1 A book I should add to my collection. Thanks. USA, all the way!

2 Hey Michael...read this article:

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/48278/#comments

Tell me what you think. I'm very curious what your views are on this.

3 osamastillkissingass: Kiss, kiss, suck, suck. You friggin commie retard, lowlife piece of shit. Quit doing your mother.

4 Gayrooster...give up now. You are out of your league, you stupid old man. I can see you are getting desperate now. Desperate as your son trying to forget you sodomizing him as a child.

5 Naw: I have been given the job of ensuring that pedophiles like you are exposed. Out of my league. From a child molesting lefturd like you? Keep bending over for that black thing you love so much. Friggin faggot.

6

Osamabinstuff ... First reaction was "this guy is skipping details, and amplifying the details he does offer"  I don't know from reading this, where exactly he is politically, but he sounds a bit socialist, which is always a red light for me.

I start from the position that any profit you make, by whatever work, or creativity, or smart merchanting, is yours to keep. Taxes are legalized plunder. When your walking down the street, and someone steps in front of you demanding what is yours, that is attempted robbery. If they imply a threat "I have a gun ..." then it is attempted armed robbery. If they are the government, it is called taxation.

If every time I walk down the street, someone comes to take my earnings, I will probably either stop producing, or hide my earnings, or arm myself, or move to a nicer neighborhood. If I hide my earnings, it's called tax evasion, and if I arm myself, it's called rebellion. If I move, it's called third world development. If I just quit producing it's called social justice. But we know that stealing someones earnings with the threat of force, isn't justice at all.

Now, I'm not against charity, and I think the government is in-bounds if they incentivise such things. I even allow as the government can put money from taxes into a fund to help in an emergency, whether it be to provide food, shelter, medicine, or anything else , on a case by case basis. I'm dead set against instututionalizing a perpetual 'emergency', and creating a permanent drain on our most inventive, and productive people. In short, I'm against any form of entitlement. I can define that better.

If you didn't do something constructive to earn what you are getting, but you are getting it anyway, regularly, and at someone elses expense your receiving an entitlement. And tax cuts aren't an entitlement, they are a reduction of legalized plunder. Vetrans benefits are part of the pay package as far as my definition. So are earned retirement benefits.

OK ... NOW

GW is reccomending some cuts. I recall that one was 108 million over a ten year period? so 10.8 million a year. This was to provide a bag of groceries each month to various persons, and it sounded like a nice program. But what other programs are there? Is the old program now redundant, and a waste of money because a new system is doing the same thing only better, and more efficiently? The article doesn't tell us that. It chooses to characterize this as subsidizing yachts for rich people while starving the poor. That is an agenda heavy characterization, even if it turns out to be fairly accurate.

We know that careful reduction of taxes actually produces more tax money through economic growth. This is going to be a good thing, if we let it happen. More on subsidies later.

I will read this again, and give you my 'second look opinion' of it in a few days a most. Basiccally, taxes are a necessary evil, so the less you have to tax, the less evil is involved : )

USA, all the way!
 

7 Warning Warning Long post up next. USA all the way!

8

(Osamabintesting, this is my response to your earlier post, forgive the length, and as you can see, I'm seperating myself with these cute little bracket thingies ((-))  So this is my opinion, and I am stateing that up front. I can get into a fact slinging battle later if you like, but this is what I thought about this article. )

Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush's Billionaires
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted February 20, 2007.

(He shows natural disgust at Celebrity stupidity ... leading to this)

On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.

(Senator Bernie Sanders, a partisan source, trying to do what partisan sources do best. Present only what they need to to smear the opposition. I quote the oft abused Wikipedia here ...

"Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, but because he does not belong to a formal political party he appears as an an independent on the ballot. Sanders caucuses with the Democrats and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments.

Democratic socialism is a broad political movement propagating the ideals of socialism within the context of a democratic system. This means that the means of production are controlled by the entire population through democratically elected representatives.

In many cases, its adherents promote the ideal of socialism as an evolutionary process resulting from legislation enacted by a constitutional democracy. Other democratic socialists favor a revolutionary approach that would establish socialism by creating a non-parliamentary direct democracy, usually progressing from local to regional and lastly national councils. While radical left-wing currents such as anarchism could be considered to be democratic and socialist, the term 'democratic socialist' is not used to describe them."

So I'd say he is a biased source outright, and an example of what I'm strongly oppossed to!)

Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country.

(Speculation unsupported by evidence. The Bush tax cuts helped me, and I was at just above minimum wage, trying to become self employed. Now I am mostly self employed, and I may be able to put money back into the economy in a few more years, by hiring some people. This guy is repeating Dem talking points)

The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.

(Speculation. He isn't a mind reader, so he can't read Bush's mind. Nor would Sander's agent offer any reason for Bush's plan that didn't support the partisan attack this was meant to be.)

Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here.

(Came up with?)

If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.

(So we wouldn't be plundering the Walton family fortunes merely because someone in their family died ... )

The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

(In what context? Is there some other detail that Sander's people would leave out? Is there an alternative program that takes up the slack? Is there a projected plan to rework the Medicaid system to make it more efficient, and able to do the same things with less money/ Sander's probably wouldn't tell us if he knew, because it isn't "Socialist Sexy")

Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire

(Sad but true, the third world is a place where if you don't get a job working for a multinational company, you are scratching in the dirt hopeing some of the weeds will be healthy enough to feed you. Global warming alarmists, and International enviromental groups are doing more to keep these kinds of people in poverty, than Mars candy, but you will seldom hear this fact. I suppose Mars candy could just NOT hire them, and they could starve ...? Or they could have a Cummunist revolution, and starve from misguided social engineering.)

-- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.

(We could give back 17 Billion over the same ten years if we stopped funding the 'Global Warming Industry' and put it back into the budget elsewhere ... But in any case, IS there another program taking over services which the VA normally used to handle? is there a change in the efficiency of the VA that makes this viable? We don't know ... Partisans seldom like you to get a clear picture. Partisans are warriors for their side.)

Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:

Cox family (Cox cable TV) receives $9.7 billion tax break while education would get $1.5 billion in cuts

Nordstrom family (Nordstrom dept. stores) receives $826.5 million tax break while Community Service Block Grants would be eliminated, a $630 million cut

Ernest Gallo family (shitty wines) receives a $468.4 million cut while LIHEAP (heating oil to poor) would get a $420 million cut

(Except for the snarky fact that the heating oil money is way less than is being paid to global warming 'scientists' by our government, the rest of this again, comes with no context as to what else is added, or changed, to create efficiency in the system. If you recall ... Mitt Romney saved $20 million anually from his budget for the homeless, by simply re-arranging the system so it ran more efficiently. This kind of context is entirely unprovided here.)

And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.

(It's his money, and part of his pay package. Nobody has a true right to tell another person what to do with what belongs to that person, as long as it isn't being used to HARM anyone. In effect, his retirement package is HIS OWN BUSINESS. Be jealous, but at least own the fact that THAT is all your doing. You have no right to his earnings, nor the fruit of his fairly negotiated labors. He earned them. They were contracted to him for services rendered. When you tax those monies, your stealing them at gunpont. Acknowledge that, and we'll move on!)

Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children.

(Replaced? Mitigated? We have no other point of reference than that which is provided in this partisan assault.)

Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers.

(Osamawantingalternateenergy ...? In what context are these 'tax breaks' occuring ??? How does a major corporation find the funds to develop alternative energy resources? If the money isn't coming in, it can't go into research and development can it? The best thing the government could do is to incentivise the energy industry to develop new resources. After all they are already experts in the needs of the industry, and those who rely on it.

Record profits that you 'gouge' away from the companies in the form of taxes will just go on to become third party spending. If you need an explanation, I'll get it for you in detail later. Remember, we paid those monies to those companies, at the price they asked for their commodity. In short, by accepting that price, we agreed to it. Now we want to renege on our part of the deal because we are to wussy to ride a bicycle??? Ironically, global warming alarmists are against the use of the heating oil in the first place. Oil ... always the bad guy even when they aren't)

Even if you're a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally while cutting taxes and social programming.

( No, I'm not happy with the volume of spending, but I'm not sure what to do about it right now ... This is a time of global war, even if the left wants to pretend otherwise.)

They commit taxpayers to giant subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those subsidies. (Again, where are these subsidies being targeted? Is it for more energy development? Contracting corporations to develop things for the national interest is a common practice, and isn't wrong by itself ...)

Thus you're not cutting spending -- you're just cutting spending on people who actually need the money.
(Context as mentioned above, is missing)

That's not only bad government, it's bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace.

(Thats a fine shift! Go from whining about how much money the oil companies are making, to saying they should be competing and performing in the marketplace, which is how those profits were made in the first place ... nice double standrd. We know about Bribery and connections because we have already discussed Al Gore)

Beyond that, it's just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour ... I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers.

(Your not buying the yacht for some asshole! Your promoting economic growth, which will eventually reward all of us. Two cents is better than nothing, and they apparently think it's fair, or they would be digging up roots with sharpened sticks instead !!! Because we are Americans we have no clue what things cost in other parts of the world. How many times do you see on TV, "for ten cents a day, you can feed and cloth a child" and when the child goes to feed and clothe themselves by accepting employment, we are pissed off at the employer??? IT IS A CRUEL WORLD, but lets not be asses, OK? 

Get the human rights people to spend their millions subsidizing economic developmemt. Get the envirometalists to stop stone walling natural resource development in the third world, and stop blaming the guys who can offer acceptable work. I met a guy who bought a whole resort, to live in, and he made a lot of other people successful on his way to getting it. He earned it. Fair!)

I also don't remember reading much about this year's budget.

(Right! I'd like to SEE the actual BUDGET! Wouldn't you? I sure don't trust a partisan like Sanders to explain it to me ...)

Here's the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the Mars fortune actually needed the news media to work better than it does now, believe me, it would work better.

(They OWN the MSM??? I didn't know that ....)

 But they have no such need, because the system is working just fine for them as is. The people it's failing are the rest of us, and most of the rest of us, apparently, would rather sniff Anna Nicole Smith's corpse or watch Britney Spears hump a fire hydrant than find out what our tax dollars are actually paying for.

(The MSM is failing everyone except America's enemies. Companies just buy advertising time where they think people are going to see it. That is why the Superbowl Advertising is such a big deal. For one brief moment the feild of hundreds of TV channels narrows to just the ones who can actually cover a unique event. Those minutes of advertising are gold. But I think the MSM decides who gets the bid on those slots, more than the bidders do. If I could OWN the Superbowl, I can make Miller crawl on their knees and suck mine! It's true.)

Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People that dumb don't deserve to have money.

(This is just the 'have you stopped beating you wife?' question, already answered for you, by a partisan, and absent the details that would allow us an informed reaction. I admit, I don't have all the answers here, but this guy is an example of why I used my last 'Rolling Stone' to light the woodstove! He accepts the message of Sander's agent, without worrying about the completeness of the information, or the motive for providing it. Worse, he seems to revel in the act of arranging his 'facts' to make Bush out to be as bad as possible. There is a reason I don't hang out with the counterculture anymore.)

Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.

(Wikipedia ...

"Taibbi spent his childhood in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Bard College, spending his senior year abroad at Leningrad State Technical University."

"In 1992 Taibbi moved to Uzbekistan, but was forced to leave six months later after writing critically about the country's president. Afterwards, Taibbi worked for The Moscow Times as a sports editor, before moving on to work as a professional athlete in Russia and Mongolia, and as a correspondent for Montsame, the Mongolian National News Agency."

"While playing professional basketball in Ulan-Bator, Mongolia, Taibbi contracted a serious case of pneumonia and was medivaced to Boston. After recovering with his family, he returned to Russia and be came editor of the expat paper Living Here. He then joined Mark Ames in 1997 to co-edit the controversial English-language Moscow-based, bi-weekly free newspaper, The eXile. Taibbi said about that experience,

"We were out of the reach of American libel law, and we had a situation where we weren’t really accountable to our advertisers. We had total freedom."  "

Yup! A real crusading journalist there! Happy to be free of 'libel laws'. A partisan for sure.)

(USA, all the way!)

9 Michael, holy shit that was a long post. I agree with some of what you said. I'm no fan of taxes either (note to all fuckers who call me a "lib" in here) but if it has to be done, I wish we could at least say how it's used. For instance, you could say what percentage of what you're being taxed goes to fix roads, build schools, etc. Heck, if you wanted you could put the whole thing towards the war in Iraq! The point being that ordinary Americans could have more control over spending that crooks in D.C.

Oh, and did I mention I found a picture of Gayrooster today?

http://www.break.com/pictures/feb21gal34.html

10 Michael...forgot to ask: Why were you were unemployed? Were you ever on welfare? Glad to hear you got back on your feet.

11

Osamabingoingoutofhisway ;

I get along fine with greyrooster, and I'm not going to join you in bashing him. As long as you understand that ....

I didn't say I was unemployed, I said I was existing at just above minimum wage. But I have been unemployed, and technically, I'm self employed now. I'm glossing details but ....

I have worked retail for many, many years, and I had profit sharing that would have been pretty good, but the company I worked for got hit with a nasty lawsuit that cost them millions when the judge got a little excited with damage assignment. The company had been growing, and now it was dying. I hate frivolous lawsuits. Anyway, I lost tens of thousands in profit sharing, and when I switched to another employer they were legistlated out of existence within a year. I hate government interference in private enterprise.

I spent some time unemployed right in there. Not the first time. I've lived in my car before, many years ago, and one of those times the car didn't run, so at night I'd push it to a new parking spot so it didn't draw attention and get towed. This was after a minimum wage hike ...

Anyway when I became unemployed the last time I was exploring avenues for becoming my own boss, and being self sufficient. I wanted to write, but I also needed to pay bills in the meanwhile. Now days I practice writing, trying to conquer dyslexia, and re-train myself on good grammer. My wife has a day job in a family business, and together we have a small business distributing goods and services. I'm not going to advertise it here, I don't do spam.

Anyway, I have benefitted from tax breaks for business, and I want them to be permanent. I think the American dream is tied up in the freedom to develop yourself without outside interference. All my successes as an employee came during periods of business growth, which strangely coincided with the second or third year of having a Republican in the White House. So even as an employee, I bebefitted during business friendly administrations.

If I ever do achieve the level of success I am shooting for, I want my kids to benefit from it, by getting everything I created with my efforts. When I want other peopls kids to have my money, I decide to give it to them, and how much. I don't want the government stealing from my deathbed, what I earned, and have willed to my family. There is only one tax I approve of and that is income tax. If someone is making money, tax it then, one time, and one time only, and then leave people alone. Leave their property alone, leave their investments alone, leave their bequeathments alone, leave them alone!

Having lived a lot of my life at near minimum wage, I can tell you that everytime it was raised, I lost ground. Minimum wage hikes are a joke. They are a sideways contributor to inflation, and the lowering of the standard of living. They contribute to the destruction of the middle class. I despise the entire concept of minimum wages, and I wish there was some way to abolish them.

I am incentivised to to better myself, because I can see myself having the fruits of my labors to dispense with as I please. I have no desire to see those fruits ditributed to people who didn't do what I had to, or to see my efforts used to de-icentivise others.

Anyway, no ... no welfare. No food stamps. I did get unemployment the last time, but since the government took my job away, I think that is fair. Otherwise, I have never collected unemployment, even when I was unemployed. I like people to be their own adult guardians.

USA, all the way!

12 Btw, your posts don't show your dyslexia. I'd say you're winning that battle.

13 Damn, I think the only time I've lived in a car is when I've done long road trips. I definitely know the hand to mouth existence. My business is booming lately, but it wasn't too long ago that I couldn't get a job. To be exact, in NYC after 9/11. I was poised to make a killing and then everything deflated. You couldn't get a shit job no matter how hard you tried. It was demoralizing...going to 3rd, 4th, 5th interview and then not getting the job. Talk about a waste of time. You could be looking for other jobs rather than doing all those interviews with one person who doesn't give you the job. It was no picnic, that's for sure.

For a good year or two I was living in a raw industrial space which wasn't zoned for that, so if you're were caught you were booted. I had to wash my upper body in the hallway sink and then grab a bucket of water for the lower half in my space. Did I mention there was no heating? Kerosene was the way to go. I had no bank account, no mailing address, no bank account, no car, no nuthin'!

Needless to say, after a while NYC started to recover and I got back on my feet with a vengeance. I've never taken any unemployment either. This reminds me though, I had one friend who did some funny stuff to get by: He would go to nice neighborhoods and walk into parties. Nobody ever questioned him or asked who he was...but by the time he left he had showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, fed himself and had plenty of drinks. Hilarious. For about a year he was a professional upscale party crasher.

Anyway, I view taxes the same as you. I'm not sure eliminating the minimum wage would work. I believe in incentives too, but what would keep big business from dinging the little guy? The only way to know would be to try...but I wouldn't count on that anytime soon.

14 Mike:


Osamabinpunked is a troll. He pretends to be reasonable with you because you engaged him honestly and politely. Ask yourself: despite the mountains of eveidence and proof you have provided to support your positions, has he been persuaded to the truth in any way, shape, or form?


Of course not. He still spews the leftard line on every subject he addresses. He's playing you. Don't fall for his transparently insincere trolling.


He's using you.

15 Jeff, you're only "using" yourself. Don't get jealous of Michael because I address him with the respect he deserves. He has a thousand times more class than you. If you would finally realize that your pathetic attempts to bully me will be deflected right back at your posturing self, maybe these posts wouldn't be so full of garbage. The links he provided are being read by me in my spare time between working and bitch slapping you on every post. Even if I didn't agree with him about ANYTHING, he still deserves respect because he doesn't spew the bullshit that you do.

16

Osamabinpickingonmypals

But I do like Jeff and greyrooster, even if you don't.                         

And Jeff !

Maybe I'm using HIM, instead?  In any case, I lose nothing in the process of these discussions, and since I'm backing up my comments with links, other interested parties can explore as they like. I do appreciate your concern.

USA, all the way!

17 Hey Michael...I can respect that. I don't think I'm asking you to pick a side on this garbage! I'm glad you post links and don't stoop to their level of blindly attacking first and asking NO questions later. Maybe it's from the rabid racism they suffer from? Either way, at least I feel like we can exchange ideas with you instead of insults.