AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

By the way, I am still waiting for you to educate us all on how Obama is going to wean us off of oil cartel oil in 10 years, with wind and solar.

I'm so happy to see that you're finally coming around, Cyclop. It is indeed not the responsibility of you or any other person or the nation (i.e. government) to make me or anybody else prosperous. If we can convince others of that simple truth, we won't need nearly so much of the nation's wealth confiscated in taxes, we can stop this insane notion of transferring or 'spreading' the wealth, and the government will no longer have the power to reorder our lives beyond its specific constitutionally stated authority.

Welcome to the world of MACdom.

What you call 'spreading the wealth around' is what most people call 'keeping folks from starving to death/living on the street/causing massive social unrest.' You begrudge the monies which are given to very poor people to help them survive. I do not.

I want to raise your taxes, and my own, in order to cover further social programs and advancements as a society. I hardly think this makes us similar in any way.

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with food?

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with clothing?

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with a college education?

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with a house or place to live?

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with healthcare?

Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with technological ability (radio, TV, telephone, computer, internet?)
Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with an income?
Is it the government's responsibility to provide you with transportation?
Is the the government's responsibility to provide you with a shave and a haircut and other personal grooming?

Is it my responsibility to provide you with any of that?

If your answer is yes, then shouldn't everybody receive such care and concern?

And where does the government get the money to fund all that?

If not, then who should? Who decides? Who is the chosen one to be the beneficiary and who designates that another works to provide the benefits?

Are you content to continue to work to support me if I decide its just simpler to allow you to do that?

The MAC is usually willing to look at these hard questions and think them through. The liberal is too often not willing to do that because it requires an honesty that many liberals do not seem to be willing to even consider, much less embrace.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Amid AIG Furor, Dodd Tries to Undo Bonus Protections He Put In
Rich Edson
FOXBusiness

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG: 0.9345, 0.1544, 19.79%) bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

The move represents somewhat of an about-face for the Senator.

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

The amendment made it into the final version of the bill, and is law.

Separately, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.

Dodd’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

One of AIG Financial Products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut.

Dodd Amendment Rules

Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation: Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.

For institutions that received assistance totaling less than $25 million, the bonus restriction applies to the highest compensated employee; $25 million to $250 million, applies to the top five employees; $250 million to $500 million, applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 10 employees; and more than $500 million applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 20 employees (or such higher number as the Secretary determines is in the public interest).
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/dodd-cracks-aig---time/

The MAC is usually willing to look at these hard questions and think them through. The liberal is too often not willing to do that because it requires an honesty that many liberals do not seem to be willing to even consider, much less embrace.

Horseshit, this.

Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html

MACs and/or conservatives in general are by far the most compassionate and generous of all Americans and probably at or near the top of generous people of the world. It is mostly they who run the Salvation Armies around the country, man the thrift shops, run the food banks, fund and staff the Catholic charities, found and staff leper colonies, operate clean, safe, and loving orphanages, operate private homeless shelters and soup lines, go into the poorest of the poor neighborhoods in America, not to stir up political unrest and activism but to relieve suffering, who go into poorest of the poor nations and often put their lives on the line to help the poorest of the world's poor.

Foxfyre wrote:

MACs and/or conservatives in general are by far the most compassionate and generous of all Americans and probably at or near the top of generous people of the world. It is mostly they who run the Salvation Armies around the country, man the thrift shops, run the food banks, fund and staff the Catholic charities, found and staff leper colonies, operate clean, safe, and loving orphanages, operate private homeless shelters and soup lines, go into the poorest of the poor neighborhoods in America, not to stir up political unrest and activism but to relieve suffering, who go into poorest of the poor nations and often put their lives on the line to help the poorest of the world's poor.

Not that I have doubts about claim (you certainly could back it with multiple sources), but what astonishes me that a political orientation is so strongly and closely connected to "welfare".

Here, you really don't know the political connection of a welfare charity - besides that some from the managements are in town/county councils and/or committees. But that alone doesn't give any clue who's giving the money ...