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Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
Don't agree at all on the SS polcies and cutting Corporate taxes and earnings taxes at all. AT ALL.
Ron says great stuff, then kills it with pro-business garbage. I'm anti-big government and anti-big business.
I agree with you there. I think a flaw of his is he's at times shady. Which translates to untrustworty. Which isn't good in politics for amss appeal. I think that's Cain's asset, he may not be right, his 999 plan may not help the poor or middle class per se, but I think people would trust him more than a Rick Perry who seems more like a stereotypical politician. Take Pauls thoughts for example on the DEA. Yes, I do feel weed should be decriminalized. However legalizing meth & heroin is as atroucious an idea as prohibition was. He just doesn't get the bigger picture that some gov't is needed.
To CC's point yes Social Security is essentially a pyramid scheme of sorts, or more politically correct term is "Cash Now Account". In otherwords the money deducted from our paychecks doesn't go into a savings account until we turn 65. It given right over to the current elderly & retirees. There might be some tied up in savings but if ever stopped it would dry up within a few years. The battle of it is that if ever you look at a graph of the age group in this country, the baby boomers far outpopulate the younger generations. So when they begin retiring and collecting, our paycheck withholdings aren't going to be enough to cover their social security checks. Especially if they live to 90-100+ with 30 years of receiving. It's just been like Y2k, "Well, we'll have to figure it out later" and that's essentially how it'll be dealt with. Likely just stopped.
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
Man Rick Perry... the more he opens his mouth, the dumber and dumber he sounds.
At least Bush had some likability, laid back-ness about him, like a regular guy. Not only is Perry dumb, but he's combative over being dumb. Jesus.
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
At this point fuck the policies. How about electing him simply for being the real deal and not a cronie sell out to the establishment? Paul will do what he deems best for the public. The other candidates will just do what they're told by a bunch of war profiteers.
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
First off, SS is not a pension, it's a direct transfer program. There's no fund accumulating interest - money goes in one end and comes right back out the other. Wall Street and the banks can only do 'whatever they want' with your money if you give it to them. Wall Street and DC are in bed together, shrinking one's power shrinks the other. MisterID, you're viewing government as big business's enemy when in reality it's their best friend. Eminent domain, currency manipulation, the Fed making direct investments in Goldman Sachs and other financial firms - this is where the outrage should be.
Property has diminishing marginal utility, like most things. It's most valuable per unit to those with the least of it - and Paul's federal government philosophy of strong property rights and little else would ensure no one could be stripped of their belongings just because the government says so. How and how much to regulate finance is a legitimate debate, but regulation always biases in favor of pre-existing firms, raises start-up fees for new competitors, and leads us down the 'too-big-to-fail' path.
I'm not interested in getting into a long debate because as the head of a political organization, paid political commentator for a paper, and a major in government studies, this is probably the avenue where I'll reach the smallest audience of all my political advocacy - but I just wanted to say that I think you massively misunderstand Paul and the relationship between government and business. Your arguments would logically lead to a one-world government that consumes at least 50 cents of every dollar (CBO has the US federal government spending 80 cents of every dollar in 2080 using VERY conservative spending estimates - the CBO is required by law to take promises of future spending cuts at their word, a practice they frequently bemoan in their supplementary comments. Of course, the economy would crash completely well before the government could ever spend that amount - with slightly more realistic assumptions about spending cuts the economy crashes completely in 2037 - this isn't partisan, this is CBO's results except with altered assumptions about spending cuts).
Big Business isn't the goverment's enemy, greedy CEO's are all of our enemies. I don't blame successful people or companies for wanting to be rich. But I do not want them running this country and I do not want them involved in our government. Its being hurt right now by lawmakers being directed literally by big business, who WANT to privatize these programs for THEIR own gain. This is basically sabotage of our goverment.
Look, I get what you're saying, CC, and I didn't mean that SS was a pension, but that it acted more like a solid pension than a 401k does. If I didn't articulate that as good as I should have, I apologize.
I will say it again, all social safety nets can be tweaked so that it is stable and will be there for everyone. But there is a HUGE problem with a vast group of law makers who don't want to salvage the system, but let it die, for their own flawed ideology, and/or greedy reason. The programs work; corrupted and moronic politicans are trying to ruin it for their own purposes, right and left. That's what the problem is.
And I do not think big goverment is our answer. But we've seen what happens without these social safety nets and federal agencies when big business is left to their own devices. We saw it back in the 30's and even into the 60's before there was medicare. We've seen these programs work. And we've seen what happens without them. We know people wil die without them. People will be destitute without them. People are getting by solely because of these programs. I think all rational people can agree on that. PERIOD. END OF STORY.
It is all the more reason to tweak and restructure them like you should do EVERY program over time, federal or in free market. These programs need to be saved from the people who are destroying them, I don't care if it's conservative or liberal.
I have NO IDEA where you get that I'm arguing for a one world goverment. That's just completely ridiculous. I'm all for trying to curb goverment access, fraud, waste and abuse. Dismantling it in the name of free markets at the expense of everything else, which is a warped view of goverment, imo, is another. What I have been saying over and over is that things need to be restructured, corporations need to get the hell out of politics and that would be a good start. Problem is, like the Koch bros, just for example because there are many, many more trying the same thing, are deliberately trying to undermine our government and our economy to put in place exactly the government you and Paul want, which will absolutely cripple this country.
I appreciate the debate though, CC, and your point of view, even though I pretty much disgaree with you about almost everything 
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Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
This is what I LOVE about this place!!!
Thanks to all the contributors and for helping me learn a bit mopre about the states and how it works!
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
I find it interesting that he basically advocates endless IOUs while wanting to audit the fed.
He wants to kill thousands of jobs yet has no plan to create any.
When everyone ops out of SS, theres no money to pay.
He sounds GREAT.
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
ID is right. Paul sucks the corporate tit even harder than his opponents. His age plays a big role in him not being pushed as the mainstream candidate.
Is a revolution still a revolution when sponsored by a corporation?
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
Taking money from a person and giving it to somebody else is not creating jobs. That's basically what the government is capable of, distributing loot. And they've always been pretty sucky at it.
Removing some government regulation and freeing up tax pressure will create jobs. Ordinary people don't need guidance to create a job, just freedom and ability. If auto and production is dead in the US so be it. Funnelig tax payer money to keep it artificially afloat isn't helping anyone but the already pocket filled shareholders.
If big business were so keen on a free market why do they always support the commie candidates? Face it, big business loves socialism. They have enough money to ensure they're not the ones being "socialized".
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
Polluxlm, I respect you, but seriously... What socialist are corporations supporting? If you're talking about Obama, then he is THE worst socialist in the history of socialism. If they loved it SOOOOO MUCH why are they, right now, trying to destroy these programs? The Koch Bros alone are spending 200 million dollars in the next Presidential election, not coutning local state elections where they really hire their obstructionist candidates to try and defund social saftey nets and goverment regulations. What you are saying is NOT TRUE.
And this distribution of wealth is utter bullshit. Taking away money? You pay taxes when you live in a democratic society. If you can't handle paying into the system that allows you so much, with freedoms other countries would literally die for, I don't know what to tell you. These social safety nets could be sound AND THEY DO WORK. They keep people employed, off the streets and alive. People do have the freedom to leave this country if they don't like paying taxes.
How in the hell is removing government regulations and freeing up tax pressures going to help create jobs? That's not going to make a company start building plants in America or hire American workers. They'll just be given a bigger tax cut to continue to ship jobs overseas, because it's always going to be cheaper outsourcing jobs to third world countries and using foreign material than using American workers and products. The auto indstry isn't dead, no matter how much libertarian, Ron Paul-small goverment peeps want to kill it.
And how about this? You give big tax breaks to companies that hire and build their products here in America and have a 75-80% American worker quota and fine those (an outsourcing tax) who continue to use slave labor overseas. Because, there really is no amount of tax breaks that's going to compete with paying someone less than a dollar a day. But guess what? Fixing the system so it actually benefits America would be more goverment regulation!! Why reward people who are screwing the system? You want to fuck over all the poor people and not help them out, but you're very, very concerned about those poor, persecuted rich folks who already have things slanted in their favor.
How about lets restructure social saftey nets, restructure the tax system, and start getting money to states for infrastructure to start hiring.
Re: Ron Paul proposes saving $1T by scrapping five federal departments
Lol, time for those unchartered waters again part of the debate.
First I'll define big business in my own words since you seem to give it a much too broad spectrum. The difference between a big business man and a normal business man is that the latter is working for his money while the former is not. And I'm not thinking about some investor making calls while sipping martinis. It's not hard work, but it's still work. They still take risks. Your local mom & pop store owner is likely a normal business man. And so is Bill Gates, George Soros and Warren Buffet. They're just better at it.
The big business man doesn't invest. He doesn't even really own companies. He's part of a family that is so rich and has been for so long that all they care about, all they really have left, is the exercise of power. They don't need to make money anymore. They print money. A normal business man bribes politicians for favor, a big business man chooses politicians under threat of death.
The very nature of the FED is what made the housing bubble possible. It's not something that just happened. The banks had come to rely on the government if they got in trouble for decades already. This was just a natural progression of the reckless lending policies made possible and nurtured by the promise of an endless supply of "new money" from the FED via the spineless politicians. The big players over at the FED, the secret shareholders they won't even tell us about, they didn't do this only so the hedge fund managers and lawyers could make a quick buck. They did it because they knew the inevitable crisis would free up the political capital for them to utilize in their game of thrones. That's the kind of level they're on. In fact it's so sublime that whenever they're accused of it they can simply claim ignorance and people won't bat an eyelid.
But as they say, once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy. So what is 15?
That is the kind of socialism I'm talking about. All they had to do was give government unlimited funding through a fiat system and the government would end up growing so big that tyranny would take care of it self. Look at Rome and Louis, China and the Reich. Give government too much power and the labor camps and secret police will take care of itself.
I think I know where you're coming from. You're the kind of guy that would like a Kennedy in office. Cause that's the only way you can curtail big government, by having a Jackson or Julius Caesar in charge. But what happened to them? They got taken care of. Until people realize what kind of game is actually being played democracy is doomed. Leaders are generally not good people. In fact I strongly suspect an inordinate amount of them are crooks and child molesters. And they most definitely have a much higher plane crash ratio.
