I dunno what to make of this

[GonzoStyle]

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My Friend sent this to me, it's a little reaching but the part about Goats was kinda ironic.

It is very well produced atleast.

[diceisgod]

It says take the media back yet all they do is rely on media sources....pfft.

[Galt]

this is an indpendent, reliable organization

[diceisgod]

Oh like a national workers party...i see now. I trust them.

[Galt]

right. They're on the side of the national workers. How can you be against that?

Just like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). How can anyone have an agenda with such a sweet and unbiased name?

[The Sleeper]

diceisgod, your sig is so edgy and controversial

[diceisgod]

I like it. I invented it myself.

[IrishAlkey]

Literally.

[GonzoStyle]

I know what to make of this though


This is getting just fuckin ridiculous already, he wants more money now? 80 billion fuckin dollars now. I just loved his press secrataries comment a few days ago, "yeah we may be losing 1 or 2 soldiers a day in iraq but that's ok when you look at the long run"

the ease with which loss of life, especially our own men and women over there, is used. It's just plain scary. I understand that wars don't end when the firing stops and that when we got into this it was gonna last for years. But forgetting all the uneccasary spending that took us from a budget surplus to a half trillion dollar deficit in this presidency, 80 billion is a ridiculous figure to even contemplate.

[The Jays]

But forgetting all the uneccasary spending that took us from a budget surplus to a half trillion dollar deficit in this presidency

What was the unnecessary spending spent on?

[Galt]

the budget surplus was thanks to a retardedly booming economy where everyone was making shitloads of money.

The deficit was because tax revenues shrank.

The republicans aren't the ones that have a penchant for making the government hemmorage money

[GonzoStyle]

But forgetting all the uneccasary spending that took us from a budget surplus to a half trillion dollar deficit in this presidency

What was the unnecessary spending spent on?

In the presidents new budget just like the president’s first two budgets there is way too much government spending. President Bush has requested a 4% hike in discretionary programs. Given the $200 billion to $300 billion in deficit spending expected this year, and given that we fought and are still fighting a costly war in the Middle East, a 4% increase in domestic spending including funding for the Legal Services Corp., the National Endowment for the Arts, bilingual education, and other such oinkers is excessively generous in the extreme. Domestic discretionary spending should be at most frozen at current levels, at least until the budget is brought back into balance.

If history is any guide, the 4% hike in spending is likely to be a floor, not a ceiling, on expenditures this year. In recent years, congressional appropriators have nearly doubled President Bush’s spending requests. Consequently, the discretionary budget has grown by nearly 15% in Bush’s first two years in office more than it did in President Clinton’s first four years in office. In fact, Bush is on pace to be the biggest spender in the White House since LBJ.

In their first three budgets 96-98, the Republicans increased domestic spending by $183 billion, compared with a $155 billion increase in the three years prior to GOP control of Congress. Not a single cabinet agency has been eliminated. And only a small handful of the three hundred federal programs that were targeted for closure a list that included the National Endowment for the Arts, the Legal Services Corp., bilingual-education funds, urban-transit grants, and Goals 2000 has actually been terminated. President Bush should call for a Commission to Terminate Wasteful, Inefficient, and Unnecessary Federal Programs.

Yet in all those years, the last 5 years to be exact. The senate has approved pay hikes for themselves. They have given themselves approx. 17,000 dollars in pay raises over the last half decade. Not to mention their tax breaks and favorable medical and insurance programs for themselves. While unemployment rises, jobs decline, good old congress has been giving themselves pats on the back.

We are now back to Uncle Sam pick-pocketing 20 cents of every dollar we earn. That does not include the money that states and cities take from our paychecks.

President Bush must make the case that during times of war, spending on domestic programs must be curtailed until the crisis is over. Domestic spending has fallen in most wartime periods in American history, allowing the nation’s resources to be fully deployed to defeat foreign menaces. The war on terrorism is the top national priority for our government today. Fixing the economy is a close second. Both of those priorities are compromised when congressional appropriators waste scarce tax dollars on domestic pork and special-interest projects.

Bush can reverse the spending spree that has stained his presidency and defend his spending priorities by starting to make aggressive use of the veto pen. Virtually every spending bill that Congress has sent to his desk over the past two years has deserved a veto stamp. Powerful presidents like FDR used the veto to force their spending priorities on Congress.

Administration has announced the federal government is in the hole again after four years of "surpluses." The government will run a deficit of about $165 billion this year, which the administration blames on costs related to the war on terrorism and a steep decline in revenue from capital gains taxes and other's like Galt linked to the volatile stock market.

There is another cause of the deficit the administration is reluctant to mention. It is outrageous, unwarranted, self-serving congressional spending. Democrats and Republicans are exploiting the war on terror to pass record new spending measures.

In a June 14 essay, Tom Schatz wrote:

"that unlike World War II and the Korean War, when Congress actually cut non-defense discretionary spending by 20 percent and 28 percent respectively," this Congress is on a spending spree. While the House increased President Bush's budget request for $27 billion to $28.8 billion the Senate went whole hog by upping the cost to $31.4 billion."

"that the federal budget this year contained $159 billion in total pork, corporate welfare and general waste" - approximating the size of the deficit. "

Just some of the projects tacked onto June's "emergency" Senate spending bill supposedly designed to fight terrorism, include another $55 million for the hopelessly mismanaged AMTRAK; $16 million for New England fisheries; $6.8 million for the Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center in South Dakota, a mission that may be important to the Interior Department but has no national security tie; $4 million for the Columbia Hospital for Women Medical Center in Washington (which closed in early May) to support community outreach programs for women; $2 million for the Smithsonian's National Worm Collection; and $80,000 for the Wausau, Wisconsin Health Foundation to survey people entering and exiting the health profession.

The list also includes $100 million to build a depleted-uranium plant in Kentucky., when the Department of Energy has an identical plant in Ohio; $50 million to renovate the Ames, Iowa animal research lab; and $5 million to subsidize farmers' markets and roadside produce stands in 31 states.

According to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, last year was the first time in a decade that members of both parties in both houses of Congress had net average agendas that would increase federal spending. Of 5,501 bills introduced in 2001, just 50 would reduce spending, says the NTUF. The GOP, supposedly the party of smaller government, lower taxes, individual freedom and reduced spending, has few members who still believe in such things.

As Stephen Moore, President of the Club for Growth, wrote in a May 13 column in The Wall Street Journal:

"Over the past year and a half, government has been the single fastest growth sector of the economy. It has grown faster than construction, services, housing, and even consumer spending." Moore notes that in 2001, the private sector, which suffered from the recession, grew a paltry 0.5 percent, but government spending was up 6 percent for the year. For the first quarter of this year, data indicates that private-sector activity rose by 5 percent as the economic recovery kicked in. But government's spending soared twice as fast.

There is so much wasteful and unnecessary spending by government that it would take volumes to detail. Sen. Jim Jeffords wants $25 million for the National Historic Barn Preservation Act. Why couldn't volunteers who love the state's heritage do the repairs?

President Bush has a unique opportunity in an election year to challenge Congress to do the patriotic thing and stop this gross misspending. But he'll have to convince congressional Republicans to go along.

I personally do not disagree with his 87 Billion dollar proposal to congress to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet I do disagree with the fact that our government, as well as our president is clueless right now as to how rebuild them. More so, shouldn't he be more concerned with rebuilding us? Ofcourse it's too late now to just say, "Iraq was a bust, lets go home" We also don't want another Vietnam, nor do we want a Somalia. So basically what Bush needs to do is grow a set, not just against the "evil-doers" responsible for terrorism abroad and on our land 2 years ago. But the evil-doers in our senate and congress.

if you read all this, you are my fuckin hero.

[Sir O]

Holy shit!

Gonzo's a libertarian?

[HedCold]

i read it

[crx girl]

yeah, that was really long.

[GonzoStyle]

Holy shit!

Gonzo's a libertarian?

psssshaw, I am not a republican, democrat, conservative, compasionate or any of those other labels.

I just prefer facts and common sense.

I am simply just gonzo, though danked insists on calling me Gibzi.

[Galt]

I didn't. But I noticed one thing: 4%. That isn't accounting for inflation. I don't think government spending has ever "decreased" since FDR. everything is always "slowing the rate of growth" and when they talk about "cuts" it's actually cutting growth.

If anyone could actually cut government spending, I'd be in heaven.

[GonzoStyle]

well you better not try and cut your spending when you are buying me drinks in NY.

[Keyser Soze]

so much for the republicans being the ones who are in favor of less government and less spending. sounds like the bush administration and the republican run congress are spending like the democrats they loathe.

[Galt]

If the government could cut social security benefits, or IMMEDIATELY move the age to receive from 65 to 75 (it hasn't moved in 50+ years, but life expectancy has gone up about 20 years in that time) instead of that bullshit phasing it to 68 over the course of 10 years or some shit, the economy would save billions.

And Bush would love to cut the NEA and many other programs.

He can't because of how the press and the left demonize any "cuts" in any and all governmental social spending.

Any time any spending increase is slowed down (read: SLASHED, or GUTTED) the mantra is: "Tax cuts only benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class" or "republicans want to cut health care services to the poor, elderly, and minorities". They are patently false, and just blindly thrown about.

AND YOU FUCKING PEOPLE EAT IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1