AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Thats why TV's have a thing called the "on-off" switch.
OR, I can change the channel.

I'm not a member of any political party, so I really dont care what any party thinks.

Its not a game.
I have said it many times, I am a conservative.
However, I am not now, nor will I ever, be a member of any political party.

Sure.
I have never been one to follow the herd.

In that case, can you break with the pack here and admit that it will take a combination of spending cuts and tax raises to balance the budget and pay down the debt

Amazing that you didn't recognize the fact that RJB was having a poke at you, Okie.

Cycloptichorn

I'm still waiting for an explanation from you, as to how you would balance the budget, cut taxes, and pay down the debt all at once. Specifically. What programs would you cut and in what amounts? What tax rates would you cut and in what amounts?

Cycloptichorn

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18936&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
A DARK SECRET ABOUT CREATING JOBS IN AMERICA
Politicians in America and around the world like to talk about creating jobs. Their dark secret is that none of them know how to do it, says James Sherk, the Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the Heritage Foundation.

Look at the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's newest proposal: spending billions on home weatherization and highways. What will that do for the millions of Americans without construction or caulking skills? If the president had better ideas for creating jobs, he would have proposed them, says Sherk.

In fairness, no one should blame Obama for lacking a good plan to create jobs. No president -- Democrat or Republican -- could do much better. Why? Consider where jobs come from, says Sherk:

An entrepreneur has an idea.
Investors provide that entrepreneur with funding.
The entrepreneur then hires workers to help put his idea into action.
If the business competes successfully, those jobs last.
A real-world example:

A decade ago, two graduate students at Stanford -- Larry Page and Sergy Brin -- had an idea for a better way to search the Internet.
They persuaded venture capitalists to invest $25 million in their new company: Google Inc.
Today, millions of Americans use Google, and 20,000 employees work there.
Page and Brin's successful idea created thousands of jobs.
Of course, Google might not have succeeded, says Sherk. The economy works through decentralized trial and error as millions of entrepreneurs try to make their ideas work. That is why labor market freedom is so important. Both workers and entrepreneurs need the freedom to adjust to new market realities as they unfold. No one knows what business ideas will work before an entrepreneur tries them, explains Sherk.

That's why Obama can't create jobs. What politician could come up with even 20 good business ideas, much less the tens of thousands needed to get millions of Americans back to work? No one person has that expertise, says Sherk.

If Obama wants to create jobs, he should start by passing policies that encourage the millions of potential American entrepreneurs to take the plunge and their potential investors to fund them. That's the not-so-dark secret of how jobs are created, says Sherk.

Source: James Sherk, "A Dark Secret About Creating Jobs in America," Heritage Foundation, January 29, 2010.

For text:

http://www.jobsandfreedom.com/?p=59

For more on Economic Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=17

The main question here is: why is former Senator Kirk still voting on these legislative pieces? According to Senate rules and precedent, Kirk’s term expired last Tuesday upon the election of Scott Brown. Furthermore, Massachusetts law can be interpreted, according to GOP lawyers, as:
Based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate. “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

Additionally, as reported in the Weekly Standard and investigated and confirmed by GOP lawyers:
Appointed Senator Paul Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts of a new senator and cannot be the 60th vote for Democratic health care legislation, according to Republican attorneys.
Using this interpretation, Kirk cannot vote on any other legislation.

Moreover, further analysis by Michael Stern concludes:
The Senate subcommittee and committee concluded, based on its hearing and review, that “the term of service of a Senator appointed to fill a vacancy in an unexpired term ends on the day when his successor is elected by the people.” 1939 Congressional Record, p. 998. There was evidently no controversy among either the subcommittee or full committee regarding this legal conclusion, and the committee then presented a resolution to the Senate for adoption, expressing the view that Berry’s term of service expired on November 8, 1938, the date of the special election. As Senator Connally, a member of the subcommittee, explained to the Senate, the fact that the Tennessee statute purported to extend Berry’s term until the qualification of his successor was of no force because the statute was “plainly in conflict with the provisions of the seventeenth amendment.” Accordingly, the Senate adopted the proposed resolution without dissent. 1939 Congressional Reco rd, p. 1058.

Based on this authority, it would appear that a valid point of order could be raised as to Senator Kirk’s participation in Senate proceedings after January 19, 2010.

Why is the GOP allowing the Democrats to blatantly violate Senate and election rules and laws? Where is the GOP leadership? Will Kirk’s votes stand? Massachusetts voters deserve an explanation as does the rest of the country for this blatant abuse of power.

Article taken from Big Government - http://biggovernment.com
URL to article: http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/28/why-is-senator-kirk-still-voting-on-legislation/

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I'm still waiting for an explanation from you, as to how you would balance the budget, cut taxes, and pay down the debt all at once. Specifically. What programs would you cut and in what amounts? What tax rates would you cut and in what amounts?

Cycloptichorn

It would be a long process, but could eventually do it by growing ourselves out of the hole.

Cutting spending would be at the top of my list, along with targeted tax cuts to stimulate the economy, which could at least maintain close to current revenues if not grow them.

One of my first targets would be a few federal bureacracies, such as Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, the Ag Department, and on down the list.

I would look at a federal hiring and wage freeze as well, no more automatic raises.

I would examine the federal budget and bureaucracy from top to bottom. We know it can be done, because Gingrich was successful in the 90's. The biggest factor however is a healthy economy that will deliver tax revenues from existing or lower tax rates. Raising tax rates will only bring further stagnation of the economy. I think we are already near the peak of the Laffer Curve.

To really get serious about this, I would seriously push the National Retail Sales Tax, which has the potential to unleash a tremendous burst of growth into a much more productive and competitive United States.

Raising tax rates will not pay for reducing fed debt, because raising tax rates will further discourage purchasing and investing both by individuals and companies, and that in turn will reduce the magnitude of incomes taxed, thereby reducing fed receipts.

Lowering tax rates will encourage purchasing and investing both by individuals and companies, and that in turn will increase the magnitude of incomes taxed, thereby increasing fed receipts.

Reduce fed spending on unnecessary fed duplicate agencies, and reduce fed spending on surplu sfederal employees.

I cant speak for ican, but I will take a shot at that last sentence.

There are too many people in DC whose only job seems to be to wander around and tell each other how important they are.
Eliminate those people that do little or nothing, and that alone would save millions of dollars, IMHO.