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Vote Democrat, vote for socialism.

 

Vote Democrat, vote for socialism. -- try communism

If Gore was president we would all be wearing black pajamas now.

 

Why does everyone jump all over the "tax and spend" Democrats, but no one ever criticizes the "borrow and spend" Republicans? In the first 3 years of his administration, Bill Clinton raised federal spending .7%. In the first three years of the current administration, Bush has increased spending 21%. And those numbers do not include entitlements or military spending, so his increases have nothing to do with Social Security or the invasion of Iraq. Do I like higher taxes? Hell no. But I like mortgaging our future even less. I fail to see the Republican's approach as the lesser of 2 evils.

 

Good man...welcome to the "right" side!

 

1956MARKII does have a valid point. Nixon sneaked in a bunch of stuff a Democrat would have been proud of. But the purpose of government is to grow. And anytime you want them to do something new, you are giving up a little more liberty.

 

Mike, why is it good for the government to grow? Other than civil defense, maintaining the nations infrastructure, and internal law enforcement, what does the government do that private industry can't do cheaper and better?

 

Government has no peers when it comes to incurring crushing debt. I'm surprised the secretary of treasury hasn't been renamed debt czar. All of the above could be better handled by private industry. Municipalities are now having problems keeping their most talented people because federal law enforcement pay and especially benefits are going through the roof. Wave a flag and money is no object.

 

And just how do the Democrats 'help' the 'working families', by raising taxes, fighting against the child tax credit, passing NAFTA & GAT (Tom Sawer, Democrat, cast the deciding vote and Bill Clinton signed it into law) and opposing any change in the marriage penalty tax??? Better do your homework again!

 

There are only three things that the government should be involved with: (1) provide for the national defense. (2) provide a monetary system. (3) inforce legal contracts. Everything else can be done by the private sector.

 

If anybody wants to do some research, research the California recall election. It seems it was the working man that gave governor Davis the boot.

A demographic map shows that it was the inland communities, farming communities, working families in the surburbs, small businesses that supported the recall election by a wide margin and voted Davis from office. Curz Boostyourtaxes was also soundly rejected, even among his hispanic brethren.

That same map shows that it was liberal San Francisco and points north along the coast with rich communties, rich Hollywood types down south, liberal elites in the big cities, special interest groups all against the recall by 70 to 80%. Why would the leader of the democratic party in California, the party of the working class get such high support from the rich, but loose by such a wide margin among the working class if they really were the "party of the people?" It's more like the Democratic party is the party of the big unions. Big unions=big money. Big money=big political favors. The working man has no say and nothing to do with it.

So, are the people of California fed up with the Democrats, or was Davis just a bad Democratic governor? And if he was so bad, why did Clinton, Jessie Jackson, Gepheart and a host of other big name domo's stand up for Davis? And if Davis was bad, why didn't democrat Curz get more votes as the alternate if he was for working families, especialy among the hispanic community? Why was Davis and Cruz tied to big money donnors if they are supposed to be against the rich and for the poor?

The Democratic party: Take from the rich and stick it to the poor.

 

In my experience following strict party lines is a good indication of the existence of personal agendas or limited knowledge of how politics actually work. If you lose sight of the fact that politics are all about money and power, regardless of the party, you become a target of the advertising that gets politicians elected. Like an evangelist, they'll promise you everything you could ever want or need and the end result is about the same. Money and power are what makes that world go around, nothing else.

 

I'm the one guy so far who has voted "who cares."
I care, but it doesn't matter. You could put ME in office, and I would be just as corrupted as the rest of them.
The purpose of government is to grow, I agree. Our government is cumbersome, fat, ugly, and slow, and astronomically more expensive than it needs to be. However, the "solution" of privatizing services like law enforcement does not sound reasonable to me. The only person greedier than a politician is a corporate CEO.
Nothing is ever going to change in this country. The next step for our government is absolute collapse because they refuse to reform themselves, and the people are getting wise to all the crap. Even if you elected the most honest, civic minded president, who has the best intentions of the people in mind and had a solid plan to turn things around, nothing would change. Congress is way too entrenched and way too crooked. They would fabricate a scandal and impeach the president to make him stop exposing their corruption.
The fall of Rome was brought on by it's greedy, elitist Senators...
BDV

 

I believe things can change.

If we have a bad president, elect a better one. If we have corrupt politicians in congress, replace them with good ones.

Sure nobody is perfect and politicans make mistakes. But corrupt/greedy politicians who only want whats best for their special interest groups and not what's best for our country as a whole should be voted out of office. If these corrupt/greedy politicians appeal to the masses, then it is the masses who are just as corrupt. If they get elected/relected and remain in office it is our own fault and we will suffer the consequences. If only corrupt politicians run our government, it is because a corrupt people put them there. We get the government we derserve.

To say nothing will ever change for the better, to me is like telling a child that he/she is dumb, stupid, can't get anything right and will never amount to anything. Say it long enough and the child will start to believe it himself.

I wonder if those who think things will never change have heard it from other people for so long that they too now believe it.

So my thoughts are this. If we want things to change, we the people must change them. How? Vote your conscience. And if those we elect into office are not doing the job we elected them to do, voice your displeasure. The people of California did.

 

When you look at the extreme degree of mismanagement it took for the residents of Kalifornia to realize their elected officials were not acting in their best interests, be it from ineptness or personal agendas, it's obvious that a lack of interest by voters is the norm, not the exception. A friend of mine lives in CA and we correspond on the subject of politics on a regular basis. Davis was re-elected after increasing state employees by 40% in a state that had 21% growth in population and personal income during his first term, negotiated (using bureaucrats, not people from the business community) energy contracts that indentured the state to suppliers, supported an enormous after-school child care program financed by a bond issue and passed multiple taxes on everything but air using the service dodge to avoid putting them before the voters and on and on and on. It took CA’s bond rating falling to junk bond status to start the recall movement, not Davis’s lack of management ability.

The current poll results in this thread show a preponderance of posters stating they vote for what’s good for the country and themselves. This is the same board that posts in overwhelming support of the Iraq invasion, occupation and rebuilding of that country, believes fighting terrorism, not oil or a failing economy, was the reason we invaded Iraq, supports raising the national debt ceiling to accommodate record federal deficit spending, still associates 9/11 with Iraq after our president publicly states there was no association, thinks it’s a superb stroke of genius to pay $500 per child to potential voters who in most cases paid the minimum of income taxes, feels the economy is improving when the government publishes a gain of. .003 in GDP, in most cases has little if any clue about the monster tax increases we’re going to experience to pay for the past and coming years of deficits and paints the liberal label on any poster who doesn’t agree with every policy enacted by the current administration including the Patriot Act, which effectively grants our government the ability to treat all citizens like the population in a banana republic.

I think most of those who think they vote in the best interests of their country and themselves are firm in that belief, but since actual statistics show that a majority of people vote along party lines drilled into them by family, peer groups and TV advertising and this is a predominately Republican board (note that I said Republican, not conservative), the poll might be a little skewed. With our current expenditures, military exposure and struggling economy, we had all better hope interest rates don’t take a hike up, because if they do, we’ll have a mess that will make California look like the land of efficient government management.