AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

foxy, we live in a very large country. despite some people wanting to pretend it's 1774, there are +/- 296 Million people living here and the country covers the length of the continent.

that's a lot different than 2.5 million people inhabiting new england an a couple of beaches on the atlantic.

it costs money to run something this big. a lot of money. it's just the way it is.

See, as much as I love you, DTOM, that's where you and I disagree the most. You seem to be defending how big government is and how expensive it is as if there was no beneficial alternative to that. And it is okay if it gets even bigger and more expensive.

I see that the bigger and more expensive government gets that the more initiative, willingness for risk taking, productivity, self reliance, and a sense of personal responsibility is drained out of the people. Fewer freedoms, choices, 0ptions, and opportunities will be available to us.

I can how those who are tired of the responsibility for supporting themselves might wish to give it all up and just turn it over to the government to call all the shots and take care of us. I still too much appreciate the vision of the Founders of this country to believe that is something we should just swallow and accept though.

On another thread there has been a brief discussion on poverty among other things and it was noted that poverty levels sharply plunged in the Clinton administration after welfare reform. Why? Because people who can no longer depend on government to take care of them generally choose to do what they need to do to take care of themselves. When they do that, they are generally much much better off.

I want a government that defends us from our enemies, and puts enough rules and regulations into place to allow for an orderly economy in which we can't do violence to each other, and then gets out of our way. You don't need hundreds of thousands more government employees to do that.

President Obama's 3.6 trillion dollar budget equals $12,000 in federal taxes alone from every man, woman, and child in America. When you consider the huge number of Americans who pay no taxes at all, it doesn't take much to see the staggering burden that this places on the average working family. And it will be worsened by an ever increasing number of people who are working in govrenment and thus draining money from the economy rather than putting money into it.

It isn't a good thing, DTOM. It isn't a good thing.

I would bet that the majority of these hires are door-to-door census takers. These are not especially high-paying positions and I doubt that many of those who are in other agencies are suited for this sort of work.

I'm not sure why it's 'insane.' Seems pretty straight-forward to me.

Cycloptichorn

The 2010 Census is not due to be taken until March 2010 and will be done by mail. The door-to-door people will go to work later on to check addresses that don't return the questionnaire.

So what are these 66000 people going to be doing between now and then? Having been a census taker in the past, this is not rocket science and it doesn't need more than an hour or two of training to do the job.

i'm not defending big government, i'm defending the concept that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

which is not to say that i don't want to i.d. and eliminate wasteful (of course "wasteful" is in the eye of the beholder) spending. and i think obama's goal points in the direction of putting money where it does the most good. i'm willing to give him some time to try it and see what happens.

in any case, if you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.

I don't think we have time to wait and see. I think we have to get it right pretty darn soon so that your kids and grandkids are not condemned to live in a bankrupt country with no plausible way out.

But there are honorable people who do see that government should be doing all the stuff Obama says he wants to do. And there are honorable people who see the virtues in a representative republic as the Founders envisioned it working.

So I hope you're right and I'm wrong since we seem hellbent on spending ourselves into prosperity even though there is no evidence that such as ever worked anywhere.

me too.

Well, Foxie, this seems to be a very rare occasion where you have presented a position that seems void of outright criticisms of Obama's stimulus plan.

That there are opposing views on the success of Obama's stimulus plan is welcomed, but with some balance with the criticisms must also come solutions for what he is having to tackle on our economic crisis. 100% bitching without offering solutions gets tiresome very quickly.

While working on solutions for our economy, Obama must also care for those millions of Americans who have lost jobs through no fault of their own and provide them with (extended) unemployment insurance and other support to feed and shelter them. Hundreds of thousands of children are involved, and our government "must" help those families.

All that costs billions of dollars that must be spent.

Beyond the saving of our banks and financial institutions needed for our economy to survive and grow, what other programs initiated by Obama can wait for another day?

John Kennedy decreased tax rates and tax revenues increased. But spending increased too!

Ronald Reagan decreased tax rates and tax revenues increased. But spending increased too.

George Bush decreased tax raates and tax revenues increased until Fannie and Freddie broke the economy, and spending increased too.

Barach Obama is promising to increase tax rates and ... and spending is increasing too.

When Poppa Bush handed Bill Clinton the keys to the White House he also handed him a $290 billion deficit.

Cicerone Imposter has again proved that he is highly excrementitious. He doesn't know that BO's extravagant spending plans will soon create a deficit THREE TIMES HIGHER than any deficit in the past?

Not only did those damn Clinton liberals manage a budget surplus but were at the same time able to pay down the national debt by a staggering 2.4 trillion.

That is nonsense. Do you have a link for your absurd statement? You obvously
are unaware that the Clinton LIBERALS did NOTHING. If you were not so abysmally ignorant. you would know that the economy was managed by Alan Greenspan while Clinton was busy with Monica in the Oval Office. You do remember that the House and Senate was controlled by Republicans from 1994 until Clinton left office, don't you?

Italgato/Massagato/Chiczaria/Mortkat/BernardR/MarionT/Renatus5 . . . genoves . . . possum . . . user ignored.

In fairness to President Obama he has initiated a small tax cut too but it was done in such a way as to be more of a hand out/relief measure than a stimulus and while every little bit helps, it won't make much of a dent in the face of a $3.6 trillion budget. The tax increases he proposes are counter productive in the best of times, and in time of recession are positively nuts.

While the fairest of all taxes are usage fees for roads, parks, bridges, etc., I don't think anybody thinks that the government doesn't also need more general funds to run the government. I don't know anybody who quarrels with that. Some try to accuse MACs of being anti-tax when I can see no evidence that any of us are--in fact since we think everybody should be paying taxes, we are far more pro-tax than the MALs. We are against unfair taxation, against taxation that is detrimental to the economy, and are against taxation that increases temptation for corruption in government.

The discussion should therefore not be whether or not people pay taxes but should focus on:

1. What form of taxes are the most and least detrimental to the nation's prosperity?

2. How can the tax structure be revised to be the most equitable and least corrupting?

3. How much government is appropriate for the people to fund?

How do you think the questionnaire is made?
How do you think the Census compiles the addresses to send those questionnaires to?

It ain't rocket science Fox, but it takes people working to do both of those things.

And who was paying the person that did your training Fox?

There are an estimated 1.8 million civilians working for the federal government. Do you think it requires 66,000 additional people to come up with a questionnaire for this year's census? I mean it isn't like we've never done one before and to produce statistics that can be compared to previous census data, how much different could it be?

Giving the efficient automation and efficiency of modern printing processes designed for mass mailings, do you think it requires 66000 people to get that done? Addresses are readily available from utility and telephone companies and from municiple and country records and with everything already computerized, can be easily translated into federal computers.

I once was contracted to conduct a mail-in survey to an entire county of about 50,000 people and did it myself except for three volunteers who helped with addressing the mailers. We and two additional people followed-up for face to face interviews with selected personnel and a final follow up with a scientificly random telephone survey. Probably a couple of people in the print shop got the survey mailers ready to go. We did pay a one time fee to an expert to train our telephone surveyors. And this was before personal computers and high tech equipment were available to relieve us of a lot of the manual work.

Among the 1.8 + million civilian employees of the Federal government, I am guessing there are at least a few thousand with sufficient time on their hands to handle preparation for the U.S. Census.

So what are those 66,000 new hires now going to be doing?

If I did the math right, there is one federal civilian employee for every 167 Americans. Add in all other government employees at state, county, and municiple levels and its a wonder there are any non-government people working to pay all those salaries. And who pays anybody's salary when there aren't any non government people left?

It looks like they are going to be doing the same think you did with 8 other people.

So, based on the numbers it took for your survey it would require 55,000 people just to conduct your survey for the entire nation. But then you didn't have to contact every household nor track down every homeless person for your survey, I would guess.

Of those 1.77 million employees..
.623 million are in defense
.239 are in Veteran's affairs
.149 are in Homeland Security
.105 are in Justice

Wow.. that's the majority of them..
Why don't we pull someone out of the Defense Department to conduct the census?
Or better yet, take them from Homeland Security...