gsvol
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2008
- Messages
- 14,179
- Likes
- 10
"People do not ask for socialism because they know that socialism will improve their conditions, and they do not reject capitalism because they know that it is a system prejudicial to their interests.
They are socialists because they believe that socialism will improve their conditions, and they hate capitalism because they believe that it harms them.
They are socialists because they are blinded by envy and ignorance."
--economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)
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"The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the House of Representatives to pass a bill spending $820 billion -- or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate.
Only 10 percent of the 'stimulus' [is] to be spent on 2009. Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ (or both) members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions or other Democrat-controlled unions.
This bill is sent to Congress after President Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long.
According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote.
Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for the president to have read the whole thing.
For the amount spent, we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.
We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.
There has been pork-barrel politics since there has been politics, but the scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before -- and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation. ...
This is more than pork-barrel -- this is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day.
Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors."
--writer, actor, economist and lawyer Ben Stein
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"For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression ... and his government-expansion-on-steroids, non-stimulus pork bill.
The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate.
The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties -- all at the expense of present and future generations."
--columnist David Limbaugh
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"GOP proposals make a lot more sense [than the Democrats'] because they are not calling for a mountain of spending to further enlarge government.
They want deeper income tax cuts to immediately strengthen family budgets and businesses that produce most jobs. ...
This is the message Republicans are selling: Cut taxes to unleash the power of free enterprise and American productivity to create jobs, and cut federal spending to slow the growth of government, which has weakened the economy.
All this is good as far as it goes, but supply-side conservatives over at the House Republican Study Committee, now chaired by hard-charging Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, think their plan can do even better.
Mr. Price's hardy band of tax-cutters want a permanent 5 percent across-the-board income tax cut. ...
They are calling for the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax on Individuals (AMT), and making all withdrawals from individual retirement accounts tax-and-penalty-free in 2009 to allow hard-pressed taxpayers during the recession free access to their savings.
Plus ... cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent...
This is the kind of tax cut-driven, capital-growth economic recovery plan that is needed to get this $14 trillion economy back on track and lift the global economy along with it.
It's time the network news shows gave the GOP's tax cuts the attention they and the American people deserve. Barack Obama and his economic advisers might even learn a thing or two about economics if they did."
--columnist Donald Lambro
They are socialists because they believe that socialism will improve their conditions, and they hate capitalism because they believe that it harms them.
They are socialists because they are blinded by envy and ignorance."
--economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)
--------------------------------------
"The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the House of Representatives to pass a bill spending $820 billion -- or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate.
Only 10 percent of the 'stimulus' [is] to be spent on 2009. Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ (or both) members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions or other Democrat-controlled unions.
This bill is sent to Congress after President Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long.
According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote.
Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for the president to have read the whole thing.
For the amount spent, we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.
We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.
There has been pork-barrel politics since there has been politics, but the scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before -- and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation. ...
This is more than pork-barrel -- this is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day.
Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors."
--writer, actor, economist and lawyer Ben Stein
---------------------------------------
"For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression ... and his government-expansion-on-steroids, non-stimulus pork bill.
The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate.
The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties -- all at the expense of present and future generations."
--columnist David Limbaugh
--------------------------------------------
"GOP proposals make a lot more sense [than the Democrats'] because they are not calling for a mountain of spending to further enlarge government.
They want deeper income tax cuts to immediately strengthen family budgets and businesses that produce most jobs. ...
This is the message Republicans are selling: Cut taxes to unleash the power of free enterprise and American productivity to create jobs, and cut federal spending to slow the growth of government, which has weakened the economy.
All this is good as far as it goes, but supply-side conservatives over at the House Republican Study Committee, now chaired by hard-charging Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, think their plan can do even better.
Mr. Price's hardy band of tax-cutters want a permanent 5 percent across-the-board income tax cut. ...
They are calling for the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax on Individuals (AMT), and making all withdrawals from individual retirement accounts tax-and-penalty-free in 2009 to allow hard-pressed taxpayers during the recession free access to their savings.
Plus ... cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent...
This is the kind of tax cut-driven, capital-growth economic recovery plan that is needed to get this $14 trillion economy back on track and lift the global economy along with it.
It's time the network news shows gave the GOP's tax cuts the attention they and the American people deserve. Barack Obama and his economic advisers might even learn a thing or two about economics if they did."
--columnist Donald Lambro