Answer to all those Republicans advocating cutting taxes

[cap]

and cutting services.

You don't get something for nothing. Either you cut services or you cut taxes. People come together in government to solve problems that affect the community and to obtain services that they can not afford by themselves.

You benefit from entitlements more than you are willing to acknowledge. Government support for the mortgage industry makes it possible for someone making 30K even in Oceanside, CA to aspire to owning a house someday. Countries that do not support their mortgage industry do not have high rates of home ownership. In other countries, people pay for their house in cash -- their are no mortgages. Remember about 1/3 of this country are not homeowners and never will be. All these renters will be helping you out when you buy your house. You are planning on owning a home someday, arent you? Even if it's not in CA, you are probably going to buy a house somewhere.

Your college education was an entitlement paid with the help of many people who will never go to college. Only 42% of the people in the US have a college degree. There are a lot of people who paid for your school loans and grants as well as all the state and federal funding for community colleges and universities.

So you've got yours and you don't want other people to get theirs. Remember this is a democracy and you are in the minority of people who use these above benefits. So in order to give you yours you must convince most other people who aren't getting any of this to pay for it without getting anything from the government. It's an awfully hard sell. That's why there are entitlement programs.

I question your motives in cutting entitlement programs. I find much of this is really closet racism. In your mind, the beneficieries (sp) of these programs are poor brown-skinned people who are trying to get over on the rest of us. These people are cheating the system. The entitlement programs are mostly frauds to help non-white cheaters. Unfortunately, the facts are quite different -- nationwide, welfare recipients are poor white women with children. But you do not wish to deprive poor white women with kids -- you really want to get at the non-whites. You want poor non-whites to pay for middle class and corporate entitlements without getting a slice of the pie.

Bush and his cronies screwed this state. Davis was left holding the bag. Bush is not helping out the states by sending federal money like every administration has (both republicans and democratic) during times of recession in order to help states balance their budget.

So you don't want to raise taxes. Good. Cut services. There's not much to cut from the government these days. (BTW, you obviously have no qualms with RIFS during times of high unemployment. Adding government workers to the bread lines doesn't bother you in the slightest. There are no jobs for those who get RIF'd. ) We are cutting programs.

Unemployment will rise in the next couple years. The Bush tax cuts are set to go into effect in '05 and '06. More layoffs of government workers and government contractors will occur without any increase in industry employment to help soak them up. Manufacturing and software going overseas regardless of the tax burden. We can't give enough tax breaks to compensate for an 80% cost advantage. As a result, government revenue is set to further decrease.

Somehow the budget gap must be closed. The solution is unfortunately the worst of both worlds: increased taxes and decreased services. The average American is not willing to face this. He also does not want to live like TX or Mississippi -- low tax, low service states. It'll be interesting to watch the cutting of middle class services under Arnold and people's reaction to this when they realize that even an extra 5-10K decrease in taxes will not allow them to purchase the services they are accustomed to on the free market. My fiance and I calculated that it would take us a 300K income in PA to totally "privatize" and have the same middle class benefits that we took for granted growing up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. When I met anti-tax bots in Oregon

(and that was a high percentage of the population, especially outside of Portland), I agreed with them that if we didn't raise taxes, we'd have to cut services, so I challenged them to volunteer to give up a government service that they themselves used. Sometimes they would claim that they used no government services, but I"d say something like, "How about not inspecting restaurants anymore, so that you're gambling on food poisoning every time you eat out? How about not repairing roads? How about canceling hunting and fishing season? How about taking the beat cops off the street?"

This usually put them into freeper meltdown.

[Yavin4]

2. Very Well Done

Ironically, government is the best employer for the middle class in America, especially CA. Take it from someone that lived there and went to graduate school there, private sector employers in CA do not pay middle class level salaries for the most part. Without federal, state, and local government, the middle class would disappear from CA.

[XanaDUer]

3. My faves are the anti-tax-bots

("but it's MYYYYY money!")

who come into the library and yell about lack of books or computers or services, at the same time voting to cut money to libraries!

Or, they need a librarian's help, but don't want to pay a decent salary to a librarian! They think everyone at the library volunteers there.

When I worked at libraries, I told them, "You get what you pay for."

PS-Usually, those who yelled the loudest were the ones who were the most conservative and did not want to pay any taxes.

[BikeDeck]

4. On a federal level

anyone who thinks that with a budget of over $2 Trillion that there is not a lot of waste, fraud, abuse, duplication, triplication, and a wide variety of things that the federal government shouldn't be paying a dime towards are living in fantasy land.

I know, your going to ask for examples.

How about Trent Lott's $375 million amphibious assault ship project for his home district -- despite the Navy's request that older carriers be renovated instead.

$750,000 for the baseball hall of fame

$350,000 for the rock and roll hall of fame

$90,000 for the National Cowgirl museum and hall of fame

$800,000 for the Grammys!

$90,000 for the American film institute

And this is just quick, tiny list. There is hundreds of billions that could be cut from the federal budget.

And how about the absolute waste of money going to Turkey to buy troop support.

[progressivejazz]

5. Your examples don't make your case.

"There is hundreds of billions that could be cut from the federal budget."

Your examples don't add up to hundreds of billions. In fact, except for the Turkey example, they don't even add up to one billion. Show me the hundreds of billions and I'll agree with you.

[BikeDeck]

7. You might have the time

but I do not have the time to wade through the entire Federal Budget.

A measly 5% of the entire federal budget is over $120 billion.

That much waste can be found in the military budget without even trying!

And I picked those several examples because they are clearly things that the federal government should not be spending a single dime on. And there are many thousands of such things.

[dixiechiken]

8. Will this do for an example ... ?

<snip>

The War On Waste
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2002

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

<snip>


Or how about this ... ?


<snip>

Defense finances checked; $1 trillion unaccounted for

Tom Abate
San Francisco Chronicle
May. 19, 2003 12:00 AM

The Defense Department, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, finds itself under intense scrutiny again, only this time because it could not account for more than $1 trillion in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.

<snip>


And while this next example in and of itself isn't "hundreds of billions of dollars," I think we can all agree that this all adds up ...


<snip>

Interview With U.S. Congresswoman Jan Shakowsky, Democrat and Progressive

05/09/02 | Source:BuzzFlash

Then we had a hearing about the 1.7 million credit cards that have been issued to Department of Defense military and civilian personnel. The total credit card bill adds up to $9 billion. And what do we find among those expenditures? Toys, designer bags, breast enhancement surgery, bills to Hooters, gambling bills, exotic trips, so never mind whether or not you think the notion of $8 billion on a missile defense system is an appropriate expenditure. We don't even know where the credit card charges went, and the Inspector General continues to experience significant challenges with oversight and in preventing incorrect payments to contractors.

<snip>

[Salviati]

6. Not to nitpick...

I agree that all the above programs are pretty much a waste of money, but finding "hundreds of billions" in programs like these is pretty unlikely. If we look at a program that costs half a million dollars, then to get to the hundreds of billions of dollars range, we'd have to find 2 million such programs to cut.

What it really comes down to is the fact that these 'wasteful' programs are just chump change in the federal budget and there are 6 programs that take up ~75% of the federal budget. Defense spending, Civilian and Military pensions, Medicare, Medicaid, and intrest on the debt. Any program for cutting the budget without touching one of these programs is more or less just just being pennywise and pound foolish.

a fun site to check out is:
http://www.kowaldesign.com/budget/money.html
You can go through and try to balence the budget yourself, It's really educational to see where the bulk of our tax dollars are actually being spent...

[cap]

9. sorry, your examples are poor ones...

with the exception of Lott's ship project, all of the other projects are helping to subsidize tourism in those cities. One strategy of urban renewal is to subsidize the arts and tourism to bring traffic into older cities. These are advocated by business to bring traffic into the downtown. More people downtown, more spending downtown. Cities need a draw. Again, there is a constituency but not yours. If you were a shopkkeper near these places, you would be upset if they closed. As a good Republican, how can you decry tax breaks and subsidies for business?

Hate to say it about Turkey but if we didn't buy their troops, they wouldn't send them. We need more boots on the ground in Iraq. Our troops are stretched too thin. Read the Stars and Stripes letters to the editor. If we had a good foreign policy, we wouldn't have to buy allies, they might be sending troops for free!

[pdx_prog]

13. any links

To your numbers? Would appreciate some info...

[denverbill]

10. Colorado has been cutting the last couple years.

All Republican state govt last year.

They cut taxes two years ago because we had a surplus, then came the recession and we had a huge deficit. Being Republicans, they didn't even attempt to restore the tax cut. They cut services instead.

They closed down dozens of drivers license offices for one thing. Now, instead of a 1/2 hour wait at the DMV, you can expect a 2-3 hour wait.

Republicans, naturally, are the first to whine about the inconvenience and the 'lazy' govt workers. They'll be the first to bitch about unfilled potholes, early prisoner releases, mentally ill people wandering the streets, etc.

[MassDem4Life]

11. A few Points...

Too much money is spent in government today according to who will vote for the POL in return.

Sen. Robert Byrd is the biggest pork spender in Congress. has been for twenty years. Arlen Spectre is also right up there.

I sit on my towns budget committee, and if we dont have the revenue, we dont spend the money. At town meeting we boldly inform the townspeople that if they vote for the warrant articles presented, their taxes will increase, and the amount of the increases, if they vote for it, so be it. But we work hard to keep our costs down. Few states do that, and the feds could care less.

As for entitlements benefitting everyone, I must differ;

I bought my home with a conventional mortgage, not one underwritten by fanniemae or freddiemac.

I got my college degree, started overseas, by paying cash over a number of years, no student loans, no grants, no gov't subsidies.

My property taxes pay for my police and fire and the roads in my town.

Even when I was unemployed for almost a year in 1992, I didnt collect any welfare, food stamps, etc. I did odd jobs, I washed peoples cars, I sold blood and plasma, I sold roses on the street corner, I did what I had to to keep a roof over my head.

that is called being responsible and being a man.

The sad fact is that much of our tax dollars are wasted. pet projects, demostration projects, increased spending for programs that have consistently failed to achieve what they were intended to.

As for California; Enron did not account for all of the fiscal morass they are currently in. The assembly has increased spending by 37% in the last three years. while revenues only increased by 19%, and the population increased by 16%. The spending and the regulatory burdens are killing the states economy. Business are moving to neighboring states. people are leaving the state, all of which will reduce revenues for this year and next.

Basically the assembly need to stopp writing bad checks, and demanding the taxpayers to cough up more to bail them out.

[cap]

14. even you are not off the government gravy train...

the conventional mortgages are backed up by banks selling to a secondary market which is subsidized by the government. Otherwise you would be paying an extraordinarily high interest rate if you got a mortgage at all. Middle class individuals without government backing are not creditworthy enough for a bank to take a risk on for 20-30 years.

The non-profits in your town that are providing social services not covered by your property taxes are on the government gravy train -- just not your local government gravy train but the federal or state gravy train. Yes, the United Way and the Red Cross aint nothin' but government ho's. If you've ever been in the hospital you've used government services because hospitals are heavily subsidized by govvie grants. Oh yeah, your blood bank that took your blood is regulated by a government ho' to make sure that HIV and hepatitis doesn't spread. Hope your thankful to that ho' for keeping you safe. Try removing the govvie ho' and we end up like China, a completely free and unregulated market in blood where whole villages have HIV due to contaminated needles and transfusions.

If you want to try to eliminate govenment social services, which I think you do, there is some interesting reading in the Providence Journal about the Great Depression. 70% of the population in Pawtucket was unemployed due to the closing of the mills. The Catholic Church did a heroic effort to meet the needs of its parishoners but failed spectacularly. I know this. My family was there. The kids were abused in foster care and made to work as servants. The Providence Journal also carried an article about the orphanage -- it was pretty bleak. RI even tried to bring back the Victorian poor house. Take a read. Heck you're close enough to go visit.


Your college tuition did not cover the total cost of educating you. All colleges will tell you that tuition does not cover the full cost of educating a student. Yup, your alma mater is a ho', too. Sorry about that. Yup, your alma mater is on the gravy train getting money for those labs, and libraries. Most of the research that your professors do is funded by grants from the feds. If they wrote a textbook, it was funded by govvie ho' research money. There is a lot of govvie money in those universities.

As far as Byrd being the biggest porker, it is true. But look where he came from, WV. I grew up outside of WV and let me tell you, if it weren't for Byrd and the feds, there wouldn't be nothin' in WV. Your idea of pork are these people's idea of dinner. They'd be eating the gleanings of the fields without some infusion of federal money. You do not have the amount of grinding rural poverty in MA that they have in WV (I have also spent time in MA). A lot of people are on welfare and a lot are too proud to take it. I'm talking about driving past rural junkyards that people are living in. Schools with 20 year old textbooks. Problems with illiteracy. People with diseases that are easily cured. Their homes are being flooded 'cause of clear cutting the mountain tops. They are taking in all kinds of toxic chemicals because they are so desparate to get some money in. They are hard working people, basically, if given the chance. Kids go in the military just to get away from this place. Men have gone into the mines so that their kids wouldn't have to. And you begrudge them pork. They need roads badly. It is damn expensive to cut through those mountains so that you get a decent enough grade so that trucks can drive through without over-accelerating and going out of control.

Specter wouldn't get elected in PA if he weren't bringing home the pork. That's just the way it is.

Your property taxes cover the roads in your town. Fine well and good. But in order for those roads to be meaningful transportation they have to connect somewhere. The feds do help out with grants in areas that don't have money just so that the transportation network makes sense and isn't held up by some poorly placed locality that can't afford to spend money on their road. Also, your roads connect back to state and federal highway system. Your roads benefit from govvie R&D that has gone into setting standards for transportation safety and by govvie certification of civil engineers.

As your moniker suggests, you are pro-life. Well, a lot of tax dollars are now going into abstinence programs. The pregnancy crisis centers are on the govvie take, too. All the faith-based programs are govvie money in our churches. Hope you are calling your senator and asking for these programs to be stopped. I am expecting that you have waited until you are ready to have kids before you have sex. All the contraceptive manufacturers are on the govvie take for the R&D and testing necessary for safe contraception. Alas, the government is even in your bedroom.

Not quite, the go-itt-alone, self-sufficient person that you thought you were. I don't think you really minded benefiting from these folks on the govvie gravy train. You got yours and you just don't want to pay for any one else's -- true Republican style.

Remember, God does punish the stingy with a place in hell; he doesn't punish the overly generous.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. The problem is...

no one wants to hear that message. No one wants to pay taxes, and no one wants their pet programs to be cut. Everyone's else's programs are waste.

In sales, one of the first things you learn is that rational reasons for spending money are the hardest to get across. You have to get someone to want something-- feel the need, and that is all too often irrational.

Someone who decides he "needs" a $60,000 SUV will just as likely complain about a 50 cent increase on his phone bill or a $2 dollar tax increase. He will certainly complain about the sales tax on that truck. The real need for the truck is to show it off, and he can't show off his phone bill. Or what his taxes bought.

The case for paying taxes has not been made properly, and probably never will be in this country. The sales pitch from the beginning has been that all taxes are bad. Hell, the American Revolution was simply a tax revolt, and we haven't changed much since then.

[soupkitchen]

15. Taxes are the lubrication of the economic engine

Would you rather make $100,000 grand and pay $35,000 in taxes or make $10,000 tax free?