I’m thinking that we agree here, though it may not be clear from your comment. I think that “that government which governs best is that government which governs least”. I agree with you that government spending not only is way out of control but also has migrated far into unconstitutional realms. I should hope it obvious that it’s immaterial to talk in terms of “left” or “right” is these regards, as the so-called “right” has proven itself grossly more guilty of said violations than “the left” could ever have hoped over the past few years. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad how GW (George W. Bush, not global warming; I’ll start using GWB to avoid confusion) supports our Constitution to the nth degree when it comes to feeding his LUST FOR POWER (far beyond what I should hope most Americans consider Constitutional), but he gets his panties in a twist when it comes to empowering Constitutional civil rights (see violations of habeas corpus [Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 2], and 4th, 5th, 6th, & 8th Amendments)!? GWB is joking, right? (I’m not sure how his motivations could be any more transparent [to the extent of sending a brain-dead "Chief Law Enforcement Officer" to testify before Congress], but obviously 30% of our population is either permanently fooled or totally brain-dead in these regards.) Of course, these Constitutional violations have nothing to do with spending, except for paying the salaries of those who (and amortizing the equipment & facilities needed to) commit said violations via government dole. You’re probably talking about a host of other nonsensical government expenditures that have little to nothing to do with governing, but everything to do with social engineering. We probably shouldn’t go there because I’m going too long as it is, but I’m thinking that I’m with you on this one here, brother. (Or is it sister?)

(Hey, I was just addressing Randy’s question about non-moral reasons for taxing only the “whales” and leaving the “plankton” to feed the whales — I mean, the rich. Randy wasn’t “busting Joe’s chops” over what government should do with the money once it got it, was he? Or was he, which means that I’m chasing a ‘red herring’ here?)

Now, where we might differ is where the likes of Keynes & Galbraith enter the equation. This is to say that I DO agree with the supposition that, when free market banking imbeciles soil their trousers, it’s prudent for government to step in and wipe their proverbial “poopy butts” — like The Great Depression. However, this philosophy is premised on the condition of limited government going into said crisis, and returning to limited government after said crisis. Obviously to your point, this borders on insanity. Your point is well taken that, just like we can’t trust free market imbeciles to not make a “poopy mess” of the economy, we can’t trust government to limit itself — to not go into debt before the mess, to only go into enough debt to clean up the mess, and to pay the debt off as fast as possible after the mess has been cleaned up — and maybe even run surpluses! (Hell forbid!) What do we get instead? To your point: perpetual government debt, perpetual increased government employment. (Even when they run on “Goldwater Conservative platforms” like GWB & Reagan, they’re liars. Oops; sorry; I don’t mean to seem judgmental; what’s your definition of “liar”?) One of the things most disturbing in these regards is government hiring; it’d be ideal to go into the free market’s poopy mess with minimum government employment, to expand government employment only as needed to clean up the poop, and then to shrink government employment back down to “normal” as the “diaper rash” of the free market subsides and the free market is once again able to absorb jobs shed by emergency government employment — jobs created because the free market was too immature to see past 3 months into the future. While I should hope it obvious that it would be ideal to live in such a world, I should hope it just as obvious to realize that we don’t live in such a world, that it would be “insane” to insist that our present officials adhere to such — to see our government the way that our government is and to say, “Our government shouldn’t be this way!”. (I agree with Einstein on this one here which means that my definition of “insanity” is to see Truth the way that Truth is and say, “Truth shouldn’t be this way.”. Thus, my definition of “genius” is to see Truth the way that Truth is and say, “This is the way Truth is!”. What’s the way ‘Truth is’ when it comes to government? Hey! That smacks back to your question!) The sad fact of the matter is that our present officials seem incapable of NOT making WORSE the messes that they’re supposed to be cleaning up!(?) Who’s to blame for that? Who voted these metaphoric imbeciles into office with which to begin? Obviously, we shouldn’t blame government but rather take the responsibility upon ourselves in realizing that we only get the government that we deserve…

When it comes to government, what is the way that Truth is? I constantly have to remind my friends that GWB isn’t “the anti-christ” as they’d like to paint him — you know: beating plowshares into swords instead of beating swords into plowshares– but rather more of an “anti-Joseph”. This is in reference to The Old Testament story of how Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and knew to store up 7 years of plenty to alleviate 7 years of want. GWB has done the exact opposite: he’s squandered the “7 years of plenty” that he’s been given, overseeing the peak of the baby-boom generation under his watch (”it’s the economy, stupid”, and it’s demographics that drive the economy) where not only has GWB NOT stored up but also has he run up record deficits!(?) So, where are Keynes & Galbraith going to be when the true realities of the sub-prime crises hit home? Where will Keynes & Galbraith be when the housing market finally bottoms in 2018-19 — the time frame in which baby-boomer demographics are destined to bottom? How will a government ALREADY indebted, a government ALREADY totally over employed, wipe the poopy butt of all those free marketeers who only saw the next “wave crest” — who totally missed “the tide change”? (Spitfire, GWB doesn’t even seem to realize the tide change — and he oversees The Bureau of Labor Statistics for Satan’s sake!) It’d be nice if we could just conveniently blame this on “the left”, except the problem with that is that Clinton left office with a $100 billion surplus (paying DOWN the national debt — acting in accordance with Joseph, & Keynes, & Galbraith) and projections of the surplus growing to $250 billion within a few years. How long did it take for GWB to “hooch the pooch”? Within 2 years, he was pushin’ $500 billion deficits! OK, now I’ve lost the reason why you brought up spending with which to begin accept that you’re a “leftist” and totally opposed to “the brain-dead right”…

(Let me just say this: I don’t see where $30,000 of federal debt for every US citizen [$9 trillion of debt divided by 300 million citizens] makes us MORE secure. I’d love to know how much of that $9 trillion ended up in Randy’s pockets.)

Before Joe gets upset with all this non-climate talk, let’s bring this home. While it’s my prayer that the free market might address climate change of its own volition — you know: trading carbon credits in accord with Western European leadership — sadly, this smacks of insanity. It’s funny how government didn’t need to prod the free market to trade crude oil, but when it comes to the mess that crude oil leaves –the “poopy”, if you will — it’s up to government to clean up the mess just like government handles wastewater (you know: literal poopy & pee-pee versus metaphoric). So if the solution isn’t free market carbon credits — if the free market can’t wipe its own “poopy butt” in these regards — then I should hope it obvious that it’s up to government to intervene by doing what government does best: tax. And then, what will government spend said tax revenues on? This smacks back to your point of spending, which I think a good note upon which to end.

(He said not capable of resisting the compulsion to plant the seeds of alternative CLEAN fuels & energy INdependence & national ENERGY SECURITY. Maybe you don’t realize that 80% of the 9/11 hi-jackers originated from Saudi Arabia? This means that it makes absolutely NO “security sense” to send another dollar to Saudi Arabia — let alone Iran, for that matter; I’d feel much more SECURE sending Federal Reserve Notes to AMERICAN farmers, thank you very little.)

P.S. If it takes someone like Joe to wipe government’s @ss because they need they’re @ss wiped before they can begin to wipe the free market’s @ss, so be it. Who else? You? Randy? Spitfire, Randy seems to scream unfairness about paying the tax deferrals necessary to fund O.I.L. military — let alone to begin to apply superfund “butt cream” to the free market’s “diaper rash”.

Thanks for your inputs. That’s a point that I consistantly bring up to liberals and they never provide a satisfactory answer:

Most religions of the world encourage giving to those less fortunate. None of these religions, however, stipulate that the government should force this. At that point it is not “giving” anymore. It is confiscating.

You know the old saying….If government robs peter to pay paul the government will always have the support of paul.

You seem to be addressing the tax side of the problem. What about the spending side? At what point do we you hold the government’s feet to the fire to spend only what they have available to them and not incurring debt? We have been running deficits since at least the 30’s. In that time, taxes have been raised and taxes have been lowered. Didn’t matter which it was….we still ran deficits. So what does that tell you about the government? Whatever amount of money it has it will spend it…..and then some.

The other concept we need to embrace is the what the government is spending money on. Most of what the government spends money on is unconstitutional. SS, medicare, welfare special interest programs, federal money to build say a presidential library. None of this has ever been explicity written into the constitution. Why? Because most of would get shot down. Why? Because most of this maybe is just not as good an idea as everyone thinks it is. Something to think about.

This comment is in response to your question about ‘why should high wage earners pay more taxes than lower ones’. It uses ecology instead of morality for enhanced understanding.

Consider the ecology of blue whales & plankton. Blue whales eat plankton, and plankton are eaten by blue whales; it’s a classic predator-prey ecological relationship. I’m sure that blue whales, were they able, would share a sentiment similar to yours when it comes to whalers harvesting them. Their protest might go something like this: “Whalers ought to harvest a ton of plankton for each ton of blue whale harvested”. The point that the blue whales would seem to miss, just like you, is that the whalers are smart enough to let the blue whales do the harvesting of the plankton for them. Why should whalers waste their time on the drudgery with little reward of harvesting plankton when the blue whales are delighted to do it — it’s what blue whales do. In fact, I should hope it obvious that it’s counterproductive for whalers to harvest plankton because that’s taking ‘food out of the mouths of babes’ — baby whales that whalers need fed in order to maintain & boost future harvests!

Here, it becomes evident where misguided tax policy goes wrong just like whalers. While whalers are smart enough to know to harvest just ‘the top of the food chain’ (unlike existing tax policy makers), they’re not smart enough to recycle a sizable portion of their profits back into the bottom of the food chain, to feed the plankton that blue whales eat, thereby ensuring enhanced future harvests, thereby growing the entire food chain. In the vernacular, it’s called “cultivation”; others terms like “responsibility” & “prudence” also seem fitting. This would be like tax policy makers not only skimming money just from the top but also recycling a goodly portion of that money back into ‘the bottom of the tax chain’ thereby creating more ‘tax plankton’ upon which ‘tax whales’ like yourself might feed. Sounds like ‘tax heaven’; so, what’s the problem?

Of course, the problem is that you can’t trust tax policy makers. To me, what we’re really saying is that they’re “imbeciles”. By strict definition, the difference separating idiots from imbeciles is that idiots can never learn to use the bathroom whereas imbeciles can be taught to use the bathroom but can’t be TRUSTED to use the bathroom. Thus, both idiots & imbeciles go through their entire lives wearing diapers. While we’re not talking about literal imbeciles here in discussing untrustworthy tax policy makers, we are talking about metaphoric imbeciles, people who can’t be trusted, people who make horrific messes and who don’t have enough sense to clean up their own messes; they require other, higher functioning human beings to hold their hands and to clean up their messes for them. Thus, the secret to ‘tax heaven’ becomes simple: cut the tax imbeciles out of the equation and turn it over to the higher functioning human beings who not only are capable of cleaning up the messes made by the imbeciles but also who have enough going on ‘upstairs’ to not make the freakin’ messes with which to begin! So, what’s the problem? Why do we continue to suffer under a nonsensical tax system? It should be easy tell the low functioning tax imbeciles from the high functioning care givers, right?

Well, I’ve answered your question and look forward to your response. Now, I’ve a question for you. I’m assuming that you support GW because he “cut” your taxes. But, you do realize that GW’s run up more debt than all other previous Administrations combined, don’t you? When GW entered office, the national debt was $4 trillion, and, at the rate that he’s ‘burning through cash’, he’s going to leave office with the national debt somewhere between $9 & $10 trillion — money that’s going to have to be paid back at some future date by tax revenues; it’s a freakin’ mess. The making of a mess that one can’t clean up one’s self has nothing to with “left” or “right”, but everything to do with indicating the presence of one (or more) imbecile(s). So here’s my question for you: what’s the difference between a “tax cut” and a “tax deferral”?

I do agree with the premise that the pressure to procure government funding leads some scientists to “pre-ordained” findings. Perhaps not all but some probably do succumb to this temptation.

There are a lot of scientists out there who do not think we have enough data/evidence to justify the huge, huge changes being proposed that could have enormous impact on the economy. I mean, let’s keep this in perspective, the world has risen 1 degree in like 100 years.

Note that Jesus used the word “give”. He was not petitioning the government to forcibly remove wealth from those who had earned it.

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”

Neither would he have to flush three times I guess.

BTW, even though we are 180 degrees out, I appreciate your reply.

The rich should pay higher taxes because they have achieved their wealth through the security, legal, and economic framework established by the government they scorn. They should pay higher taxes because they have more to lose from a loss of security, domestic Tranquility, and the like. And that’s assuming the rich see no moral value in having government help the poorest among us. I would note a certain document begins

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

So, yes, the government’s job is to promote the general welfare, even if you don’t think so.

Aside from this, it’s laughable that the very people who take it upon themselves to defend us all from those who would “impose their morality” on us are the most egregious practitioners of doing just that.

Here’s a challenge. Answer my question: “Why should I as a high income earner be forced to pay taxes at a higher rate than anyone else?”, but do it without invoking your version of morality.

While you’re trying to answer that, I’ll be flushing three or more times every day like I have been forced to do for years. Congrats, you’ve succeeded in imposing your morality on us all.

Cream isn’t the ONLY thing that floats to the top.