COL Gene COL Gene

Exploding Two Conservative Myths

Exploding Two Conservative Myths



When I listened to Ron Paul being interviewed on Meet the Press and while watching the Republican debates, two of the most fundamental conservative axioms we hear from Republicans were shown to be fabrications.

First is an individual make better spending choices then government.

Second is that government spending is ineffective and wasteful.

Spending Choices

Does anyone believe that if all or most spending choices were made by individuals that they would say I need to spend money to help replace that tank the 1st Armored Division needs? I will repair the section of I95 between, mile marker X and Y in George. Baby Carol Smith needs formula today and I will buy it for her. We need another border guard to stop illegals and possibly terrorists from crossing into the U.S.

The truth is none of those and many other choices that are essential for our country to survive and prosper would be made by individuals. The spending choices must be made by BOTH individuals to provide for individual needs but the needs of our society and to insure our security and to facilitate commerce, banking, law enforcement and many other items must be made collectively by government.

That is not to say that some spending choices by government, like to build the bridge in Alaska where about 50 people lived, are the best choices. However if the choice were to repair a bridge that enabled tens of thousands to get to work each day that spending choice would be sound and could be essential.

Government spending is Wasteful

In most cases when the government spends tax dollars that money returns to the economy and helps individuals and business. If the Federal Government buys that tank the 1st Armored Division needs, Americans are put to work and the companies that make the tank earn a profit. That helps the people who own the stock of the companies who make and assemble that tank. It also provides something we NEED to protect our freedom. If the Federal government adds that Border Guard, that person spends the salary they are paid from taxes and that helps the economy. An expenditure the government makes that does not help our people is the interest on the debt that is paid to foreign investors. That tax money does not return to our economy.

If an individual takes their tax cut and invests it in a business that employs people outside the U.S. that investment takes money from our economy. In that case the spending choice by an individual harms the economy. Thus these two GOP axioms above are not true and it is time the American Voters understand the true nature of Federal spending. We do need to pay for our spending and STOP deficit spending! The GOP is supporting political ideas that are NOT in agreement with the majority of Americans. As a Republican I can not understand HOW the GOP got so far from the mainstream of the American People. Most Republicans can not complete a sentence without using the word “Conservative”. The majority of Americans are NOT Conservatives.
51,851 views 186 replies
Reply #76 Top
Reply By: DaiwaPosted: Monday, December 31, 2007Again, nothing but anecdotes, bald claims & assumptions, no evidence.


YOU ARE NUTS!
Reply #77 Top
In the two areas where I have lived in the past several years a family CAN NOT LIVE on $24,000 PER YEAR!!!!!!!!!
End of quote


SHOW.ME.THE.BODIES!

It's.that.simple.

They exist not live. You and those like you are a SAD excuse for Americans.
End of quote


Sad excuse for Americans. Yeah, being a father of six who works his ass off to provide for his family rather than beg for a handout is totally contrary to the American way of life! I forgot, I'm supposed to be a beggar to have any dignity whatsoever.

And I assure you, we do more than "exist".

I don't discuss salary as a rule, but I will for you since you insist I cannot earn a living, Gene. In 2007, I made $9/hr, averaging 42-43 hour weeks. You can do the math, but that comes to right in the neghbourhood of $20K for the year. During the school year, I worked an additional 13 hours a week work study, making minimum wage for those hours. All told, I'm probably right in the neighbourhood of your "impossible to live on" $24,000 a year. In the past year, we purchased an 8 year old Suburban, a 30 year old pickup, 3 handheld game systems with games, 2 CD players for the kids, a brand new FRONT LOADING washer (which costs much more than a top loading washer), a laptop computer, 2 sets of bunk beds, a stereo, several new articles of clothing, several hundred disposable diapers (this is actually the FIRST time in all of our years as parents that we have almost never had to revert to the cloth standbys), a dresser, several various computer components, and a few dozen books.

With the exception of the clothing and the bunk beds, not one of those items was a necessity, Col.

I assure you, we are doing MUCH better than "surviving"!
Reply #78 Top
Sad excuse for Americans. Yeah, being a father of six who works his ass off to provide for his family rather than beg for a handout is totally contrary to the American way of life! I forgot,
End of quote


you see gid that is your mistake.
Reply #79 Top

In the two areas where I have lived in the past several years a family CAN NOT LIVE on $24,000 PER YEAR!!!!!!!!!
End of quote

And yet, they do.

Damn reality.

Reply #80 Top
With the exception of the clothing and the bunk beds, not one of those items was a necessity, Col.I assure you, we are doing MUCH better than "surviving"!


I am glad for you. However when just a place to live plus utilitles runs $15,000 you can not live on $24,000.
Reply #81 Top
The BODIES, Col. The BODIES!

(BTW, in every urban area I have ever seen, there are sliding scale rentals available. Yes, the wait list is long, yes, it's a bitch, but yes, it can be done. ALSO, in every urban area I have seen (every area I have seen, actually), there are rentals available for less than market rates. You just have to know how to find them. And desperation does breed innovation).
Reply #82 Top
To people like Gene, bodies don't matter. It's all about the tear-jerk anecdote.
Reply #83 Top
To people like Gene, bodies don't matter. It's all about the tear-jerk anecdote.
End of quote


Oh, I know. But to someone reading this, it helps to repeatedly ask a question that he refuses to answer. It shows him for the DNC troll that he is.
Reply #84 Top
Reply By: DaiwaPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008To people like Gene, bodies don't matter. It's all about the tear-jerk anecdote.


I have helped those that need help at both a food bank and as president of a non profit corp. that helped both low income seniors and low income home owners. We support about 10 charities. I support things like Food Stamps, Section 8 Housing, WIC, S-CHIP and Medicaid. I also support keeping the promises we have made for Social Security and Medicare even if the wealthy have to return to the tax rates in effect during the 1990's or lift the income cap on Social Security. They can afford to pay more with no harm to them or their families. The only change would be a small reduction in all that treasure they will not be able to take with them when they die.
Reply #85 Top
See?
Reply #86 Top
Reply By: DaiwaPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008See?


SEE what?
Reply #87 Top
They can afford to pay more with no harm to them or their families.
End of quote


again how do you know. do you know every rich man in the country.
Reply #88 Top
Reply By: danielostPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
They can afford to pay more with no harm to them or their families.
again how do you know. do you know every rich man in the country.


Any one with incomes like Bush and Cheney can pay more. They did so during the 1990's and the rich never had it so good at higher tax rates. That is YOUR PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply #89 Top
They can afford to pay more with no harm to them or their families.


again how do you know. do you know every rich man in the country.
End of quote


you keep putting it in general terms i want real facts.
Reply #90 Top
See?
End of quote


SEE what?
End of quote


Exactly.
Reply #91 Top

Gene has to be the worst debater on this site. 

He keeps insisting he's right without offering any evidence.  He says you can't live on $24k a year despite millions of people doing just that.  Americans are hardly starving.

Reply #92 Top
Reply By: danielostPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
They can afford to pay more with no harm to them or their families. again how do you know. do you know every rich man in the country.
you keep putting it in general terms i want real facts.


I just answered that:


Any one with incomes like Bush and Cheney can pay more. They did so during the 1990's and the rich never had it so good at higher tax rates. That is YOUR PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply #93 Top
Reply By: DraginolPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008Gene has to be the worst debater on this site. He keeps insisting he's right without offering any evidence. He says you can't live on $24k a year despite millions of people doing just that. Americans are hardly starving.


Millions do not have enough food and that is WITH Food Stamps. READ:

Local Report for Long Island: Executive Summary
An estimated 259,000 Long Islanders turn to a soup kitchen, food pantry or emergency shelter for help with food each year. 93,000 of them are children.
Going Hungry During Lunch Hour
21 December 2007
by Anna Kramer


A Boston law firm celebrates the holiday season with an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet--part of the fall 2007 Fast for a World Harvest--where participants get first-hand experience of the vast differences between those who have plenty to eat and those who have none.
OLDER AMERICANS ARE GOING HUNGRY
Oread Daily http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/
It shouldn't be like this.
A recent study found that one in three older New Yorkers lived in fear of going hungry. Many didn't know where they would find their next meal.
The Council of Senior Centers and Services says their study in New
York City found that 35 percent of those surveyed worried that they would not have enough to eat.


By AMY CALDER
Staff Writer 11/21/2007



enlarge Staff photo by David Leaming
IN NEED: The Rev. Arlene Tully inside the Greater Waterville Area Food Pantry in the Pleasant Street United Methodist Church on Tuesday. The food pantry and others are experiencing an increase in recipients due to unemployment and a decrease in federal donations for people in need.
from the Morning Sentinel
By AMY CALDER
Staff Writer
What is most heartbreaking to Ted Van Duysen is seeing more and more elderly people coming into his food pantry in the tiny town of Liberty.
"They can barely walk into the building," Van Duysen said.
Van Duysen has run the AM VETS Post 150 pantry for 12 years and is finding that an increasing number of people are having a hard time keeping their homes warm and feeding themselves because of the high costs of fuel, gasoline and other necessities.
"All of a sudden, I'm getting people that never even showed up at my pantry -- that I've never even heard of," he said.
"It's not been a very good two years but we keep trying; we keep plugging away."
The problem is everywhere, according to Jane Couture, director of the Greater Waterville Area Food Bank, located at the Pleasant Street United Methodist Church in Waterville. Like Van Duysen, Couture says donations of food from the federal government are way down, prices of fuel and gas are skyrocketing, many people are out of work, and more and more people are hungry and asking for food. People who normally give to food banks are finding they can no longer afford to do that.
Reply #94 Top
I just answered that:


Any one with incomes like Bush and Cheney can pay more. They did so during the 1990's and the rich never had it so good at higher tax rates. That is YOUR PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
End of quote




this is not facts this is opinion period.
Reply #95 Top
i will put it another way genie boy.


bill gates when he was working was donating 300 million a year. if you took all of his money away from him and only gave him what he needs to survive. where would that 300 million come from.
Reply #96 Top
and before you answer that with the money would still be there.


would you work hard enough to make 300 million a year for someone else.
Reply #97 Top
Reply By: danielostPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
I just answered that:Any one with incomes like Bush and Cheney can pay more. They did so during the 1990's and the rich never had it so good at higher tax rates. That is YOUR PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is not facts this is opinion period.


IT IS A FACT. SHOW US HOW THE WEALTHY LOST OUT DURING THE 1990's. They had the best decade ever.
Reply #98 Top
Reply By: danielostPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008i will put it another way genie boy.bill gates when he was working was donating 300 million a year. if you took all of his money away from him and only gave him what he needs to survive. where would that 300 million come from.


Increasing the tax rates to the 1990 rates would not put a dent in the income of Gates. Gates and Buffett told Bush NOT TO CUT TAXES FOR THE WEALTHY!!! They told him our country had more important NEEDS then to give the wealthy tax cuts!
Reply #99 Top
Reply By: danielostPosted: Tuesday, January 01, 2008I just answered that:Any one with incomes like Bush and Cheney can pay more. They did so during the 1990's and the rich never had it so good at higher tax rates. That is YOUR PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is not facts this is opinion period.
End of quote


Reply #100 Top
IT IS A FACT. SHOW US HOW THE WEALTHY LOST OUT DURING THE 1990's. They had the best decade ever.
End of quote


this is in spite of what Clinton did not because of what he did.


he sued Microsoft for being a monopoly when they had 10,000 competitors.