and international trade. You can't trust each state to properly take care of it's people as it is, do you think it would get better if we gave them all the power?
I got here through a series of tubes
What he's saying is most taxes should be local.
But should it, really? And how local is local?
Number 1, just moving taxes to the state level (or even the county/city level) is not going to fix the budget problem. It just means someone else is responsible for it. Number 2, a significant number of states manage to have a balanced budget only because of help from the federal government for infrastructure, health care, education and security. Increasing their budgets while reducing their revenue is going to make the problem worse. Number 3, there is the implicit assumption here that a more local government is more accountable and more transparent, which is nonsense. That is a feature of the people who are in government, not of how many people vote for each representant. Number 4, local governments are actually at higher risk to be inefficient, because now it only takes a few hundred morons to band together to ruin everything. Granted, you also have a higher chance of having an effectively run government, just because you have a small enclave of smart, responsible people working together for the greater common good. But it certainly isn't a guarantee that smaller is better.
Finally, the mantra that government should be more local. How much more local should be? You mention that you have 60 times more influence at the city level than at the county level. Shouldn't the city then get the majority of your taxes? But how do you then build something like the Hoover dam? Pursue criminals across city lines? Well, you could have cities in various counties band together until they get enough money to build something like a dam, or set up a unified police force that that agrees to share information, tools and prosecutions... and now you're right back where you started off: moving things up government chain, because there are huge economies of scale that can't be accessed by city governments.
Not to mention: if you move the government power to small entities like city or even state governments, how do you deal with corporations whose profits exceed the state's revenue and completely dwarf that of county or city governments?
Yes, government isn't always better when it's bigger. But it also certainly isn't always better when it's smaller. The real problem is that the devil is in the detail, and a lot of people can't or refuse to understand that. Then we get shit like some party ideologues holding America's AAA credit rating hostage in order to advance their sophomoric ideas.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.