Unparodyable/The Bubble Republicans

I'm beginning to think some of these conservatives live in the "Land of the Lotus Eaters". The cynicism they seem to ooze out every pore toward conservatives like Huckabee that think maybe the common needs of a society should matter, is beginning to get me rather irritated. We are headed for a shellacking, and their cynism isn't helping. They still think they are in the Reagan era, even though that was long ago. A great man, but I would like to move on.There are new challenges, needing new leaders with new ideas.

Ronald Reagan, in his speech accepting the nomination for the presidency in 1980, said these things:

"I am very proud of our party tonight. This convention has shown to all America a party united, with positive programs for solving the nation's problems; a party ready to build a new consensus with all those across the land who share a community of values embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom....More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values..."

Mitt Romney isn't running as the successor of Reagan; he's running for the position of CEO in Chief. From his Michigan victory speech tonight:

"Tonight proves that you can't tell an American that there's something they just can't do, because Americans can do whatever they set their hearts on. (Applause) And tonight is a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism. (Applause) Now, tonight, we are celebrating here in Michigan. I've got to tell you that. (Applause) Guess what they're doing in Washington. They're worrying, because they realize, the lobbyists and the politicians realize, that America now understands that Washington is broken. And we're going to do something about it..."

Where is the vision? Where are the values? Where is anything, except the notion that tax cuts on the one hand, and throwing more money (in the form of deficit spending) at all our problems on the other hand, will fix everything?

And where is the hope for those Americans who have learned through bitter reality and constant struggle that it takes a lot more than "setting your heart on" something to succeed, or even to make ends meet? How does "setting your heart on" continuing to work in a global economy address the reality that your job is going overseas, your college education is two decades old and your company would rather cut its 'losses' than retrain you for work that they still do in America, if they haven't outsourced everything yet? (I suppose, to Romney, the answer to such a dilemma is perfectly plain: live off of your investment money, of course, while you start your own new business. After all, *everyone* in America has stock options and a 401k, right?)

But I suppose we can take heart that this generation's conservatives have a new motto: no trust-fund baby left behind. Because that's what conservatism is *really* all about, right? /Sarcasm.

Just a short thought: Isn't it interesting that for a long time, African Americans, and Hispanics, have had trouble voting for Republicans because of their difficulty believing that Republicans will care about them, or do anything to better, help the help themselves better their condition, or increase their opportunities to better their condition, that there may now well be a growing coalition of what seems to be CONSERVATIVE (socially, and otherwise) working-class and some middle class White people (as partially evidenced in support for Huckabee as a candidate), who agree with the Republicans on "social issues" and "values" who are starting to possibly feel the same way?

I mean some of these people were talking about here are Reagan Democrats- socially conservative, economically liberal/moderate, but also that there may be a significant portion of the Republican base that is starting to feel, similarly as Blacks and Hispanics have for a long time that the Republicans may not be concerned about their fate?

As a conservative I don't know what to think about this, I can see good things and bad things coming out of this possibly, but I do find it very interesting.

When the unemployment rate is under 5%, that does not describe "a world of hurt". That rate is lower than the average for the past three decades.

Huck needs to stop reading Dem talking points and deal with the real world.

When the unemployment rate is under 5%

In Michigan, it's 7.4% and climbing. In the western part of the state where Huckabee campaigned a lot, it's over 10%. That's the context McCarthy's sneer ignores.

Katie: At the low end, real wage growth has been sluggish of late, or declined by 1 or 2 percent. Not the 50% in the example you give.

If we stop allowing a third world invasion, the low-end workers will have more bargaining power.

Dale-

That's the bottom line; it's an electoral math problem. Romney, were the GOP silly enough to nominate him, figures to lose at least Florida and Ohio and probably some southern states as well. He also allows the Dems to not worry about any blue state. Arguably other Gep candidates might give the GOP a shot in some blue states, and that stretches resources of the opponent. And if Romney's whole campaign is geared toward pandering and promising things he could never deliver anyway, it's utterly dishonest. But there seems to be a lot of that.

What's not being discussed Moody's is about to drop America's credir rating. So if who ever the next presdient is, increasings pending and entitlements are going to do nothing more than ratchet u inflation. As a government and a populace, we are borrowing way too much. Change you can believ in indeed. We are likely to have some Chinese finance minister dictate terms of our prime rate in the next decade, or have the Fed chairman running an intervention, with the president being simply a figurehead. That is, if someone doesn't end this tax&spend charade.

"We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy." Patrick Buchanan

Whatever you might want to say about Democratic vs. Republican platforms in general, or liberal vs. conservative philosophies in general, the specific situation at hand is that a conservative Republican administration got us into the mess we're in now. Why should we trust the same people to get us out of it? Doing the same thing repeatedly, even though it didn't work the first time--is that not the definition of insanity?

Chrysostom's would likely have included embracing [AIDS patients] and taking them home.

Taking them home to die, that is, since no one would be making life-saving drugs under the Chysostom plan.

The Bubble Republicans are going to go down this November, and they're going to go down very, very hard.

From your lips to God's ears.

McCain/Huckabee OR Clinton/Obama . . . YOU decide.

If the economy is "treading water" in metro Detroit than there must be some kind of full on depression outstate.

I'm reading and re-reading the Limbaugh quote, does he really not have any kind of insurance? Home owners insurance is just another collectivist institution that punishes diligent citizens and rewards people who get robbed because they leave their front door wide open all the time? So he was paying out-of-pocket for the Oxy? I sure hope he doesn't rear-end my Mazda in a parking lot.

I wonder if Rush purchases bottled water to avoid that socialist fluoride the Washington liberals put in the government-run (welfare) water system.

Did Romney give any specifics as to how he planned to help the auto workers? Did he talk about changing trade policy or giving companies who manufacture in this country incentives that really make them want to keep jobs here at home? It sounds to me like the Michigan voters bought a lot of platitudes that Romney has no intention of delivering.

That is, if someone doesn't end this tax&spend charade.

You mean this borrow and spend charade. I'm sure that I read somewhere a few years back that Cheney was heard saying, "Deficits don't matter."

This morning's paper said that the truckers are in trouble because diesel prices are continuing to climb. If the trend continues, some trucking companies will go under. Others will need to pass more costs to the consumer.

I'm still wondering what went on in those secret energy meetings that Cheney successfully fought so hard to keep secret. Gas companies with record high profits and trucking companies on the verge of collapse. Rich folk like Cheney smiling the whole way to the bank.

Billions and billions of dollars poured into Iraq. Halliburton employees working so hard to clean up the mess.

It's sick.

Maybe someone can help me to understand why Huckabee wants to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. It doesn't seem to me that it would benefit the people living on Walmart wages all that much.

Good post, Rod.

I'm not sure where I stand on all this myself. Of inclination, I'm for smaller government where possible. I suppose that's a "conservative" stance. There is at least a case to be made that the optimal solution of our current serious problems (the health care "system," problems like those explored in your post) does not lie with government action.

The problem the Republican Party is having right now is that they're not articulating that case.

To make that case against the statist position, people in favor of limiting government have to come up with a viable alternative. "We shouldn't solve our health care problems [economic problems, whatever] with single payer or other government-run systems because we can solve them better as follows..... Calling the statist solution "socialism" or other names is worse than useless.

The problem I see is, they're not filling in those dots. Not convincingly, not at all. Too often they come off as not understanding that there's even a problem. And that feels selfish to me ("me and my rich friends, we're all OK") when I don't really think these are necessarily selfish people. Or wrong, even, about the proper role of government.

So unless I hear something other than what I'm hearing, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for the Democrat, whoever it ends up being. Because what we have now isn't working, and I'm ready for a change, even a change I have my reservations about.

Mr. Huckabee is nice, he has very honest face, perhaps i would vote for him, but here is a bit off-topic:
please who knows how to pray, believes that prayers can help to meet death with dignity, send peace to heart,etc. please remeber archibishop of Athens and all Greece Christodoulos, he feels very bad now.

Although some of his sayings might be regarded as controversal he was a great person, very charismatic and vigorous, there is a story how he went to collect youth from bars,it is well known young people enjoyed him so much that they followed and his journey finished like a big religious procession. I can imagine how sad feel Greeks. (If it matters to Roman Catholics Christodoulos supports dialogue with Rome and is friendly to the new Pope).

http://www.ecclesia.gr/English/archbishop/index.html
Just read in biography that it is his birthday today.

Those slacking whiners! Tell them to act like a real Republican and win the lottery, like a few dozen out of 300 million people have! This is America, where all men and every man can grab the golden ring if they just roll up their sleeves and work, like Rush did.
(Another Republican joke: rich guy says to poor beggar, "Go inherit your own wealth!")

My goodness! I think you people are reading way, way too much into that little quote from the Corner! I read that as an appeal to subsidiarity, not as an appeal to heartless snobbery.

Gee Scott. Take away the profit motive and I guess none of us have any inclination to advance any practical scientific knowledge for the benefit of our fellow man. Are you a hospital administrator or a pharmaceutical rep?

If Reaganomics has worn out its welcome (and it has), where does that put Adam Smith? The truth is, the U.S. has historically undergone cycles of correction and counter-correction to keep the ideals of free enterprise and liberal democracy more or less viable. We're due for a correction. Capitalism doesn't need to be shut down entirely, but it's high time the excesses were reined in. (Just like baseball).

Rush Limbaugh has been a mouthpiece for individuals who have most benefitted from the economic trends and policies of the last 27 years. Now the "Rush" is over, so to speak. But Limbaugh knows his audience. The people who'll most bitterly oppose change are those insecure-yet-ambitious folks who were just on the verge of cashing in on the way things have been. They don't want the party to end just yet.

It is posts like this from Rod that gives me hope that there is some common ground of concern for people on which we can all stand. I remember the derision Jack Kemp received from the bulk of conservative commentators in the '96 election, the "let them eat cake by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" smugness of what I understood to be the conservative movement of the '80s and '90s, and was repulsed.

I've stated this analogy before, but it's worth repeating (it's not original to me & I don't remember where I heard/read it unfortunately):

There's a safety net in a pit, and there are ladders up out of it. Conservatives have spent so much time trying to get folks to climb the ladders that they've forgotten to fix the holes in the net. Liberals, on the other hand, spend so much time trying to perfect the net that they neglect to point people to the ladders. Thing is, both tasks need to be done, and done better, and both sides need to remember that the safety net is neither a hammock nor a trampoline.

So, it's better to say, "I feel your pain" and do nothing than to say nothing but implement the right economic policies that will stimulate the economy?

Benny Hill:

"Here lies the body of Mary McGinnity
For fifteen years she kept her virginity
And that's a record for *this* vicinity."

since my yesterday comment was highly critical let me say that this is the kind of post that keeps me reading this blog...a compassionate analysis of a difficult problem. i do admire your compassion and willingness to take a fresh, unblindered look at these kinds of topics, Rod.

to susan:

>a reality that these complicated problems can't be solved by government

that will be news to most of the other industrialized countries, which have solved problems of employment, health care, etc., far better than we have.

to susan:

>a reality that these complicated problems can't be solved by government

that will be news to most of the other industrialized countries, which have solved problems of employment, health care, etc., far better than we have.

Of course, dawnie. But there are folks here who would apparently tell us that Americans aren't as smart and resourceful as, say, the French or the British or the Dutch.

To which I say, BS.

"a reality that these complicated problems can't be solved by government"

'that will be news to most of the other industrialized countries, which have solved problems of employment, health care, etc., far better than we have.'

Maybe, maybe not. But at what cost?

"I'm trying to understand why a Christian man like Huckabee wants to screw the low wage earners by eliminating the income tax and having a national sales tax"

It doesn't 'screw the low wage earners.' Look at the website for the 'fair tax' for how it works. I live in PA, where we have a very low flat income tax, and a 6% state sales tax, from which food and clothing are exempted. Why not something along those lines? I definitely believe low income folks should receive some tax benefits, but I don't agree with any 'soak the rich' plans, and I'm against any inheritance tax.

I haven't been paying a great deal of attention to any of the candidates, Romney maybe less than most. But I watched his victory speech last night. It seemed an armload of perfectly empty promises. We may have arrived at a point where the only big difference between the Democrats and Republicans is in the specifics of the empty promises.

The age of lust is giving birth
And both the parents ask
The nurse to tell them fairy tales
On both sides of the glass.

--Leonard Cohen

(Thanks for the Thunderclap Newman vid, Scott Lahti.)

Get the memo on globalism. There ain't nothing my city or even my state can do against such forces.

Precisely. The very principle of subsidiarity calls for very high-level solutions to high-level problems.

'Maybe, maybe not. But at what cost?'

"I'm not sure what this means."

If you want a bigger government, the trade off is less personal freedom and higher taxes. The government takes a big enough chunk of my income every month, TYVM.

Wow, Thunderclap Newman. A hair-raising blast from the past, and maybe, this time, appropriate? Nah. Thunderclap's friend and mentor, the prophet Pete Townshend, told us what really happens after the Revolution: "Meet the new boss/same as the old boss". Back to Limbaugh for a minute. I remember the first time I heard his show. It was a "Feminist Update", with vocals by Sandy Posey: "Born A Woman". I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road. I also remember the day when I took Rush out of the rotation. It was when a guest host on his show, some clown named Roger Hedgecock, informed me that "Any adult male making less than $100K a year is a loser." The scales fell from my eyes. I suddenly realized that I was a loser, because I had chosen to marry young, stay put and raise a family rather than pursue a career in investment banking or some similar Mammon-approved vocation. And by Hedgecock's definition, most other Americans are losers, too. And Crunchy Cons? Ultimate losers, because we fail to see that life really is all about who can generate the biggest stack of consumer goods before we die. Roger and Rush get it. I expect that all of those goods and services will impress the angels when they come to escort Roger and Rush from this world.

I missed that episode Mr. Walker. What a (insert appropriate series of expletives)!

I have to confess my abandonment of Rush was for different reasons. I just didn't care what he had to say and didn't find it at all applicable to my life eventually. At some point one comes to the realization that not everyone will be in the top 5% and you can keep trying and making yourself miserable or you can something else to worship and not be trying to fool oneself into thinking one is so much more worthy than the lower half.

I'm sure you have all seen the bumper sticker that left-wingers have put on their cars with the Benjamin Franklin quote "those who would sacrifice freedom for security blah blah blah" These comments remind me of that quote.

Don't forget that Reagan's message was so timely precisely because this country was coming off 20 years of the government providing "security" for everyone and the economy was in the toilet. Reagan was speaking about freedom and people were ready to hear that. Now you guys are saying that "Reagan is over." Those are sad words for me to hear.

P.S. Rod, I'm a little disappointed that you would sink to posting only a portion of Rush's quote. Would it not make your point strongly enough if you included the parts about how Rush was broke and had been fired from numerous jobs? Obviously he is wealthy now and the road he took isn't a road most people can take, but don't make him out to be an ass who hasn't been there before when he isn't.

Rod, you can always find stories of people going through tough times. Most people go through them. But if you can't make it in America, you can't make it. This is as good as it gets. The whining that there are poor struggling people and that conservatives don't care is tiresome and ridiculous. Freebies and handouts don't help people in the long run, as the history of the sixties and seventies show. And if you think they are the answer, I would think you would be overjoyed with the Bush administration.

Susan-

"Great health care"-you mean my wife's cousin waiting for 18 months for cancer surgery in Liverpool; the charity-financed breast cancer screening facilities built privately in Ireland because the government wait is 1 year; the wealthy Canadians and Europeans who flock here for major surgery for cash? We have an insurance crisis exacerbated by illegals and working poor treating the ER like primary care. But by all means, the left needs a crisis. When someone is refused medical care or made to wait like that, that's really a crisis. And we don't now have that, spare the odd insurance company nightmare.To now have the federal government, the folks who brought you TSA, take over health care would be much worse. And the examples you claim are so wonderful are actually much worse than anyone on the left will tell you.That the "Obama is peachy!" media won't tell anyone the truth is a disgace. Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.

Romney is the political equivalent of a fake radio announcer voice. I cannot believe a word the man says.

Maybe Pat Buchanan had the right message but the wrong style, and ran at the wrong time.

"...if conservative talk radio represents nothing more profound than the class interests of the meritocracy of globalization, then it, and the conservatism it embodies, can burn for all I care. Burn baby burn."

I think it's been that way for a while (hence the advent of those troublesome, conscientious crunchies) but it has become increasingly difficult for mouthpieces like Limbaugh and those of ilk to cloak this ugly reality.

It's easy to believe that B.S. if you're one of the lucky ones (and luck has a lot to do with it, folks). What has always amazed me are the folks who identify with that vile Hedgecockian social sollipsism as if they were actually benefitting from that world view -- when obviously, they ain't. It's like believing you're literally a New England Patriot by virtue of choosing to root for them.

Some people are definitely to blame for their financial failures. But a lot of decent, hard-working Americans aren't entirely to blame for the straits they're in. People are beginning to figure this out.

The most vivid explanation I ever read of how America became wealthy and powerful in the first place is on the first page of Jules Verne's Earth to the Moon. Reading it nearly 130 years later, I can feel the ferment.

http://www.online-literature.com/verne/earth_to_moon/1/

It certainly wasn't The Government but it wasn't exactly wolfish predatory capitalism either, but something of both, plus the "animal spirits" as Smith or Keynes or somebody spoke of. Just something in the drinking water.

Maybe this is why people are drawn to Obama's & Huck's happy hope talk. But hankies and pep talks from on high won't do it. Only we can, although I freely admit that it'd be loads more fun to run down to a club that builds cannons than to one that rebuilds our healthcare system.

Funny, Susan, but I have friends in the UK who'd say exactly the opposite, and they are right in the middle of the middle class, not 'rich' by any Western standards.

I'd have to see such stats in context, and know where they came from. As you well know, numbers can be made to say just about anything.

I live in PA, where we have a very low flat income tax, and a 6% state sales tax, from which food and clothing are exempted. Why not something along those lines?

The FairTax is differs considerably from your standard-issue state sales tax. It _doesn't_ exempt food & clothing, and includes all services besides. The tax base amounts to ~80% of GDP, compared with ~30-40% for the typical state sales tax - i.e., many goods & services currently exempt from state sales tax will still get hit by the FairTax. Whose rate, BTW, is 30% of the sale price, not the oft-advertised 23%. The prebate makes it somewhat progressive, but rather less so than the current tax system.

If you want a consumption tax, simply eliminate both contribution & income restrictions on IRA's & 401k's, impose a single rate, re-jigger the standard deduction & personal exemption, and kill off all other deductions, exemptions, & credits. This gets you to the same place (economically), without the reengineering of the tax-collection system that the FairTax would require.

People don't want to hear about why we have these problems. Here are a few causes (in random order):

Feminism. When you double the supply of the workforce, the wages for low skilled workers falls. It's supply and demand.

Technology. When people are replaced by software and robots, they lose their job. It makes the new workers more productive, but it takes time for the economy to make a new job that was lost. Government slows job creation, but it cannot stop technology.

Education. The education system absolutely stinks and it has stunk for 30 years while getting worse everyday. Nobody wants to be told that the college degree they went $50,000 in debt for was basically a waste.

Divorce. Another freedom, like feminism, with costs. Two people who live together have one household. Two people divorced in two households have higher expenses. More demand for homes leads to higher prices, higher rents.

Family Breakdown. Whether by divorce or choice, single motherhood is the single largest generator of poor children. Eliminate single-mothers and you'll go a long way to reducing poverty. Try to pass a program that, when compared to the help they are currently receiving, can only be described as punishment.

Globalization. 50 years ago Americans competed with Europeans. Japan came along in the 1960's and 1970's. Today, almost 3 billion new entrants are free from Communism and Socialism to compete in the global economy. As with technology, we cannot turn back the clock. If we put up barriers to trade, it is like banning the fast runner from the race and claiming to be the fastest. The only way forward is to work harder to win.

Demographics & Immigration. Americans chose not to have as many children. The government made up for the lack of children by increasing immigration. Many of the new immigrants have even worse education than native Americans and are not entrepreneurial.

Change is painful. Michigan, Ohio, California, Massachusetts, among other states, are resisting change. The solution to job losses is to increase government jobs. If you think like Michigan residents, the solution is to put a death grip on whatever business remains and bleed it dry until the economy collapses. The other choice is to embrace change and build a better tomorrow—but creative destruction is destructive to the old order. The auto industry as Michigan knows it is dead. Either they can have an auto industry with no unions, or no auto industry. Those are the choices. Let's see a Presidential candidate say that!

Ask anybody, Rob. All the results say the same thing; no one really disputes it.

Don't, however, be flummoxed by the facts.

Now, statistics by their nature cover the entire population. The wealthy and the insured in the US can show better stats, amongst themselves, than the general population of the UK. (I don't know if any comparison has been made between the upper crusts of the two societies, but I'm guessing on the basis of nothing much that they'd be equivalent.) So what we're talking about is the care received by the rest of the population.

All health care everywhere is rationed. That is because not even this society can afford to - or should - buy everything for everybody. We ration it here on the basis of ability to pay. This produces anomalies like the huge expenditures on the last six months of life of the dying wealthy while well-baby visits are unavailable to many families. In the UK health care is rationed by the government on the basis of expected results and so forth. I don't know as much about the continent yet. But I know that health care is rationed, because it always is.

So, overall, your chances are better as a middle-income person in the UK than if you were, say, in Ohio. That's partly because so many people here have no insurance coverage at all.

However, people like you and me, who can afford and can get good health insurance, may get better care here than we would there. (At least we'll get MORE care, which may or may not be better in terms of results.) So, let's stay where we are, right? If I understand them correctly, this is essentially the view of the Republican candidates for the presidency.

Two problems with that. First, you and I are only insured temporarily, in the same sense that we are "temporarily" able-bodied as the disabled say. That doesn't mean that we'll necessarily lose our health coverage, but we might, and from causes we cannot control. Insurance companies are not in the business of paying out money for care; insurance companies are in the business of collecting premiums. As soon as you or I become a net liability, they're going to look for ways to get rid of us, and maybe succeed. People lose health insurance coverage every day when a company goes out of business and their health has deteriorate so they cannot buy private insurance, when a spouse is laid off, and so forth. (The pricing structure is such that unless you have insurance you will be charged double or triple for everything; only the very wealthy can afford care on that basis.)

Second reason, the more weighty one for a Christian, is that you and I are in this position because of our relative wealth, while children born into poverty, for example, cannot access this level of care for no fault of their own. I don't think that this is morally right.

You may say, and many "conservatives" do say, that health care is not a right any more than access to television is a right, and if some people have to do without, sad on them. While the logic of this position is appealing, I can't bring myself to swallow it.

Susan, I agree with much of what you're saying. I'm just not convinced that an overhaul of the system (which is sorely needed) demands government control. Intervention of some sort? No doubt. But not control. I don't see any evidence that the federal government runs its other programs successfully or efficiently. Why the difference here?

I believe that the solution needs to be three-pronged: provider side, insurance side, and malpractice/legal side. All three components contribute to the problem, and all three need to be addressed.

Thanks, Rob. I can see how a national tax system that doesn't tax clothing or food might appear to be fair. I'm not sure why the big spenders, however, should have to pay more in taxes for upkeep of roads, military, NASA, medical research, and all of those other things that our government provides than a person of equal income who doesn't like to part with cash.

I come from a long line of tightwads. We tease my one brother by saying he's yet to part with the money that he made thirty years ago delivering papers. Eliminating the income tax would mean that he wouldn't have to contribute his fair share to governmental programs from which he and every citizen in this country benefits because he's not materialistic.
Why should materialistic people need to pay more for governmental services than people who don't value things of rust and dust. Especially, why should the spenders have to pay more since it's the spenders who are doing the most to stimulate our economy.

National sales tax assumes that those who have the most will spend the most. I can see how that might generally be true, but why let millions of tightwads off the hook when our treasury is already in trouble?

"Never said that it did (or didn't). I'll let someone else make that argument, since I'm currently on the fence WRT to the optimal degree of tax progressivity."

MI -- I know it wasn't you, but someone else implied it above.

Watsy, I understand what you're saying, but I believe the presumption is that there are things that people have to buy, and that the wealthier person will tend to buy more items and/or higher priced items (a BMW vs. a Hyundai, for instance, or a $30 bottle of wine vs. a $10 bottle, or whatever) from that category. And even the rich tightwads still have to buy 'the basics.'

A consumption tax without taxes on corporations or investment income is extremely unfair and regressive.

Anyone who is bodily, geographically or financially being protected by our government should pay.

You live here? You gotta pay X. You have a home, a business or a business facility here? You gotta pay Y. You have investments here? You gotta pay Z (where payment may be in the form of fees extracted from the financial institution holding your investments, etc.). You visit here? You gotta pay something.

It simply doesn't make sense to tax income. That builds capital, investement money, and who cares if money is sitting in a bank account? The only reason to earn money is to spend it, so they will spend it at some point, and when they do, it gets taxed.

It shouldn't matter how much one earns but what they spend to enjoy that money with. For the owner, money sitting in a bank account is worthless other than it is increasing with interest. But it's no good if you don't spend it.

I don't think it is progressive, it's fair. And the government wouldn't be taking people's houses out from under them because they can't pay their tax bill. I think that would be worth it. The lower income families would be better off, because right now in the price of everything you buy is included all the tax cost of the business plus the cost of hiring accountants with big salaries to figure out how much they should pay, and people like me who do payroll taxes for businesses. That whole cost would get dropped and prices would adjust so that the consumer isn't paying any more for stuff than they are now, but, they will have more of their paycheck to buy it. And the government would get more money because people who skip out paying their taxes wouldn't be able to avoid paying the sales tax at the counter so easily.

The goal to get rid of our credit crunch is spend less and save more. Can you think of a tax system that would promote this better? Certainly not our current one. Any tax on income is a punishment and disincentive to succeed.

By the same logic all taxes are a disincentive. Government really does provide a benefit. It has to be paid for. Personally, I'm not a fan of the income tax, because it is an invasion of privacy. A tax on incomes over $250,000 or so doesn't cause me to lose sleep at night though. Personally, I support the land tax, excise taxes, import duties, VAT, and upper-income tax in that order.

Huckabee's campaign would be the same, regardless of how the economy is doing:

"You don't know it but you [*insert group*] are being ignored and taken for granted by [*insert another group*]! I'm going to fix the suffering you didn't know you were going through until I just told you! You don't realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked! In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I will overcome the [*insert perceived elitist group*]!"

Societal betterment ought to be the purview of the church, not the state. The state should embody justice, while the church should embody mercy/love. Huckabee seems to confuse the two, to his detriment.

Every time the roles of church and state are confused, innocent Christians end up paying for it, in blood.

The land tax is a tax on the value of land excluding improvements. In other words it is a property tax without including the value of the house. Wiki offers a good summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_tax

I'm always confused by people who point out the problems in income taxes, and there are many, and say we should have a consumption tax.

Why would that possibly be a good idea? If we're going to rejigger the entire thing, wouldn't a much more logical thing to do would be to tax assets?

Or even changes in assets, that would let us have a quasi-income tax without actually having to figure out what 'income' counts. You got more stuff, you pay taxes of 30% of that.

We could still have deductions, though, like gaining up to 10,000 dollars of one house a year doesn't count. (Aka, mortgage payments.) And education doesn't count as an asset, either.

Of course, this has some problems, like it's probably only be practically to have it be 'taxes on assets worth over 500 dollars' or something. Basically, car, house, and bank account taxes. (Banks could be required to give you something like a W2 form for your accounts, and state government, which knows about your car and house, could give you a form with the supposed values of those on it, so it would be rather easy.)

Taxing assets would be just as complex as taxing income (which requires tracking assets for deducting cost, etc.) It's really simple. You can't enjoy the benefits of money you've earned until you spend it. You can't get an asset until you buy it. Taxing consumption would put the incentive in the right spot and provide for a simpler way to fund the government, and reduce the power of lobbyist who can no longer lobby for tax breaks on various taxes for clients, because now those clients will simply be collecting it and sending it onto the government.

The truth is we are now paying close to 50% in payroll taxes as it is, and that is factored into everything you buy. Overall, even at a 30% consumption tax, you will be spending less on what you buy.

And while the prebate idea is good, I think it would make sense not to tax essentials like dairy, meat, produce, and similar non-processed foods. Basic grocery items that everyone has to buy, mainly because it is less administrative paperwork.

I'm not by any stretch "rich" as I'm barely able to pay my mortgage and this last year I'm sure I'll be under the 30K mark. But to free up income and assets and not punished for having them, allows for the economy to grow, helps create jobs, etc. You don't really benefit from money unless you spend it. Otherwise, what's the point of having it? Just so you can say you have several hundred thousand in the bank? I don't care if someone does or not. More power to them. But taxing consumption puts everyone on a level playing field including the rich.

In that scheme, I don't see what tax paid in ratio to income has anything to do with it. It only applies when you're taxing income, because the assumption is if you have more money, you can spend it on more stuff and you have more that you don't "need." Since you're not taxing consumption, you're taxing based on the idea that someone has more money to spend and will spend it at some point.

With a consumption tax, you are taxing based on spending, so what the income level is doesn't matter because there's no real benefit to having money until you spend it. And the rich are still going to pay more because they spend more because they have more to spend. Income is irrelevant other than having enough to buy something you want and pay the tax on it. And if you're poor and don't have enough to get that large screen TV including sales tax, then you don't get it. And you don't owe the government a dime for not buying it, unlike income tax. But if you have enough, then it becomes your choice as to whether to pay that tax to get the benefit of having a large screen TV in your living room. At least it becomes my choice at that point instead of the government's choice that they are going to take that money from me whether I can afford it or not.

Personally, I just think it would be a more humane, and fairer method of paying for government, which I don't have a problem with in principle, though I think the government is doing things it shouldn't be paying for. I agree with Ron Paul on many of those points, though I'm not voting for him. And, it would provide incentive to move our economy back to a pay as you go economy, not a deficit economy which the income tax has helped to foster.

Sorry Joshua but I don't think Rush comment were taken out of context, this is what the party elites believe and that's exactly why they will become the permanent minority party if they don't wake up. I'm a social conservative that is sick and tired of being dictated to by the club for greed folks, this party doesn't really have social conservative values the thing the treasure the most now is money. Social conservative for years have help put republican candidates in the white house, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing much for what I can tell, and if you are so blind as to think we are going to vote for a person like Fred or Romney who are both liberal on social issues you are mistaken. From what I can tell the Republican Party doesn't want every day middle class citizen in this party, and they have push around the social conservatives for to long and we are not going to take it any.

GO HUCKABEE

I 'art 'uckabee. [Cockney slang]
I cart Cuckabee. [apiary-janitor slang]
I dart Duckabee. [Donald and Daisy at their local pub]
I _art _uckabee. [George Carlin]
I heart Huckabee.[MPAA copyright division]
I narc Nyuckabee. [vice cop at sweet-smelling Three Stooges festival]
I part Puckabee. [lipstick model]
I Sartre Suckabee. [Simone de Beauvoir]
I tawt I taw a Tuckabee. [Tweety]
I wart Wallaby. [Outback toad ("False." - Snopes.com)]
I smart Smuckabee. [consigliere for Big Jelly]
I chart Chuckabee. [Love Connection scheduler]
I schmart Schmuckabee. [clueless drone]

I one wannabe. [current commenter, CrunchyCon blog]

FOr those still interested on this topic there was a interesting discussion at the Mirrors of Justice Blog under the Jan 15 entries. It is kind of fun because they compare Rush's statement to the views of the United States new ambassador to the Holy See. Who by the way was an unoffical advisor to Romeny

http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/

Mark Jaws hits the nail on the head. People like Brooks and the Crunchy Con really believe that low-skilled latinos are the future of this nation.