“We have truly entered the world of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a Congressional subcommittee to be denounced on nationwide television for not paying more,” Thomas Sowell writes for Real Clear Politics.
“Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to ‘a worrisome federal deficit,’ according to Senator Carl Levin — one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit than any private citizen has,” Sowell writes. “Because of ‘gimmicks’ used by businesses to reduce their taxes, Senator Levin said, ‘children across the country won’t get early education from Head Start. Needy seniors will go without meals. Fighter jets sit idle on tarmacs because our military lacks the funding to keep pilots trained.'”
“The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven’t,” Sowell writes. “Someone once said, ‘any government that is powerful enough to protect citizens against predators is also powerful enough to become a predator itself.’ And dictatorial in the process. No American government can take away all our freedoms at one time. But a slow and steady erosion of freedom can accomplish the same thing on the installment plan. We have already gone too far down that road. F.A. Hayek called it ‘the road to serfdom.’ How far we continue down that road depends on whether we keep our eye on the ball — freedom — or allow ourselves to be distracted by predatory demagogues like Senator Carl Levin.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Chris Renaldi” for the heads up.]
Thomas Sowell is a very deliberate and logical thinker, plus a great writer. Most people would do well to read some of his books.
Yes. Tim should send Congress a bill for his time; those clowns blather to kill time all the time, for the real world time is money.
He still alive?
Body only, his brain died about three decades back.
Big-spending LIBERALS?
The republican misguided and totally wasteful invasion of Iraq added $2 TRILLION to the deficit!
farkas, when you start 4th grade in the fall, they’ll teach you in history class what really happened. (To give you a hint, everybody voted for it and believed it was necessary, not just Republicans.) For now, lay off the MSNBC so that your brain can recover.
Well hell, hitler had everyone “voting” to kill the jews. Does that make his intent and lies any more justified?
What an intellectually bankrupt way to excuse bush and his illegal war, bankrupting of the treasury and his candidacy for the worst president and idiot ever elected to office.
Sheesh.
Watch and learn:
and now, quit pretending that you can blame the war on only one brand of the Ruling Party.
-jcr
I blame it on the president, george bush. Why is moral relativism so important to you rwnj now. Before it was all clear cut. Why suddenly is nuance a virtue. Why suddenly is “you gotta understand” the circumstances important.
bush, lied us into an illegal war, pure and simple. useful idiots denigrated anyone that opposed that illegal war. those useful idiots probably included you.
The war was illegal and a mistake and any thinking individual or pawn of the military/industrial/prison complex could see that. Just because you try to assuage your guilt by claiming that “the democrats” were for it to does not lessen the guilt of the driving force behind it.
“The war was illegal and a mistake and any thinking individual or pawn of the military/industrial/prison complex could see that.”
correction:
The war was illegal and a mistake and any thinking individual or someone not a pawn of the military/industrial/prison complex could see that.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, sparky. I’m a hard-line Libertarian.. I’m just making sure that you can’t pretend that your side of the Ruling Party is blameless.
-jcr
The buck stops where? bush set foreign policy. We went to war because of bush. The UN, the controlling body, refused to go willy-nilly into invading Iraq.
A War Criminal is a War Criminal no matter what the political party.
Just don’t pretend that there was justification for the Act of Agression that was the Iraq war.
Sadam DID have weapons of mass destruction and he had already used them. If you could ask thousands of dead Kruds they’d tell you:
—
It is estimated that chemical weapons were used on approximately 40 Kurdish villages, with the largest of these attacks occurring on March 16, 1988 against the Kurdish town of Halabja. Beginning in the morning on March 16, 1988 and continuing all night, the Iraqis rained down volley after volley of bombs filled with a deadly mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents on Halabja. Immediate effects of the chemicals included blindness, vomiting, blisters, convulsions, and asphyxiation. Approximately 5,000 women, men, and children died within days of the attacks. Long-term effects included permanent blindness, cancer, and birth defects. An estimated 10,000 lived, but live daily with the disfigurement and sicknesses from the chemical weapons.
—
This man obviously needed to be go. His personality wasn’t improving to a more agreeable condition as time went on.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm
I realize critical thinking and analysis isn’t your strong suite. But I am going to break this down for you.
Saddam had and used chemical weapons a DECADE before we Unilaterally attacked and invaded Iraq. The US helped him get them. Remember he was an enemy of Iran and well, we Americans are an opportunistic, fickle bunch. Enemy of my enemy, bs…
If he had them, when Bush lied and my brothers died, why didn’t we find them in the decade we were there?
We had Air superiority, we had the most advanced recon, satellites, UAV’s, everything we had was “looking” yet nothing was found. This means one of two things: A. There was nothing to find. B. Our military is grossly incompetent. Having served in that military, in the sand, looking, let me answer it for you. THERE WERE NO WMD”S when we invaded Iraq. PERIOD.
That’s opinion, not necessarily truth. We will never know if they were hidden well, or what went on. I won’t say it’s impossible for you to be right, but you can’t state it as absolute truth either.
And as for your “brothers,” FYI, my nephew is STILL out there.
“I realize critical thinking and analysis isn’t your strong suite. But I am going to break this down for you.”
And typical intelligence insulting Liberal reply. If we don’t see it the Liberal way, it must be because we don’t possess your superior intelligence.
Since there is no reply button on your response, I will respond to my post to keep it inline.
1. yes, it was a mean-spirited attack on your intelligence, no it had nothing to do with liberalism. Just contempt for the unreasonable belief that there are WMD’s just lying around waiting for us to find them when clearly, there are not. We found scud missiles, tanks, and fighter jets completely buried in sand in the desert quite easily, but somehow we could never find the sarin and vx gas missiles and artillery shells? No mustard gas, NOTHING. We found Saddam hiding in a 2 foot wide hole in the ground, but we did not find WMD’s? Give me a break, how gullible do you have to be to continue to believe these LIES?
2. I say brothers, because I am a decorated veteran of the United States Marine Corps, I have been to war with my band of brothers. I also have nephews in the corps, the Navy, and the Air Force deployed around the world right now. I also have a niece going to the Naval Academy. My parents served as did theirs before them.
Put it in quotes all you like, the FACT remains: Bush lied, my brothers died. I have friends who were here one minute, gone the next thanks to Bush’s lies.
They didn’t die heroic, legendary deaths for the greater good of America, they died in a sandy shit-hole for no good reason at all. Worse yet, they died while chicken hawks like you were back in the cozy states beating the drums of war to feed your twisted bloodlust. We had no business in Iraq then or now.
That is your opinion. In my opinion, it was proven he HAD WMD’s, which likely means he had the power and the ability to have them AGAIN. Nor did he show any hesitation to use them. I he used them on the Kurds, he’d certainly use them on anyone else.
He was an evil man but not a stupid one. He had the whole country by the short hairs and could have hid just about anything he desired to hide, or destroyed anything he didn’t want found.
Even if you are right and he didn’t have them at that specific time, he once did, and used them always left the door open for them to be redeveloped and used again in the future if he so deemed necessary. He was a man that needed to go. Your “brothers” did not die in vain to aid the world in taking this man out of power and ridding the world of another piece of shit. Thank you to you for serving and them. And BTW, my family also has a military background.
By the time Bush was invading, the CIA, British Intelligence, Israeli Intelligence, and the UN (which had inspectors all over Iraq) had all concluded that it was unlikely that Iraq had existing WMD programs or stockpiles.
By the time of the invasion, many of the pillars of “proof” that Bush was using -aluminum tubes, yellowcake in Nigeria, mobile labs – had been disproven.
Blah, blah, blah. The reality and legal situation was that Iraq was in compliance with existing UN resolutions.
There was NO legal justification for committing the crime of aggression which was the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Don’t whine about pre-1990. Don’t snivel that Hussein was a bad guy.
Glad you reminded me not to count any of that silly old pre-1990 stuff. After all, even though he gassed thousands of his own people back then, he’s surely a changed man after that—he probably didn’t mean to do it, just had a bad day and all. II must have missed his profuse apology and regret speech for all the dead and suffering and his promise to never do such a thing again. I guess Hussein saw the error of his ways, and put on his Mr. Nice Guy happy face after that. I should have invited him over for Tea in 2001.
Well, the Law, US and International, is the law.
So I guess you are saying that since we can ignore International Law, we should also ignore the violations of the puppet dictators we have propped up all these years? I’m trying to wrap my head around your rigid stance towards Iraq and your flexible stance towards us. It’s alright for us to be aholes but not Iraq?
The fact is Iraq was close to satisfying the UN resolutions in force. This would have ended the no fly zone and allowed Iraq free access to world markets. We could not allow Iraq to control their own destiny.
The Iraq war in 2003 was all about having a base in the middle east with easy access to fuel. There was no threat from Iraq. There was no justification for a war of choice.
I find your pro-Iraq stance interesting. That they had turned over a new leaf and were on their way to becoming stellar citizens of the world and darn USA ruined it all.
I suppose the world needs optimists like you. I am of the mind that a Tiger doesn’t change it’s stripes, they help disguise the Tiger while he’s stalking his next prey.
I never said I as “pro-Iraq”. I suppose next you’ll say I was “anti-american”. What I said was that there was no legal justification for the war of choice which was our invasion of Iraq.
So the US has not really given up slavery? It is only biding it’s time until the next opportunity? Maybe we should invade Japan. After all, they have Imperialist tendencies.
Evolution happens socially as well as physically. Arab Spring anyone? Before outside interference Iraq was a modern democracy. You do know that Saddam was our boy until it became inconvenient, don’t you? Oh wait, Iran was a modern democracy until the CIA and the british deposed the democratically elected president and installed our boy the Shah.
Don’t proselytize until your own house is clean.
The war in Iraq in 2003 was an effort to secure a base and fueling station in the middle east for rummy’s 2 or 3 small wars at the same time military stance. Pure and simple. It wasn’t because Saddam was a bad guy. He was our bad guy who used the technology we sold him.
“MY house?” I call each event and each election as I see them. I voted once for Clinton and I voted the first time around for Obama (didn’t get fooled the second time. So I am associated with no “house” and call each situation as I see it, not a party line. Obviously we will never agree on this and that’s fine.
“To give you a hint, everybody voted for it and believed it was necessary, not just Republicans.”
We voted to go into Afghanistan after two of the world’s tallest buildings lay in a giant pile of ruble. We voted to go into Iraq after our President, Bush assured us they had WMD’s and ties to 9/11.
We later learned Iraq never had any WMD’s nor ties to 9/11. What did Bush do, he changed the Iraq mission several times in order to keep the US gravy train feeding contractors at the expense of the US people and economy.
Bush later found himself pardoning a high ranking White House member, Libby after he was convicted of interfering with the investigation of a CIA secret spy whose name was released to the public. The husband of this CIA agent discredited a “smoking gun” letter the Bush admin used as a pretext for invading Iraq.
Nobody voted for this.
You won’t find any of this being discussed at fox news.
You really, really have no actual clue.
And you also have no idea what is on FOXNews, so don’t act like an authority.
Perspective is coming for you TowerTone. I wish I could watch. Just remember: Perspective is a good thing.
Actually, TT, I believe that bjr001 provided a darn good summary of events. And I do occasionally watch FOX News while I am on the treadmill or elliptical trainer. Sometimes I enjoy a bit of alternate history fiction.
Good for you, Mel.
If you were serious, you would know that FOX carries more information on many stories before the other networks even acknowledge there IS a story.
Of course, since I mainly watch CBS and ABC, I don’t always hear of these tidbits as soon as you and bj.
No one voted to illegally invade Iraq. The UN had an open resolution from 1991 that appeared to be satisfied by the Iraqis and the UN was unable to find Iraq in non-compliance.
Incorrect. In order for the US to invade legally, the UN would have had to pass a resolution specifically allowing the invasion. The US decided to not seek the resolution because it would lose the vote.
According to your argument, the US could go ahead and invade Israel tomorrow.
The war was legal because congress voted for it. PERIOD. EXO OF DISCUSSION.
The UN has nothing to do with anything.
Oh, and the cost of the war has nothing to do with our current runaway debt.
What? What?
You do understand the Constitution don’t you. Oh wait, you obviously don’t. The 1991 resolution was the controlling document and any further action required UN action. bush, the idiot king attempted further UN action. When it was clear that more level heads would not fall for his lies and bluster, he withdrew the resolution and committed an act of aggression, a War Crime by International and US Law.
BJR
What you said is a lie about Scooter Libby. Bush never pardoned him. When you don’t know what you are talking about don’t contribute falsehoods to the conversation. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Read and learn
From:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_Libby
An excerpt
Bush issued 29 pardons but did not include Libby among them.[25][26] As a consequence of his conviction in United States v. Libby, Libby’s license to practice law was suspended by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in December 2007.[27] On April 3, 2007, the District of Columbia Bar suspended his license to practice law in Washington, D.C., and recommended his disbarment pending his appeal of his conviction.[28][29] On March 20, 2008, after he dropped his appeal, he was disbarred by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in Washington, D.C., at least until 2012
You are correct. Bush did not pardon Libby. Bush only commuted his prison sentence so he never spent a day in jail. Therefore, Libby’s criminal record stands. Libby took one for the team, but not team US, rather team republican. Makes you wonder who was in charge and where their loyalties lay.
Bush said after the leak that he would prosecute to the extend of the law. Libby was convicted and then sent free to never serve jail so Bush was technically honest. This does not change the history of events.
There is no shame on my part for I have no malice as I wrote from memory. As for you and other republicans to be evoking shame and falsehoods is a laughable farce as you continually parade Socialism around knowing well it is not, misrepresenting the Iraq war and who’s caused the wrecked economy. Then blame spending when it was tax cuts (income) that plunged this great nation into massive debts. Then remain silent about the Bush deficits until the next guy takes over.
Lets not forget about portraying the poor and elderly as lazy and criminal to justify cutting their meager aid so that the rich can have it instead. All the while bringing up the name of the Lord.
You republicans have no shame, honor as men, citizens, patriots, voters or Christians, just malice.
As for the WMD, the thousands of dead Kurdish people would tend to disagree with you. See my post above. I think 5,000 dead and 10,000 disfigured and sick is valid “mass” destruction.
Thank goodness Obama kept his promise and brought our troops home and ended our involvement in Afghanistan. That saved a lot of money and lives.
Was that before or after the Surge he sent to Afghanistan?
It was right after he failed to persuade the Iraqi government to delay our troops exit, took credit for them returning home (Bush treaty), and closed Guantanamo.
Gitmo’s open
Sarcasm bud, sarcasm.
There are liberals in both parties. Pissing away money on a war is just as gone as pissing away money on social engineering.
When it’s gone, no mater how noble the cause, it’s gone. Our grand kids will never forgive us.
Like a punch drunk alcoholic, the first thing that a socialist goes for is increasing taxes, or finding ways and means to shake you down for more taxes by deliberately lying about your compliance with tax laws or implying that complying with tax laws is akin to breaking them.
A socialist is hell bent on raising taxes by real or artificial means. If he cannot hit your pocket directly by legislating tax increases, he will try to imply that you’re avoiding taxes and slap you with a fine.
Like an alcoholic, a socialist cannot put down the tax bottle from which he is constantly sucking on. As long as there’s a couple of pennies in your pocket, the socialist will be after you like a hog after truffles.
A socialist never thinks about lowering your tax burden by not spending because the word ‘saving’ isn’t anywhere to be found in his vocabulary. The only thing a socialist understands is to spend, spend, spend. Bankruptcy is a little understood word because to a socialist, nobody ever goes bankrupt because ultimately there’s a government bailout round the corner.
Like a feral hog, a socialist should be hunted down and shot on sight.
“The only thing a socialist understands is to spend, spend, spend. Bankruptcy is a little understood word because to a socialist, nobody ever goes bankrupt because ultimately there’s a government bailout round the corner.”
Where were you when the Republicans were spending like drunken sailors without the revenue to back it up. That’s the recipe for bankruptcy. That was a recipe for a melt-down.
Remember the government bailouts were designed by both Bush & Obama, but they were needed in the first place because of Bush’s economic (and foreign) policies.
“but they were needed in the first place because of Bush’s economic (and foreign) policies.”
Rewriting history are we?
As if your retired gum-shoe ass has some scholarly grasp of history. Your posts are replete with partisan blather, most of which is neither grounded in reality or even approaching sane. Your transparent talking points sound like a talk-radio rerun. Never made detective did you?
I wouldn’t say he spent like a drunken sailor though, I’d call him what he was: A drunken, air-national guard washout. Face it, if not for his daddy and daddies friends, he would be lying in a gutter begging for change for the next bottle of wine. He will go down as one of the worst presidents EVER, because he was..
Merriam Webster Dictionary:
Socialism
1
: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
Every time a republican evokes the word Socialist, this shall serve as a reminder to those that would cheer, that they are being made a fool of by those that wish to take away your freedoms.
While your definitions are useful, they are inadequate because they miss the point. The reason that disrespect for private ownership of property and rapacious greed for raising taxes is equivalent o the definitions you cited is because both stem from the same point of view that private property is not a fundamental right and disrespect for private ownership of property is in real terms in practice indistinguishable from government ownership or property and production.
Only if your hard work, capital, and ingenuity is individually rewarded without government constraints and controls getting in the way, and your accomplishments and accumulation of wealth are respected and encouraged do we have a society free of the evil of socialism.
And yes, socialism is truly evil.
My definitions? Talk about missing the point. Republicans are a fine bunch warning us of evil considering republicans want to reduce government and slash laws and regulations and leave all to the honor system. Remember the last time the US left it to the honor system what happened.
Any political system left unchecked will become corrupt. Socialism, Communism arose from the unchecked wants of capitalism.
Taxes are a tool of Capitalism to distract you. If you are worried about taxes you won’t notice the walton family owning (trying to remember) more wealth than 40% of the US population.
You are being suckered.
BLN for President.
Just don’t bring your right nut and the rest attached to it with you.
If the Senators are so outraged that Apple isn’t paying enough in taxes, and I assume therefore not doing enough to stimulate our economy because then the government has less to spend (or didn’t create enough debt with), here’s a solution:
Have Apple, instead of paying taxes, give a check to every man, woman and child in the U.S. (about 330 million). That comes out to a little more than $18,000 each (plus a, iPhone or iPad, for educational purposes). Let people receive it tax free. That would stimulate the economy without having to bother Congress to change any laws or hire more IRS agents to investigate Apple.
Dream a little dream . . . .
Ah, but if the government can’t control the disbursement of money, it would never be allowed to happen.
It’s in their DNA to require credit for good things they had nothing to do with, and to say “I KNOW NOTHING, I SEE NOTHING! when something they did goes bad.
Please recheck your math. It would be $18 not $18,000.
Whenever you guys get done with your partisan pissing match, it might do you well to recall that the people’s representatives can be voted out of office, and the voter can contact them directly to address his greivances. The fact that the public does not act on his power shows the laziness of our current society.
Now go ahead and try to contact your friendly multinational corporate CEO to see what he would do about your issues. You really think the response would be MORE effective than your representative? Get real folks.
Government reform is needed, and it starts with the REMOVAL of corporate influence from the peoples’ business, not the continued rolling over and letting corporations buy your government from right under your noses.
KILLER! Excellent comment Mike. It must be ‘good Mike’ day. Insightful, well stated. 😀
No. We do not have a right to other people’s money, including corporations. One of the most important and cornerstone foundational pieces of a free society is respect for private ownership of property. This includes wealthy people and corporations.
It is not the role of government in a free and civil society to allow people to ‘vote’ how to distribute other people’s money. This includes corporations.
Love sucking at the corporate test don’t you?
you said: “It is not the role of government in a free and civil society to allow people to ‘vote’ how to distribute other people’s money. This includes corporations.”
If the society is civil and FREE, why does it need government to ‘ALLOW’ voting Mr. Conservative? Is the government not supposed to be representative of the citizens? If the majority of citizens want something, it is governments role to rule and deny the will of the people?
Explain to me why Wal Mart is more of a citizen then me? They spend MILLIONS of dollars in government to get favorable laws and tax breaks enacted FOR THEM. I bet the CEO has senators in his cell phone he can just call, you? In this civil & free society of yours money = speech? if you cannot pay, no play? This is your freedom?
Not very civil if you ask me circle-talker..
Sucking at the corporate test.
Should that ‘test’ be teat or testicle? Inquiring minds want to know.
Teat… He suckles at the teat of his corporate masters.
Damn autocorrect…
You seem to be confusing property law with corrupt political influence.
You also seem to forget that collaborative, collective action — you know, the teamwork that you teach your kids through sports and scouts and so forth — can be much more powerful and effective than going it alone. Hence the infrastructure of the world, including the many industry standards that you take for granted and all off the transportation and communication systems — are _only_ possible via public financing, nonprofit efforts, and license-free technology sharing, open-source software, and so forth. Corporations can make stuff cheap, but it has always taken public sharing to enable the playing field.
But it is very revealing that the first thing you assumed when I pointed out the fundamental importance of an uncorrupted democratic republic is that you are worried about your stuff. Way too many people are distracted with stuff — they think that availability of cheap imported consumer products equates to freedom. I recommend you reconsider the role of YOUR government versus the role of the corporation. One is responsible to your health and well being — or would be if the people stepped up to make it so — and the other is chartered to do one thing only: extract money from the consumer. Some, like Apple, seem to do it in an honorable fashion. Many — perhaps even most corporations — do not.
I understand why some of you believe that taxes are a necessary evil. I for one believe that the revenue generating methods of our government are purposefully arcane and engineered for unscrupulous politicians to take advantage of. 50% of the country isn’t paying taxes anyway. I don’t think it’s fair to tell the remaining 50% that they aren’t pulling their weight.
Surely it must make sense to even the most communist of you leftists that a flattened tax code with no deductions, where every revenue generating entity, human or otherwise, would pay $15% to the Federal government, would generate far more revenue for the country. The only exception being for those people regarded as living in poverty.
From there a balanced budget amendment. No monkeying around and raising the amount. You want greater revenue, figure out how to help businesses and individuals create it for you. You don’t just get to hold people up by the ankles and shake anymore.
You don’t get to punish the productive and reward the non-productive.
Even leftists must see the sheer absurdity of a company that creates as much wealth and as much taxes and as many jobs as Apple being screwed with by these lowlives, miscreants, and scumbags, who contribute absolutely nothing to society except lies and hot air.
Seriously if we go through the billions in wasted stimulus, bailouts, solar energy boondoggles, arms deals to the Muslim Brotherhood, and on and on, of just the last 4 years, that jackass Carl Levine could have his head start education and a whole hell of a lot more.
From freely available data via the nonpartisan CBO:
Distribution of federal income taxes paid by income level in 2011:
• 7,000 people made more than $1 million but paid no income tax.
• 22,000 people made between $500,000 and $1 million but paid no income tax.
81,000 people made between $200,000 and $500,000 but paid no income tax.
• 381,000 people made between $100,000 and $200,000 but paid no income tax.
So that’s nearly 500,000 Americans who made more than $100,000 a year who paid no income tax. Clearly dependent victims who refuse to take responsibility for their lives! 😆
By the way, an extremely regressive 15% flat tax won’t come close to generating enough revenue.
That is the problem with conservative minions like him, they are math and fact challenged. He heard Steve Forbes shouting this crap in 99′ and he bought it.
Who cares who STARTED the federal spending problem? OK, Bush took office inheriting a national debt of ~ $6 trillion. When he left office eight years later the national debt was ~ $10 trillion. The national debt jumped to ~ $16 trillion after Obama’s FIRST four years. Sure it was bothersome that our country’s debt burden increased under W’s watch, but look how much more it’s gone up under O’s tenure, and the second term is just under way! Doesn’t it bother supporters of the present administration — Republican or Democrat — that no annual budget was put forth by this administration during almost the ENTIRE first four years? That annually our government takes in around $3 trillion in “revenues” (taxes!) but is on track to spend $4.2 (or more) trillion EACH YEAR the next four years? Please do the math: that’s at least $1.2 TRILLION in excess of what’s available! Eliminating the Bush tax cuts will only bring in an extra $80 billion (and even doubling this as our president wanted to do in January of this year = $160 billion). We’re still a TRILLION DOLLARS short PER YEAR if the spending continues as is. Even taxing the “rich” at 100% won’t take us even close to balancing our annual spending budget (when we see one). EXCESS GOVERNMENT SPENDING has to be curtailed.
It’s comical and almost sad to see a senior senator grand-standing and trying to say that Apple, Inc. doesn’t pay enough taxes. They paid and pay according to the laws that Congress has enacted. We’re wasting more of our taxpayer dollars with these silly CEO inquisitions. It may be good for TV ratings, but not much else.
Congress need to get off the backs of Apple, Google, MSFT, HP, IBM etc. Why do we not hear anything about GE not paying taxes? Didn’t they pay almost no taxes last year?
This whole scenario in Congress is very disappointing.
“the people’s representatives can be voted out of office, and the voter can contact them directly to address his greivances”
True that the representative can be voted out, but a more effective method is to stop buying a product made by a corporation if I don’t like it, and I can reward a computer company or a car company by buying a product i like. AND I can choose to buy from ANOTHER company if I want.
No such choice with the government monopoly.
Contact my representative? Well, yes, but usually I don’t get a reply from one out of my three representatives, and he happens to be from the party currently in power. One Senator in the other party actually writes me personal replies, actually written by him directly addressing my questions, as opposed to a form letter, and I talked to him in the school where I used to work.
At least from the corporations I can choose to buy or not buy something that I want and need for an agreed upon price. I will take that choice. Works better and more often.
Uncle Thomas Sowell is a useful idiot for those living in Libertarianland. A Libertarian is a Republican with 3 additional qualifiers:
1-They like to smoke dope
2-They like to get Laid
3-They don’t like being called Republicans.
You have no freedom of the kind that Libertarians theorize about.
1-Look at the physical currency you have in your wallet. It is a slug of metal or a slip of paper that has value assigned to it by government. In almost all instances you cannot buy or sell things without accepting the value assigned to it and cannot legally refuse it for the payment of any debt obligation.
2-Try to take your gawd given right to freedom and walk across the border of any sovereign nation without a passport (and sometimes a visa) issued by your home government. Try to fly or get on a ship set for a foreign destination without a passport. While you are at it, try to take all the money you own and find yourself up against currency controls.
3-Assuming that you make it to the new nation you have chosen in your freedom, you will probably find the education and credentials you hold are, in part or full, inadequate to meet your new host nation’s labor rules, educational or licensing requirements.
It goes on and on. The truth is that you cannot walk across the border to Mexico or Canada legally unless the United States Government says you can. The bird nesting in the tree outside your window can, but you may not. The bird also does not have to pay taxes, buy water and food or any number of other obligations every new child is born into.
The fact is that most of us live lives deeply intwined in the various levels of government for things ranging from flood control to water purity to public roads to healthcare to education to commerce to public safety to defense. Even if you pay out of pocket at your local doctor, the hospital or clinic probably receives some level of subsidy and it is quite likely your doctor got some form of tax subsidy or direct aid in the process of becoming a Doctor.
The difference between NeoCons/Libertarians and everybody else is that they do not wish to pay for that which they have benefitted from. There truly is no free lunch.
Having a bad day?
And a liberal is someone who makes racist ad homonym attacks when he has nothing rational to contribute whatsoever.
Thomas Sowell PhD is one of my favorite authors. I have found his writings to be logical and well thought through. Although he often analyzes from an Von Mises economic point of view, his scholarship and grasp of history make me believe that he is more conservative than libertarian.
He is a Conservative.
BarWin Devolved begins on the wrong foot and then sticks both in his pie-hole….
Uncle Thomas Sowell
Does that pass for cleverness at your local left wing circle-jerk?
Here’s a little tip for you, and every other pinhead who tosses off “uncle tom” as an insult without ever having read the book. Uncle Tom is a a HERO. He is a man of absolute integrity.
-jcr
He still alive?
It was used to show how Sowell is a useful idiot for the Right Wing. There is good money in selling one’s soul to the service of greed.
When we hear senators and obama saying folks need to pay their “fair share”….
Can anybody actually DEFINE what “fair share” means?
anybody?
It’s very simple.
The whiter and richer you are, the more they believe you owe for past wrongs.
At that point, your fair share is always a bit more than you would reasonably think, no matter how high that amount may be.
Can anybody actually DEFINE what “fair share” means?
Sure thing. The government’s “fair share” of what we earn is ZERO.
-jcr
Neo-Feudalism
F.A. Hayek called it ‘the road to serfdom.’
There are LOTS of roads to serfdom. Dire socialism is obviously one path, as demonstrated by Senator Carl Levin attempting to make companies into servants of the government.
But then there is the just-as-sick method of inducing serfdom being incessantly shoved down the throats of We The People by our demented Corporate Oligarchy. This version of serfdom makes actual citizens into servants of dumbass, self-destructive BIZNIZZ (as opposed to actual, functional, intelligent capitalist business).
IOW: Shot By Both Sides
Psychopaths to the left of us,
Psychopaths to the right of us,
Psychopaths in front of us,
Lied and plundered…
http://www.nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html
A plague on both their parties.
Dem or Rep…I don’t care really. Bottom line for me is that the Gov is broken. There is little hope of fixing it.
The hard working of this world are made out to be villains.
Sen. Carl Levin is a retard. What has this bum ever done in his life but spend other peoples money.
He buys votes. Thats what he does.
The people who work for a living are being overwhelmed by the people who vote for a living.
Love that last sentence. Damn if that isn’t the total truth in a nut shell.