Never heard of the government subsidized underwear program? :)

I understand this but it really has no bearing on anything.  If you want to
play these kinds of games then I'll remind you that WE the people CHOSE the
representatives and government officials that created the government
programs
that the government spends money on.  WE approved these programs and
WE are responsible for paying for them.  WE chose to spend our money on
everything from Social Security to buying the Sequoia yacht

Where I am annoyed is that while I may be responsible for choosing to spend
my money on these programs - via taxes -  unlike you I happen to want the
expenditures on these programs cut down to the point that the government
isn't deficit spending to pay for them.

Choosing to engage in deficit spending - is that how you put it - is not a
viable
long term method of funding anything.  I suggest if you think so that you
quit your
job and run all your credit cards up to the maximum and see what happens.

I am perfectly willing to go with a reduction in many of the programs in
order
to produce a surplus so that we can have a big tax cut, this is as
responsible
a fiscal policy as the previous one was, as both result in a balanced
budget.

I am not willing to see even more spending and increases in programs
at the same time as a big tax cut, as not only is it first of all
irresponsible to
increase the spending in the first place, since no money was budgeted for
it to begin with, and second of all it is irresponsible to cut taxes without
cutting spending so the budget stays balanced.

You apparently seem to think it is OK to increase spending when there is
no money to support it.  I don't.  Returning my tax cut doesen't solve
anything
because I didn't want to see the increased spending to begin with.  Why
support it with more tax money?

Good, no problem with that - as long as you are perfectly willing to cut the
spending in accordance.  If you are willing to give up your Social Security,
and
you are willing to stop throwing money into trying to prosecute doctors that
are following state law, then no problem - let's see, how much is it going
to
cost us when John Asscroft on his way out the door filed a court challenge
of
Oregon's D.w.D?

Explain how support of stem cell research is socialist, this ought to be
good...

Great, then the Republicans in control of the government don't have to work
very hard to make the grade.

A mortgage is nothing like what the US government is doing today.  When the
US government's budget was balanced back in the late 90's, at that time
a portion of the budget was going into paying interest and principle on
the national debt.  (mostly interest)  This was equivalent to a household
that maintains a mortgage on a balanced budget.

Today, the US government is STILL paying interest on the national debt,
AND they are ADDING to it.  The situation is equivalent to a household
that had a mortgage that they were successfully paying the monthly payments
on, suddenly going on a home buying spree and buying a new home a
month, and assuming yet another mortgage every month.  It is in short, a
giant Ponzi scheme.

means-to-an-end do you really know what that phrase actually means?
Ever wonder about that small word "end" that is a part of it?

What end are you talking about.  I see no end in sight.  And if we
ever do get to an end, who is going to pay the national debt that we have
run up?

Bush cut taxes in year 2000.  The economy did not pick up as a
result, it's been FOUR YEARS and we still aren't creating enough jobs
for simple growth.  Tax cutting did nothing to stimulate any economic
growth so I don't see that it did anything to reach any kind of end.

And you think your better off with that tax money?  Well let me tell you
this - in 1999, before any tax cutting, I personally was in an industry
where there was a shortage of workers, and if I had wanted to make
more money I could have walked out of my job and within a month
had another one in my industry that paid me more.

Today, well I'm still in that industry, still working that job, still making
the same money I was in 1999.  But, what has changed is that now
the depression has destroyed most of the other positions that were out
there, and there's a glut of workers in my industry.  So I can no longer
go out and just move to another employer and get a big raise as a
result.  So on one hand I have a tax cut, on the other I don't have any
leverage when review time comes round to demand more money.
And prices have gone up in the last 5 years, too.  Overall I would have
been better off with a healthy job market and no tax cut, than what
we have now which is a tax cut and a crappy job market.  And most
other professional people I know are the same way.  Wages simply
do not rise very fast when there's an oversupply of workers in the
market, that is basic supply and demand.

Well, thanks at least for proving to everyone that you are a complete fool.
For
an explanation as to why this kind of economic system is impossible, refer
to
"Economics and Politics in the Weimar Republic" by Theo Balderston.

What a recommendation for political advice - you don't even know
obvious things about political history and you think you know what's
going on?  Unbelievable.

Please do.  I would love an amendment requiring a blanced budget.

The conservative swing started in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.
What happened with President Carter's handling of the Iran hostage incident
was the end result of many years of political correctness, and how this kind
of thing could be driven to an extreme.  The American public realized then
that, Sorry, when bad people do bad things, innocent people are going to
get killed when you take the steps to punish the bad people, and there's
nothing
that can be done about it.

The Iran hostage situation was probably the most collosal mishandling of
hostage taking that has happened since WWII.  The number of subsequent
people who have died simply because mid east terrorists decided as a
result of this that taking hostages was a profitable endeavor, surely dwarfs
the number of hostages in the American Embassy.  This event crystalized
how misguided an untraliberal approach is in government, and started the
pendulum swinging to the conservative side.

On reflection, I really feel sorry for you.  Quite obviously you are either
young
and have had a piss-poor education, or you are older and just plain ignorant
and happy to be so.  You simply cannot understand politics without
understanding
political history, and you don't even understand that.

The conservative swing is getting very close to the end.  I give it maybe 10
years
more, tops.  What has happened is that now the conservatives have finally
gotten
what they have been fighting for since 1980, - control of the executive and
legislative branches of the federal government.  The smarter people in the
conservative
movement know that now is a very delicate time, it is crucial to tread
carefully
so as not to provoke a backlash.  But, as has always happened in American
political
history, the radical elements in the party who have been pouring
their blood sweat and tears into pushing the movement, now they finally got
what
they want and they are going to run hog-wild.  The same thing happened with
President Carter when he booted Ford out of office.  The idiot ultraliberals
in the
Democratic party wern't restrained and Carter got booted.

Ted

Really?  I do.  I don't want to see even more of my tax dollars being
spent on paying interest on old loans, I'd prefer to see it doing
something useful.

You obviously don't understand how a mortgage works, either.  It's a
secured loan, with the house being used as the security.  A person
generally takes out a mortgage to buy a house or other dwelling simply
because he can't, or prefers not to for whatever reason, scrape together
enough cash to pay for it all in one lump sum.  He still needs to make
the regular payments in full and on time, however.  The basic difference
between the federal gov't and the average homeowner with a mortage is
this - the homeowner is planning to someday pay off his mortgage and
actually own his place outright.  The federal gov't just keeps on taking
out more and more loans to meet the mortgage payments so it doesn't have
to cut back on all the steak dinners.  It would seem obvious on the face
of it that people would realize that this was a Bad Idea(tm) but nobody
actually seems to want to actually do anything about it.  A good start
would be a balanced budget, so that we don't actually dig ourselves
deeper into a hole.  If we end up with a surplus, so be it.  Pay off
some debts, so that we don't have to spend as much on interest payments
next year.  Then you get a bigger surplus, etc. etc. etc. see how it
works?  Eventually we can then cut taxes *without* deficit spending and
everyone's happy.

"deficit spending" might be a useful short term tool, however, we've
gone far, *far* beyond that.

nate