Tracy,
this is why I am confused…
You say you want the Government to behave more like a well-run private company but then you say…

government does not and should not have ANY say over which and how many employees companies hire, how they spend their profits on their own capital improvements, or which projects they participate in…

… What well-run private enterprise would invest in a venture over which they would then have NO say over and could expect NO return from- only further investments? Most companies that invest in other enterprises get some return on that investment and some proportional representation in the running of the company, why should the Government (if you truly believe that we should model our government on private enterprise) behave differently?

Of course, if you feel that the Government has a different role to play that’s a different kettle of fish… ready to admit that yet?

Since you admit that PRIVATE companies could not function without the infrastructure provided by the PUBLIC why do you argue that the PUBLIC should have some say in how PRIVATE companies operate in the rePUBLIC?

We the people should just hand over our PUBLIC improvements to a few in the PRIVATE sector and be happy and trust them to do the right thing and contribute to the PUBLIC good?

You say you don’t trust Government to do the right thing but you advocate removing all oversight of the Private Sector… is the private sector less susceptible to corruption? Recent events would indicate the exact opposite…

Even if it were so, at least we the people have a voice in our PUBLIC leadership, we have precious little in the PRIVATE sector.

Ayn Rand is a hack, individuals do not act for the public good out of self-interest… but the PEOPLE can and do act for INDIVIDUALS good out of PUBLIC interest.
or do you also believe in Fairies?

Then you don’t even begin to suggest that the private sector could do any of those things I mentioned without the Government… when was the last time you drove on an entirely private sector sponsored freeway?

You assertion that the private sector would ‘create’ those jobs without the Government is laughable.

ElBruce………spot on every time. A true compassionate progressive.

Tracy-5…….more libertarian in nature.

What bothers me about libertarians is that their philosophy is like a religion. Never in history has unregulated capitalism worked. Never. It has always destroyed itself in a headlong rush to monopoly. No society with an unregulated market has ever led to anything but economic disaster. The “robber baron” period led to the panics of the late 19th century. The “roaring 20’s” led to the great republican depression. And, the last 27 years of modern libertarian/conservative economic dogma have led us to where we are today – on the verge of the “Panic of 2008,” with a destroyed dollar, an eviscerated middle class, record deficits and debt, record negative balance of trade, corporate fraud on an unprecidented level, etc. etc.

But facts and history seem to mean nothing to libertarians. They’ve got their dogma and they stick to it.
corporations will NEVER protect the environment when protection of the environment is not profitable in the short run. They’ve already proven this over and over and in my opinion, it’s downright foolish at this point to expect them to “do the right thing.”

Libertarians have no answers to the questions, for instance, of morality and responsibility in letting the corporations and industries run wild, causing the deaths and injuries of hundreds before correcting the procedures or products that are faulty. the answer is always “the free market will take care of it”, which may be true, but at a very high cost in lives and health. As a progressive, I have the fault of valuing life over profit. Therefore, I want good, solid testing procedures resulting in regulations that protect the health and welfare of humans, even as those very same procedures cut into the ability of the owners to purchase a bigger yacht or 4th vacation home.

Ron Paul addresses none of these issues. He is a simple-minded person, and squirms mightily when questioned directly about the hateful, racist rhetoric in publications with his name on them. While he would pull troops from Iraq, and maybe even the rest of the world, his domestic policies would be a disaster. He would be an isolationist presiding over further corporate rape of the American people. Not much of an improvement

The modern libertarian movement was begun by big industrialists like Coors and William Simon. It was a response to the growing political progressiveness and involvement of the strongest middle class in American history. It was seen as a way of convincing working class Americans that their interests were the same as the wealthy. The idea was to dress it up with emotional issues like drug laws and gun laws as well as flowery language about personal freedom and a peculiar interpretation of certain consitutional principles. It’s a huge philosophical “bait and switch.” Bait with personal freedom and switch to unbridled, unregulated corporate power. In my opinion, it’s a huge philosophical scam.

That would require putting competent people in government…

Already on it. You really should consider switching sides, it’s awesome.
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Tracy__5 Says:

No high sales taxes, property taxes, ect…?

Not relative to the Federal Income tax. I guess that makes me “insulated” from the rest of the U.S. too, huh?

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Tracy__5 Says:

(Kucinich)

Hah, I didn’t say I agree with him on everything (or even most things) but it’s good to have one guy way off your end of the political spectrum to remind you of where you stand. So whenever somebody says “Obama’s a far-left radical” I can say “have you met Dennis Kucinich?”

The only problem is that the far-out nutjobs on your end actually have control of your party, whereas Kucinich is basically a footnote for the Left. Let’s face it, most of the people in control of the RNC right now are a hairs-breadth shy of Mussolini on the right/left scale. Kucinich is technically there, but he doesn’t have any control. It’s a good model, you guys should maybe try it.

Thanks for the link, btw…

“I did,” he said. “It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It’s like, it’s unidentified; I saw something.”

Aw man, that’s weak. I was expecting something way juicier. Most people I know could say that much.

From what you have seen, but here low tax rates is directly related to many local business not having to lay off workers to the extent the other high tax rates state have force their businesses to do.

In both states I’ve lived in (1 sales tax, 1 income tax) the state tax level is a pittance compared to Federal taxes. It hasn’t made much difference.

Tracy__5 Says:

Massive starvation? This scare tatic of fourth comming massive starvation is nothing but border line criminal on your part.

If we have to have a society consisting of soup/bread lines (and those do exist already, btw) then there will be deaths in the 6-7 figures. Modern society is too populated and too complex to be able to suffer the same pressures that we did in 1930 without commensurate reporting of a significant death toll.

Tracy__5 Says:

Ohoooo the midget man has magical powers?! Maybe it’s those aliens who he believes have visited Earth who gave them to him.

Citation please? Sounds like you’re talking about Perot.

You gotta give the little guy some credit. He was the only Dem to read articles of impeachment for Bush on the Senate floor, and he’s the only one from either side to jump into the current Gaza crisis with both feet. I don’t go nearly as far as he does, but I sleep better at night knowing he’s out there, manning the far, far, far left wing.

If spending were to have been kept in line with incoming revenues the tax cuts would have been just fine.

I totally agree. Man, if it weren’t for that Iraq war, we’d be sitting so pretty right now.

Tracy__5 Says:

FYI there has NEVER been a following fiscal year from the previous where spending actually decreased, it’s just that the con artist politician slike to call a decrease in the rate of increase a spending cut.

I hate it when they do that too. Stop pretending we don’t know anything and give me the % of GDP, and the % change from last year’s. Let me crunch the numbers. They need to standardize which statistics they get to use.

Tracy__5 Says:

Yeah so truely cut spending, decrease tax rates, and if you actually have a surplus still return it to the people in the form of yet another check. You do realize the the government should NOT be running a surplus….don’t you? Or do you think the government can spend it better and more effectively than the individual tax payer?

So we should run a surplus but we shouldn’t run a surplus. How about we try to hit the correct number on the dot, and then correct any errors we made, minimizing them more each year? I would consider a surplus accidental waste. I would consider a shortfall accidental waste as well.

This sort of thing shouldn’t be a matter of politics, but rather a matter of nice, boring accounting.

Tracy__5 Says:

Your link don’t give ANY evidence as to how Clinton actually created any jobs. Try again.

All the relevant links I found specified that Clinton’s 20M jobs figure was explicitly private sector jobs. You said that Clinton created 0 private sector jobs, with no citation. The ball is actually in your court.

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Tracy__5 Says:

No you are just content when those who have more are more equally miserable by taking from some and giving it to others.

Transfer payments don’t make sense. Jesus was for those, and they didn’t work then. I’m more interested in leveragable investment, paid for by an appropriately progressive tax structure.

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Tracy__5 Says:

Curable? What is wrong with not wanting others to take care of you?

That’s fine, except that if you were dying in the street, I’d have a moral obligation to do so anyways. No matter how much you protested, it would be incumbent on me to try to save your life. You don’t get to say that’s never going to happen, because you aren’t God.

What you really want is to never have to take care of anyone else. This is the definition of moral evil. Evil people are bad, and I oppose them vehemently on the Internets.

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Tracy__5 Says:

You actually think that liberalism as a philosophy is the better route? Again you are OK with everyone being equally miserable? Move to Cuba if you want to see the fruits of far left liberalism.

How about we all work on reducing misery together? I’d say move to 1979 Chile if you want to see the results of unfettered conservatism (mass poverty, death squads, effective fascism) but I’m not arguing for an extreme far-either-direction view. I’m arguing for the appropriate point on the left/right scale to address the problems at hand.

You’re the extremist. I’m a moderate. Nyah.

Coupled with restrained government spending…no it has not, especially under the Bush administration.

Kinda was under Clinton… You know, Democratic Communism has never been tried, but you don’t see me demanding a chance to do that one.

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Tracy__5 Says:

The only reason this economy hasn’t collapsed is because conservatives have not allowed the far left liberals to take the ideas of the New Deal much beyond what was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Citation please? That sounds a lot like crazy talk. I love crazy talk.

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Tracy__5 Says:

When you actually see bread lines and soup kitchens for millions of unemployed Americans you let me know…

Sorry, I’d like to prevent starvation and mass death. I guess that’s where we differ.

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Tracy__5 Says:

If the government managed themselves HALF as good as a well private run U.S. company, and there are MILLIONS of them, we wouldn’t be in the current financial mess we are in. Don’t even beging to suggest that the federal government even begins to approach the efficiency of a most private U.S. companies.

I don’t know how to state this more clearly – you got everything you wanted. Private enterprise was given massive reductions in regulation and the top 1% of the economy was given massive tax breaks so they could show off how well they could stimulate the economy. It crashed. You failed. The people who were supposed to be running everything smoothly in the private sector were given total leeway, and they weren’t up to the task.

The reason that federal agencies don’t match the efficiency of private companies is an apples/oranges situation. They have different goals. Private companies run on pure profit. They therefore typically do a good job of generating profit. Public agencies (the Veteran’s Administration hospital system, for example) have goals of meeting service benchmarks. They do a pretty damn good job at those. But they don’t necessarily turn a profit doing so.

Does that make them less efficient? Hardly. Any efficiency gains achieved by privatization are subtracted when owners take their profits, so it tends to average out. But at least with government-provided services you know that nobody’s getting rich off of it.

I agree that the ideal is to have the free market provide as many services as possible. But when the free market doesn’t have an incentive to provide them, there’s no point in pretending that they will. And there are a number of instances (health care for example) where the free market is in fact disincentived to provide the necessary level of service.

I’m not saying you should go from an “X is always right” attitude to a “not-X is always right” one. Just that sometimes X is appropriate, and sometimes it’s not. I recognize that X is preferable in general, but that doesn’t mean it’s applicable in all cases.

We will have to wait and see how far to the left he actually is.

I’m willing to agree with you there and settle on that.

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Tracy__5 Says:

Where do you get the BS insinuation from? Ever looked in the
North Eastern U.S.?

Yep, good decent folk all who wouldn’t wish harm on anyone else, God bless ‘em.

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Tracy__5 Says:

No the trick is to see what economic policies have led to Texas being insulated from all of the other states that have economic problems. Those that have the worst problems are those who have the highest tax rates.

You’re working under the same Federal Government that everyone else is. Some states have different state tax schemes: some have income tax, some have sales tax, some have both, some have none. But from what I’ve seen, the national economic downturn isn’t related to those.

Unless you can claim that Texas is magically exempt from the situation that the U.S. as a whole is, then that point is completely moot. Did you guys secretly secede from the U.S.A. without the rest of us noticing? If so, good on ya’, that’s freaking awesome! But I doubt it.

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Tracy__5 Says:

There aren’t bread lines and soup kitchens yet.

This is why you and your kind are patethetic excuses for human beings. I would like to prevent massive starvation and death in the streets. You’d like to see it.

Tracy__5 Says:

No less spineless Republicans will fix the problem as well as less far left liberal Democrats.

Kucinich has Dragonball Z powers of which you can only dream. Don’t even try to step to his Lefty might.

Krugman appears to make the mistake of thinking that republicans would be interested in solving the economic problems instead of just posturing for partisan gain. Silly Paul Krugman.

Everyone needs to realize that bush was spectacularly successful in every way in terms of achieving republican goals, with the absolute pinnacle of republican achievement being stealing $800 billion from taxpayers to line the pockets of their Wall Street chums, no questions asked. Continuing from the republican perspective we see, and will see republicans fighting tooth and nail to prevent government expenditure on projects that actually help average and lower income Americans, something republicans are sworn to prevent.

SPENDING was incresed far too much….that was the problem not the tax cuts thanks to Bush and Congress.

You don’t really see any relationship between the variables of revenue and spending? Really? Man, I’d hate to be your accountant. See, you typically want to make more money than you spend, and/or spend less money than you make. See, there are 2 variables, and they have a relationship. Not just one.

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Fred Says:

—–t5, — you are good at asking questions (mostly based on a variety of logical fallacies), but you are short on answering questions from others…

If you want wingnuts to answer questions you pose to them, I recommend crossing enemy lines and taking it to their doorstep from time to time. You’ll be glad you did. I reccomend Ace, Freeperville, or LGF. Also, WDB or Pajamas (don’t ask).

Have fun storming the castle! (waves)

Clinton created exactly ZERO private sector jobs.

Nope, that 20 million figure is private sector jobs. Linky, linky.

I’m cool ‘cuz I have Internets!

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Tracy__5 Says:

No, the left wing of our political system makes sure to spread the misery equally.

Actually, we’re more interested in getting rid of the misery. You just make it unequal, and then call that good.

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Tracy__5 Says:

Try getting out of you little enclave of companion bigots and learn something.

If pointing out bigotry is bigotry, does that make you a bigot for pointing out that others are bigots for pointing out bigotry? Crap, I just pointed out that you’re a bigot, so that makes me a bigot too! Onoes!

Seriously, that’s just plain stoopid. Conservatism is a lifestyle choice, and it’s curable. As it’s a chosen behavior, people aren’t bigoted for looking down on your kind.

That’s the problem with you cons… you think that roads, power plants and schools magically appear from nowhere.

The private sector can’t even manage to build a baseball stadium without the Governments help but they can name it after themselves… is there a Tracy5 Field in the works? Makes about as much sense as a Citi or Safeco Field…

Yeah is sure is, because many of them are too much of a self-rightous pompous ass to admit or realize that their life’s so-called “public service” has done more harm to the American people than good!

It’s pretty clear now who’s been doing the harm. You know what, your theories about less regulation, lax regulation, and lower taxes on the rich have been tried. They have caused the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. You are therefore, wrong. You should thank us for having given your side the opportunity to use the U.S. and the world as a lab to test your political dogmas and then admit that the test results are negative.

Now we’re going to go fix the stuff y’all broke. Guess who’s theories we aren’t going to use to do that?

The simple approach – that people who actually try to perform the job of governance well can successfully govern – will be attempted. We’re also going to have to do some things that aren’t indicative of an ideal outcome, because this isn’t an ideal situation. That means shifting the tax burden somewhat more onto the rich than the middle class, and increasing government investment in America for a while. Contrary to what you may think about us, we don’t want to max out those things all the time. We aren’t actually Commies. However, it’s now become necessary for the foreseeable future. Your ilk and your dogma have made it so.

You know, if you hate government so much, why don’t you stop having Republicans run for office, and stop voting too? Why participate in a system for which you hold so little regard?

The Repuplican leadership has asked that the public hear about the package, review, etc. They can start now by coming up with a coherent theory for increasing demand in our economy. More tax cuts, trickle down economics, more of the same, ?? You do a lot of sharpshooting but I don’t hear a plan. Building is always much harder than tearing down. Try the hard part for a change….