Note: I apologize for all the edits, but I wanted to add more beef to my arguement when I had found time.From what I understand, it will pass Friday. Again, I'm holding my breath over what will get whacked.
Holding your breath, does this mean you want it to pass?
F-YES I do!
So you will put you faith in the government to prop things up.
The juggernaut is not tax cuts (haven't you heard, they've never worked). This recovery package will be driven by public works projects. Sheesh, tax cuts?!
Putting the money back in the people's pockets so they can go buy things, and start business, and support the economy is the basis of a capitalistic free enterprise system. Taking the money out of our pockets to pay for government projects is the basis for a socialist government controlled system.
Sure we don't trust the rich fat cat CEOs to be socially aware. They are proving everyday they don't care. But they have never cared. They didn't care when it was the robber barons of the 18th century or the 19th century or now. But the system always rights itself. The government, with this "stimulus packege" is just getting in the way. Delaying the inevitable. The system will right itself, and the longer we delay that from happening, the worst that correction will be.
The alternative is everybody works for the government, and the government tells us what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. That is the direction Obama is taking us. And you are all on board. Hope you enjoy the ride.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. That's what's gotten in your (collective) heads, that's where the fear arises, that's why folks who rail against big govt get away with creating the most intrusive and biggest governments and untempered deficits (very Ted Haggardesque).
Know your history and your ecomomics: how did the government break the back of the wealth inequality of the gilded age, and create the strongest middle class, and
manufacturing (i.e., labor) based economy to date, all of which was implemented before WWII (but actually wasn't enough, more should have been done to create sustainable employemnt)? The gilded age and post-gilded age America is our model: learn it.
What have we learned from "free markets"? You (collective) have not learned a damn thing. Deregulation leads to bubbles, creates extreme wealth and poverty, and the bubbles ultimately burst. Then the
government has to clean up the mess. Capitalistic banks and financial institutions are begging the government to bail them out, and the "
free market" wonks (lol) are Johnny-on-the-spot to bail their buddies out. In the meantime, jobs go to the lowest bidder (overseas), and so, too, do tax havens! Why? Profits, to break organized labor, and profits. That's your system, bud.
What's more, tax cuts for the rich don't work, in fact, they've never worked. And you are not rich, so stop pretending tax cuts affect you. Do you know what happened after the "Conservative Lamb of God," Ronald Reagan, cut the tax rate on the uber-rich from 70% to 27%? The economy went into a deep recession; have you heard, Bush's recession is the worst recession since Reagan's of 1982. Then you know what he did? He raised taxes on everyone
except the rich every year thereafter, 1983-1988. Since Reagan couldn't make ends meet, he started borrowing heavily to make the lore surrounding his economic recovery and legacy what it is today with his devotees. And you recall GHWB's infamous promise, "No new taxes."? Do you also remember that he started raising taxes on the middle class for a few years after he took office. Today, the uber rich are "allegedly" taxed at 35%, but we know they don't pay anything near that, since capital gains are taxed at just 15%. How much of your income is made up of capital gains? Besides that, there are always loopholes for the wealth. In the end, they likely pay the same percentage on their taxes as you and I.
You've mentioned "out of control inflation." There are tools to counter inflation. But you must know that deflation is more devestating than inflation, and at this point, we have no apparatus to counter deflation--always a greater concern than inflation.
Fear of the Socialism boogyman by
socialism hugging capitalists
Get over it you (collective) people! These things are owned by the government. And you and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Partial list
* air, water and environmental quality control
* transportation routes, infrastructure
* treasury
* regulation (SEC with teeth, not one whose powers are all but stripped away)
* education (ditto)
* public parks
* airwaves, cable networks, communication systems
* military, police, prisons, fire services
* courts
* social security
* health care (Medicare, Medicade)
* unemployment insurance
* safety nets, including FDIC and bailouts
* corporate welfare, subsidies
* post (almost none can afford FedEx, UPS, etc..)
* your FEMA
* your FDA (you want standards, don't you?)
* TSA
* port authority
* air traffic control
* IRS
This is important and this is what somehow escapes all of you:
Is your government going to make your TV set, your shoes, your clothes, your food, your tooth paste, your car, your PC or laptop, your (fill in the blank)? No, never ever, no one wants that! You people are ridiculously, irrationally afraid of the Socialism Boogyman.
And if people did some homework, they'd conclude that we need Medicare For All. This is important, and why you (collective) can't see it is absurd:
Medicare For All would make American industries far more competive if they weren't burdened by having to pay the medical bills of their former employees as well as their current workers. But the big Socialized Medicine Boogyman was put out there by the AMA in the '50s (Ronald Reagan served as their tool) and you (collective) people lose your collective minds. We don't have health care in the US. We have an out-of-control, inefficient, wastefull monstocity of a private market bureaucracy based on "health denial" in which people get stinking, fat-rich. Read, people, the sooner you learn, the sooner we can get rid of the jack-a-lopes in Congress who take a cut of the profits and hold the legislation hostage.
Recommended Reading:
Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business And Bad Medicine, Donald Bartlett and James Steele
*
Yes, I read a lot of dry, non-fiction. "Oh, but it's the best
system in the world; socializing health care would make it worse," you (collective) protest. What part of
out-of-control, inefficient, wastefull monstocity of a private market bureaucracy based on "health denial" in which people get stinking, fat-rich don't you (collective) people understand? Socialized Health Care is a far superior system: learn the difference between the current, privitized system and socialized health care, and you (collective), too, will agree.
