Fiting the Right, Again. An AOL News story, "US Default on Debt Could Be Disastrous Choice for Economy", brought out a lot of the Radical Right propagandists who swarm AOL comments areas, tho not the worst of the lot. The issue was apparently a little too technical for some. But there was a lot of drivel posted there anyway, so I spent several hours trying to reach casual readers with the truth. I present below 105 substantive comments (not just those that told people to stop repeating posts, and such), comprising about 5,680 words on a wide range of political and economic topics. I provide links to websites that other Liberals may find useful in bolstering their own argumentation against the Radical Right.

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Put replies to a comment AT that comment. And cut the crap about the rich being our generous benefactors. They are useless PARASITES.
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Stop talking nonsense. Credit is an integral part of all major economies, and always has been. The way to cut debt is to increase revenues, and the way to do that is SOAK THE USELESS, PARASITIC RICH.
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The flat tax is REGRESSIVE and benefits ONLY the rich.
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Kindly cut the anti-Moslem crap. You CANNOT restrict the relgious rights of Moslems -- or Jews, Christians, atheists, etc. -- thanks to the First Amendment. Nor can you restrict the freedom of association, of citizens to form unions. There is an easier solution to the problem of exported jobs: forbid corporations that export jobs from doing business of any kind in the United States.
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Obama wanted to raise taxes on the rich, but Republicans won't permit that. So exactly WHO is putting debt onto your children's and grandchildren's backs?
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People in many of the countries we send a PITTANCE of foreign aid are ACTUALLY starving, and you want them to die. Foreign aid is much less than 1% of our budget. The issue is not that we can't afford to do everything we need, as a civilization, to do. It is that the rich won't let us tax them. Tell the rich they can pay their taxes or face a new American Revolution, with a Rei[g]n of Terror against the rich like France's Revolution.
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Why should there be any cap on income subject to Social Security tax? Most people pay SS on every dollar they make. Everyone should. As for who gets SS and Medicare, only people who need it should get it. The rich don't need SS nor Medicare, but they curiously don't mind getting Government "welfare" they don't need. End the cap and means-test Social Security and Medicare, and SS will finally be able to pay people an amount they can live on without desperate measures.
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Some people are still pushing the old "trickle down" b.s. NO, the rich do NOT provide the jobs. CORPORATIONS provide the bulk of jobs, and small businesses, none of which makes anyone rich. Corporations collect SMALL amounts from many, many people. That is how they fund their operations. They do not collect HUGE amounts from tiny numbers of people. The rich are USELESS, and fully dispensable.
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The Republican Party appeals only to a minority, but midterm elections draw only a minority of voters. Presidential elections bring out the majority. Compulsory voting would bring out almost everybody, and then we'd know what the people really want.
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Kindly stop talking nonsense. NO responsible person -- on Earth -- wants the U.S. to default.
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Alas, yes, the Government does need to borrow money to do some things. It's just like the individual needing to borrow for manjor purchases. Almost NOBODY can afford to buy a house for cash.
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That was in response to a Bush Administration that cut taxes on the rich and ran two wars on credit, doubling the national debt. He was right. And he is right now in believing we must raise taxes on the rich. But the rich refuse to have their taxes paid, and have sold fools a bill of voodoo-economics, "trickle-down" b.s. to 'justify' their obscene wealth and parasitic uselessness.
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The U.S. Government has not in any way benefited from the export of jobs. Obama tried to close the loophole that permitted export of jobs, but Republicans BLOCKED that -- but curiously are not held responsible for the continued export of jobs that they WANT and expedite.
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Make up your mind: do you want to destroy Social Security and Medicare or preserve it? Oil from the ground is a technology of the past that can be done away with, just as we did away with oil from whales. The way to a decent future is by converting to renewable energy, which can power EVERYTHING, and by raising taxes on the useless rich. Any budget has two elements: income and outgo. Cutting spending is NOT necessary is you increase revenues, by raising taxes on the useless rich. We don't have to force the poor and middle class to sacrifice. The rich can pay HUGELY higher taxes without sacrificing at all.
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The President's overall approval rating in the REAL world, not your fevered Radical Right imagination, is 47%. The President does NOT run the country, only the Executive Branch of the Government, which is much, much smaller than the country. Most people who read comments on AOL with any regularity know that there is a coterie of a few dozen Radical Rightists who post HUNDREDS of very short, anti-Obama comments on stories selected by that coterie for propagandistic swarming. But they are still only a few dozen Radical Rightists, and do NOT speak for the Nation.
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You have no better manners than sense. The rich make essentially NO jobs. The middle class create small business, which employs a very large portion of the population, and corporations, which raise small amounts of money from very large numbers of people, create the rest. You know nothing about economics if you think the rich make the jobs. They do not. That is "trickle-down" propaganda.
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No, the answer is not to starve the poor, impoverish the middle class, and ravage the economy thru unwise and unnecessary cuts, but to increase revenues by raising taxes on the rich back to the levels of 1985.
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Individuals and the Federal Government cannot be compared. You cannot, for instance, raise your income any time you want simply by raising taxes on the rich. Nor can you print money.
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Yes, by all means let us sta[r]ve the children of welfare moms to death! Welfare was reformed under Clinton. Deal with it.
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Not funny. Criminals NEVER report their income from illegal activities, so will NEVER pay their fair share. And the Fair Tax is no such thing.
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You're talking irresponsible, antisocial nonsense. NOTHING in Obama's program is Socialist. If you don't understand something, don't talk about it.
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That's easy to say if you have lots of money. But the free traders have impoverished so many Americans that they can't afford U.S.-made goods. They'd have to buy American if we sealed our borders against unfair competition, but the free traders keep pretending that free trade makes us all richer, whereas it actually makes all but the rich poorer.
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As Kevin points out, Social Security is not a bank account against which we draw but an ENTITLEMENT to receive benefits. That's that evil word that Republicans and Tea Partiers want you to be indignant about, as tho being entitled to something is bad.
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That some conspiracies may not be real does not mean that there are NO conspiracies. Free trade is a conspiracy openly conducted in international agreements. A tax code that favors the rich and destroys the middle class is a conspiracy of legislators who have somehow persuaded economically "innocent" (naive, ignorant) people that trickle-down WORKS! It does not. Calling someone names does not in any way validate your arguments.
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Of COURSE it's a revenue problem. Have you no comprehension of the way a budget works? Income vs. outgo. Too little income can be balanced by EITHER cutting outgo or increasing income. The Radical Right wants people to think that we cannot possibly increase income because it is impossible to raise taxes on the rich. No, it's really not.
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The only class warfare and redistribution that has been going on in this country for a generation is warfare AGAINST the middle and lower classes BY the rich, and redistribution of wealth UP from the poor and middle class to the rich. When people in general finally get that thru their heads, there will be hell to pay. Not only will taxes on the rich DOUBLE or TRIPLE, but a lot of rich people will consider themselves very lucky if they are not dealt with as the French Revolution dealt with France's evil rich.
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The United States is NOT a corporation, and the bulk of shares in the economy are owned NOT by the rich but by pension funds, mutual funds, etc. Yes, the rich would LOVE to have thousands of times as many votes for public office as the poor, but we're not going to let your implied policy ever be implemented. Let's try the "fair tax" scheme, except make it a "fair income" approach, in which everybody is paid the same, with no more variation than in lifespan. No one lives thousands of years, so why should they make thousands of times as much as other people? No one is thousands of times smarter than the average person, or thousands of times healthier, taller, etc., etc., etc. ONLY in wealth do we have these insane discrepancies. There is absolutely no way in logic to justify it, esp. since many of the activities that make a few people obscenely rich have NO social utility. Does a stockbroker churning accounts provide any value to society? Does a multimillionaire athlete really provide any value to society? NO! If you play a child's game, shouldn't you make what a child makes? Equal pay for equal people! That is not one whit more bizarre a concept than allowing some people to make tens of thousands of times as much money as others.
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You contradict yourself, as you must when you talk economic nonsense. There are two sides to a budget equation, income and outflow. Alter one beyond the other, and there is an imbalance. The Republicans keep reducing taxes on the rich, so of course we always have ever less money to spend. Now Ryan wants to lower taxes on the rich again, and pretends that that will somehow make it easier to pay for things!
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That is an astoundingly dishonest representation of the debt situation. Regan TRIPLED the national debt, and Bush I added another third, so the Reagan-Bush years QUADRUPLED the national debt. Bush II DOUBLED that. Obama has added at most $3T to what was already a national debt of well over $10T. (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm) So you just LIED, baldfaced, brazenly LIED about the national debt. Do you think that people can't find the Treasury website to SEE that you lied?
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Stop the lies. The poor DO pay taxes, just not income taxes. They pay excise taxes, Federal utility taxes on telephone service, etc. They pay user fees of various sorts, and sales taxes to states and localities, property taxes directly or thru their rent, and on, and on, and on. The Fair Tax is a con of the foolish by the rich, who want to keep ever more of "their" money and push ever more of the costs of Government off on the poor and middle class. And NOBODY needs to read an entire book about that scam. Summaries in places like Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_tax) make plain that it is an intended scam upon the stupid.
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I know it is a common "understanding" of the Radical Right that people in general are conning the system, but that's hogwash. If you think the poor live so well, why don't you just give away your "dolce vita" and live on what the Government provides?
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DRIVEL. It is not things tacked onto the "defense" (war) bills in the Bush years that DOUBLED the national debt, but the wars and other expenses of the Bush budgets that he REFUSED to pay for with taxes on the rich.
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No, Obama wants to RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH, which would fix the budget problem very, very handily, and pay DOWN the national debt. The Republicans want us to think it is IMPOSSIBLE to raise taxes on the rich. And why, exactly, would that be?
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So you'd be fine if the economy collapsed entirely [because we don't raise the debt ceiling], and your job was one of the millions and millions lost, and you retirement account lost 70% of its value, eh?
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Nonsense. Pure, simpleminded, Radical Right nonsense. We don't need Government to do anything. The rich will take care of us! The free market will take care of us all, and build the bridges, repair the roads, pay the soldiers, buy the fighter jets and aircraft carriers, and do everything else the Government does.
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Why do you respond to my point about Republicans by talking about "the far left"? Are you saying that the Republicans are "far right"? Midterm elections do NOT represents majority opinion, because only a minority votes. If you really want to know how people feel, join with me in demanding compulsory voting, so EVERYBODY votes.
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"A plague on both your houses" answers nothing. Pls provide useful suggestions.
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"Blame the messenger" -- very interesting 'thinking'. We can RAISE revenue by RAISING taxes on the rich. We do NOT have to cut necessary spending. We do not have to make the poor and middle class "sacrifice", at all. The rich would sacrifice NOTHING -- except perhaps their 14th house, 20th car, 2d yacht, 40th Armani suit or 1,400th pair of shoes -- if we DOUBLED taxes on them, even TRIPLED their tax.
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Nonsense. You show no understanding of what money does, nor how it works. Of COURSE it's just paper and ink (or round bits of metal). But gold is only pretty yellow metal. IT has no intrinsic value except for what it can be used for (in electronics or jewelry, for instance). And what would take the place of Congress and the President? Stop talking resentment-derived foolishness.
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No, we should be thinking at least equally of not taking in less than we need to spend, so tax increases on the RICH must be in the mix. We don't need to starve the poor and elderly, or make it impossible for the middle class and poor to send their kids to college. All we have to do is TAX THE RICH.
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So we don't need lawyers to write laws? Quite so, if we hire lawyers we can trust to write the laws to conform to what the legislatures intend. But you say we can't trust lawyers. Doesn't that mean we can't trust laws? Pls spare us anarchist drivel.
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"Nationalization" is a generic term for what has happened in a great many places. Railroads and subways failed? Localities and states took them over, because as a society we decided we needed transportation. There are state-owned bus lines, electric companies, etc., that work just fine.
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Pls provide a URL to a reputable source that states how much other countries owe us, for what reason, so we might evaluate whether pressing them on those debts would make any significant impact on our current budgetary problems.
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Just tax the rich and we'll be rolling in dough.
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Our freedoms are largely intact. It is our economy and socioeconomic justice, such as equitable distribution of wealth, that are in tatters.
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Drivel. How many illegals do you imagine are receiving U.S. Government benefits? I've got news for you: the bulk of illegals HIDE from the Government; they do not stand in line at Government offices waiting to apply for benefits. They don't even call the police when they're robbed. You're talking nonsense when you exaggerate the toll of illegals on Government expenditures. As for starving the children of welfare mothers, do you really want children to die? I don't. Welfare was already reformed under Clinton, so I suspect you absolutely misstate the law as to welfare benefits.
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You grossly overstate the expense of U.S. participation in various wars and police actions. Do you REALLY think that we will be safe if the whole remainder of this planet descends into violence? Isolationism in the Thirties did not stop the rise of Nazism and Japanese militarism. But you don't learn from history. Sensible people do not ignore the dangers that chaos outside our borders can present to US.
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What exactly do you mean by programs that haven't worked? Do you mean social welfare programs that kept millions of people from dying of starvation -- or rising in armed revolution? How about Pell Grants, which Republicans want to cut, so poor and middle class kids will not be able to go to college? You see how things are; you don't see how much worse they would be if we hadn't spent money on the programs you deplore.
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Pls cite a URL to reputable media reports about your assertions about bailouts of union pension funds. How much money do you think our elections cost? The 2008 Presidential and Congressional election cost $5.3 BILLION (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/23/cost-of-2008-election-cycle-53-billion/). $27.4 millionn doesn't seem like very much now, does it?
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Putting things into quotation marks does not make them quotes. You need to CITE to reputable sources for all your assertions -- the great preponderance of which are totally b.s. fabrications by the Radical Right.
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The schools are doing very well, by and large. The mass failure of American education is a Radical Right LIE. Watch "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and see how well our kids are doing. The problems the U.S. has to overcome that other countries we are compared to do not include a very large number of immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, and a system that wants to believe that everyone is college material, so must receive academic education, whereas many other countries shunt the less gift into vocational programs -- which we could perfectly well do, and benefit from.
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U.S. medical and nursing education are top-notch. There just aren't enuf people entering nursing schools here to supply the demand. But yes, we need to END FREE TRADE and only selectively allow in goods and services that actually serve our national interests. We must stop worshipping at the Radical Right's altar to free trade. It is not a religion; it is a political program based on false premises and sold to the people by lies.
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I'm afraid your approach to the world is more than a little simplistic. What have our bases in Europe accomplished? They've kept Europe from engaging in another fratricidal general war for 66 years. Do you really think that is worht nothing? The last two general European wars drew us in, and killed over half a million Americans. As for the current wars, we can certainly withdraw from Iraq, which Obama pledged to do but has refused to live up to. But we must be on the side of democracy in the Arab world.
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Kindly tell us what can be cut without hurting vulnerable people.
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I don't recall any expenditure of billions to secure any countries borders, except to the extent we are trying to keep the Taliban from crossing back into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Do you FAVOR a return of the Taliban to control of Afghanistan, and a return of training camps for Al-Qaeda to Afghanistan? I don't.
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We don't need to fill the Constitution with unnecessary amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment already says that everyone must have equal protection of the laws. And the wording of the amendment you propose is moronic, because it would ban Congress from setting Congressional pay unless it sets everybody's pay!
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The real question to ask is why don't we have Government funding of Congressional elections, as would REMOVE money from the equation and let members of both houses tend to the people's business without having to raise thousands of dollars of campaign contributions every day. As for the two-party system, no, it plainly does not work, but the two parties labor mightily to persuade people that there is no alterantive, and people buy the lie that a vote for a third party is a vote wasted.
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The issue was NOT helping people buy a house. It was in not BANNING the bait-and-switch practice of "adjustable rate mortgages". The people who bought these houses on the original terms for the most part COULD afford their original mortgage. It was only when the con artists in banking CHANGED the terms and raised the payments that the poorer people could not cover the HIGHER costs. Broad home ownership has many societal values, and is something that social policy should encourage.
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You are very confused. YOU try living on food stamps, and the low income needed to qualify for food stamps, you nasty, petty-jealous person. NO, not everybody has to sacrifice. The rich aren't sacrificing at all, and they WOULDN'T sacrifice if we TRIPLED their taxes.
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No, what you propose is not common sense, but nonsense. Foreign aid is much less than 1% of our budget, and ending it would cause some people to DIE of starvation. The world NEEDS police, or it will descend into very widespread violence that might DESTROY us. Illegal immigration should end, of course, but it has already dropped starkly because of the economy. And you propose to cut Government workers' "perks"? Like what? Health insurance? vacation days? sick days? You want Government workers to live miserable lives, and expect them to work hard for you? Are you out of your mind?
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You know nothing about economics, and everything you say rises from a resentment of other people. Sales taxes are REGRESSIVE. They invariably hurt the poor and middle class more than the rich. The "mundane chores" of congressional staffers include helping people get the veterans benefits, solve immigration problems, get Pell grants and apply for other Federal programs, read those 1,000-page bills, read email and letters from constituents, answer fone calls from constituents (700,000 per Congressional district, MILLIONS per Senator in big states). As for helping with disasters, you show again your evil selfishness. I hope someday soon YOU are the victim of a disaster, and NOBODY helps you in any way. If you are trapped under a fallen tree, get out by yourself; if you are swept away in a flood, drown!
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You're talking trivial drivel (drivia?). Do you REALLY think it would be in our interest to have another Korean War, which killed 37,000 Americans? As for the illegal alien problem, it is grotesquely overstated, and the violence is easily solved by punishing U.S. drug USERS, up to and including by DEATH if they refuse to stop using the drugs that are ravaging Mexico. 28,000 Mexicans have died because of U.S. drug users, so which country should be resenting which?
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$181 billion of the "bailout" has already been repaid. Yes, the TARP was redirected away from what it was supposed to have done, and perhaps Paulson and Bush need to be brought up on charges, but a lot of economists think it nonetheless achieved most of what it was designed to do.
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Stop exaggerating the trivial, nearly infinitesimal amount we give in foreign aid, or that a tiny fraction of illegal aliens defraud the system of. There is absolutely no need to be meanspirited toward Americans in need. Just tax the rich at pre-1986 rates and we will have enuf money to do everything we should be doing AND pay OFF the national debt.
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Why do you not acknowledge that this is an ARTIFICIAL crisis due only to our refusal to tax the RICH at rates they could easily afford?
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Please do not attempt to condescend to me. I am assuredly your VAST superior, intellectually and in every other significant way, for purposes of discussions of public policy. Nationalize: "to put (an industry, resources, etc) under state control or ownership" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nationalize). State: "the body politic as organized for civil rule and government" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/state). Socialism: "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism). Many states and localities own various things, as I said, like bus lines and subway systems. They took them over NONdogmatically, as a matter of PRACTICALITY, not some grand scheme to change the fundamental nature of society. When you know nothing, say nothing. And do not call your superiors names.
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Trivia, meanspirited and worthless. So the President should lose hours and hours trying to get to the places he needs to go on the people's business, eh? Shut up. I want the President working, not waiting in airline terminals for delayed commercial flites. Stop begrudging members of Congress a decent salary. YOU couldn't do their job, and they work for hundreds of thousands of people. They deserve to be paid well.
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Bankruptcy is a GOVERNMENT BENEFIT. The bankruptcy of an individual or corporation does not destroy the world financial system, nor throw millions of people out of work. The taxpayers who can get us out of this mess are the RICH. Just raise taxes on the rich and the problem will be solved.
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Exactly how large a portion of our budget do you think goes to foreign aid? 20%, 40%? Try less than 1%. Now try making some sense.
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warren, the United States is not a military empire. We have a number of alliances of which we are a crucial member. We have NO colonies except tiny insular territories all of which should be brought into the Union as states or parts of existing states. We are involved in two wars and one police action at present. One war can be exited safely right now: Iraq. The Libyan police action, shared by our ALLIES in NATO, is temporary.
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I guess you never heard of a little thing called the BP oil spill. We did NOT spend billions on Brazil; a Government-directed bank that places PRIVATE moneys LENT money to Petrobras, which it will have to pay back WITH INTEREST. Green energy is the way to go. Stop looking backward. Look to the future.
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You couldn't do Obama's job for three days without collapsing in exhaustion.
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If you don't know how to quote, don't EVER quote. As for your unsupported and absolutely wrong assertions of "unequaled economic growth and revenues" Bush DOUBLED the national debt, and the "unequaled economic growth" was ALL in "bubbles" -- that burst.
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So there should be no central bank, eh? Should there be no banks at all? That makes about as much sense as getting rid of the Fed.
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The Federal Reserve did NOT require a Constitutional amendment, and there were exactly two Constitutional amendments proposed during Wilson's tenure: the 18th (Prohibition) and 19th (women's suffrage). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
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Nonsense [outlaw political parties], and unconstitutional infringement of the right of free association. We have nonpartisan local elections, and have absolutely no idea what anybody stands for in most elections.
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Your history is very selective. Remember a little place called EUROPE, which used to have general wars at least once a generation? Now Europe hasn't had a general war in 66 years. Remember Latin America, which used to have almost nothing but dictatorships? Now it has almost nothing but democracies. And U.S. intervention is what brought about those changes.
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You can't have a small government when you have a huge population, huge territory, and huge corporations.
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Let me explain something you need to know: NOBODY can see into the future. And NO President would let gas prices get that high. To the extent that gas prices do rise to oppressive levels, people start thinking SERIOUSLY about alternative fuels, and migrate to use of alternative fuels, which brings DOWN the cost of gas by forces of price competition.
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I have a better idea [than instituting the "Fair Tax"]: make advocating the REGRESSIVE "Fair Tax" punishable by death.
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You're talking complete nonsense. Of COURSE there's an easy solution: tax the rich at pre-1986 rates, and EXECUTE tax evaders.
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Did it ever occur to you that the people are disgusted with the way the Republicans are preventing the Nation from doing anything to solve its problems?
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Where do people get these insanely naive ideas? Commodities markets, and esp. futures markets, are necessary, but need to be much better regulated. What we CAN outlaw is the sale of futures contracts. If you decide you don't want to take delivery of a commodity, cancel the contract and let the provider of the commodity draw up a contract with another buyer. No one should make money just for holding a contract. There is NO public benefit to that. As to the Fed, we need a central bank. That is not dispensable.
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Pls provide an alternative to active U.S. engagement to prevent criminality and violence from consuming the world.
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You just MADE THAT UP! [Illegal aliens receive $338.3 billion a year.] There is NO such toll of illegal aliens, and you cannot provide a URL to ANY reputable news organization to back up that FABRICATED statistic.
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Fair-minded readers can see the insane $338.3B claim EXPLODED at http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/.
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The Government is so irresponsible because Republicans won't let us tax the rich. It's like your bank refusing to let you get a better-paying job.
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No, Republicans are unrealistic and must be stopped. You can't keep cutting taxes and expecting revenues to RISE. It doesn't work that way. You cut taxes, you cut revenues.
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[Re shutting the government down:] Who cares if we have 27% unemployment and hordes of desperate people in the streets ready for blood?
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Reagan INSTITUTED the tax code we have today, with the "Tax Reform Act of 1986"! What are you talking about? The only fair tax is a steeply progressive income tax that not only raises revenue but also reduces the disparities in wealth between rich and poor. That's not what you mean tho, is it? You HATE fairness, and want the rich to live a thousand times better than the poor. Why? I'll bet you're not yourself rich, so why do you spew their propaganda?
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No, the solution is to RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH. Government is NOT hugely too big. The only cuts to government programs should be welfare for the RICH, including rich corporations that pay no tax, and interference in education, a state responsibility.
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What decent people want is for taxes to be an equal BURDEN on the rich as on the rest of us. The poor and middle class are told they must sacrifice, but the rich are NEVER t sacrifice. If you don't understand that, you need to stop pretending yourself rich and realize that you could be RUINED in a single day, by an accident, a fire, a crime, but the rich could not.
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And so, if Communist China goes to war against us, and we cannot fite that war because we don't have the money, you would just be in favor of Communist China taking over the United States and leaving your life to the tender mercies of the Butchers of Beijing, eh? No debt limit can be hard and fast, without reference to inflation or national emergency.
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Studies show that lotteries are an effective tax on the poor. Let us instead tax the RICH what they used to pay without suffering, pre-1986.
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No on both counts. There were only two Constitutional amendments initiated during Wilson's Presidency, and he had nothing to do with them: Prohibition and women's suffrage. The creation of the Federal Reserve was by ordinary legislation.
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North America is not a political entity, and not a customs union, nor monetary union. We could of course bring Canada and Mexico into the Union as a number of states, but that would require no change in the name of the national currency.
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Your plan to make life miserable for Federal employees would save perhaps 1% of the budget, and I don't want Federal employees ANGRY at us, do you? You have no solutions, just resentments.
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What interesting fiction you write. No, not that interesting after all. We can imagine why a Communist Chinese general would want to attack the United States (and the Pentagon has known about their animus for many years, and has contingency plans for war against China), but the politicians in China's government do NOT want the U.S. to collapse, in large part because they have a lot invested here. We can get out of debt just by raising taxes on the rich. When he thought of running for President years back, Donald Trump said the rich are now SO rich that a ONE-YEAR surcharge that they could easily afford could pay OFF the national debt at the time. Now it might take two or three years, but we could do it easily, without any real "sacrifice" by the rich.
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We don't have to continue on that track, tho. We need merely raise taxes on the RICH. It CAN be done. Only delusional thinking says we can't.
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http://able2know.org/topic/162060-1 gives some information. It's very hard to find out what, if anything, then happened to that attempt to end tax provisions that encouraged the export of jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce OPPOSED closing those loopholes. Nice bunch of traitors, eh?
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Congressional pay and perks are TRIVIA. Maybe YOU don't think the people who work for you need to be of high quality, and well compensated, but I do.
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You plainly do not understand how taxation works. Income taxes are deducted EVERY PAY PERIOD for people on a payroll, and paid QUARTERLY by self-employed individuals, and perhaps by corporations as well. So there would be an IMMEDIATE boost to revenues at the effective date of the legislation.
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NO, small business owners are NOT rich. Almost NO small business gives its owner $250,000 or more in profit. You have bought the lie. "In 2008, the average nonfarm sole proprietorship had revenues of only $58,256 and net income of only $11,696." (http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/11/how-much-money-do-small-business-owners-make.html) That's why they are called "small" businesses. Larger 'small businesses' incorporate, and pay taxes at corporate rates, not personal rates.
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And what exactly do you think the Government spends FOR? For the people, for the Nation, not for the people in charge. They aren't getting $3.7 trillion a year. Grow up.
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So you favor ending U.S. aid to Israel? Good. But what about pro-democracy movements in Arab countries? Should we just let them be crushed by brutal dictators? France didn't let the British do that to us, so we shouldn't let Qaddafi, Assad, and others do that to their own people either.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,450 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:05 PM