Republicans wanting to have their cake and eat it too

[Sandy]

The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

The GOP and their tea party suck ups screech and scream about cutting spending. But they screech and scream when the President wants to cut billions in spending on tax cuts for the wealthy. Several billionaires are buying television ads to campaign for politicians who want to repeal the accountability of the banks and financial institutions that got bailed out by tax money because of their excessive spending and partying.

I hear the hollering about taxing the wealthy being a sure way to cut down on job growth. Baloney. Hog Wash. There are plenty of tax incentives for the creation of jobs. The economy will boom when the middle class has money to spend. They should not have to pay for the infrastructure that allows big business to prosper or the supervision that keeps banks from robbing them or spending frivolously.

Vote a straight Democrat ticket. That's not exactly ideal, but it is the best option we have right now.

[ET]

Sandy, I think many of the Tea Party folks would be a bit miffed to hear the phrase "GOP and their tea party", as if the Tea Party was a subsidiary of the GOP. Given that some "Republicans" who think that they have a right to rule are trying to circumvent the results of elections within their party by running as independents or starting write-in campaigns, it's erroneous to make a statement that implies that the Tea Party is GOP-run. If that were the case, then Murkowski, Castle and Crist would step aside and abide by the results of their party's vote.

Great ad aimed at Murkowski:

I expect that the Tea Party will show no loyalty to GOP candidates that don't live up to their promises to restrain government and government spending. One would hope the GOP learned a lesson that will last when they got punted out the last time around because they adopted the D.C. mentality of spending as a vote-buying scheme, but that remains to be seen.

On a related note that I find quite interesting, we've watched this past year or more as Obama & Co have toured the company and the world and TV and claimed that that "brought us back from the brink", yet according to a recent report by the government, . So before hardly a $ was spent to "stimulate" the economy, the recession had ended (at least in the technical economic terms by which these things are measured). The economy was moving away from that mythical brink before Obama did the first thing about it. Also, with not even enough time lapsed for Bush's "stimulus" to do have any effect, such information shows once again that spending to "stimulate" an economy is a stupid idea. It's good for buying votes, but it's bad economic policy.

[Dave Roberts]

A lot of the economy remains in the tank because no jobs are going to come back from China, Vietnam, Honduras, or Guatemala. We are in danger of losing the economic leadership of even the Western Hemisphere to Brazil which is investing in green technology while we ignore it. Talk to the people at the employment security commission or whatever it's called in your state, and you will see this is something Obama inherited, and nobody has figured out how to fix.

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

The point of green technology for Brazil is energy independence. They are making smaller cars, hybrid cars, electric vehicles, investing heavily in biofuels. You supported my point about things being made everywhere but here. We need to find that which we can make at home.

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

Ed, even the most oil-sated stockholder admits there are finite limits to the planet's store of fossil fuels. It is short-sighted not to look for new sources and types of energy. Yes, I have the perfect right to drive a Hummer and use more than my share. However, as a Christian, I am part of the larger group of those responsible for the care of the earth. The scriptures make it plain that this world is not mine--"The earth is the Lord's..." I am a caretaker of this world--the role given Adam in the garden of Eden. I am answerable to God for how I use the resources He has entrusted to me. Therefore, I choose not to drive a guzzler, heat or air-condition my surroundings to the levels I might be able to afford to show I can. I am committed to look for renewable ways to sustain the planet until the Lord comes, whose return, btw, is not an excuse to rape the planet or to hoard its resources so that others do not have a chance to build a better life for themselves.

My problem with globalism is not that we buy goods made elsewhere for less than they can be made in the US. My problem has been that our country has given tax-credits and benefits to businesses to ship jobs overseas without providing meaningful work for those who were left without jobs or providing retraining opportunities for those who spent their lives in industry and now have no marketable skills in the new economy. I live in Southside VA, an area that once was the center of textile and furniture manufacturing. There are mills throughout our region that are ghosts of what was once a thriving part of the economy. Because of favorable tax structures, businesses automated their overseas facilities while spending nothing for a generation of their US facilities. Most of the young people who get an education are leaving the areas, and those who remain work most often in correctional facilities, the government answer to providing jobs for this area. The short-sightedness of these approaches has made this area a constantly depressed area. I can find dozens of areas just like this scattered all across the country, mostly in small towns, rural areas, and medium sized cities. Before you say something about union wages driving these jobs away, this area has been heavily non-union, so that has not had any effect here. Is the government policy that made this so just the tough luck of the workers?

[ET]

[ET]

It would be interesting to discuss some of these tax structures and tax breaks for "shipping jobs overseas", but until specific examples can be discussed, I'll consider it more rhetoric than an issue of substance. I'm sure there's more to companies "shipping jobs overseas" than just a tax break. I would propose that the unintended consequences of government regulations and other meddling are often as much at the root of those moves as tax breaks, and probably more so. There's more to making business decisions than tax breaks. Time limits my comments on those subjects right now, but can be explored in an other posting or thread.

[Jim]

The main reason that manufacturing has been outsourced from this country accrues to the fact that Americans demand a far more advanced living-style than is even imagined much less actually inculcated in most of the rest of the world. In 2006, the average monthly wage in China was 1750 yuan or $261.30. In 2006, the average monthly wage in this country was $3,768.90, an increase of 1342%. While a bunch of factors such as inclusion of greater farming (individual) entities can skew these figures, the huge differential is still obvious. If manufacturing remained in this country, the price of everything would rise to the point at which the standard of living would have to be diminished greatly, not to mention the diminished export opportunities since the USA has already priced itself out of the global market. Management and unions have caused much of this in their greed, but American citizens owning a grandiose description of the “good life,” at least as compared to the expectations of peoples elsewhere, comprise the actual culprit.

[ET]