THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

I believe that CI already showed enough sources to show that Bush did indeed push for a reduction in Vet. benefits.
I agree "that CI already showed enough sources", my wiseguy parenthetic comment to the contrary not withstanding.

While President Bush allegedly changed his mind and is now allegedly pushing for a major increase in veterans health benefits, his alleged previous pushing for a decrease is simply unforgiveable. While we can easily forgive that kind of chang-of-mind behavior when exhibited by everyone else, it simply cannot be tolerated by a President of the United States of America who is also a Republican.

As for the other, I don't agree with across the board tax cuts and will leave it at that.
By "across the board tax cuts" I assume you mean same amount of reduction in tax rate for everyone. For example, if the income tax rates on annual taxable incomes of $20,000, $100,000, $500,000 and $2,500,000 were, respectively, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%, you would not agree with reducing each of these tax rates by 5% to, respectively, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%.

Much as I have resisted it, I finally understand that as a practical matter, the U.S.Constitutional is not really "the supreme Law of the Land;" the US Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land. For example, the following excerpts from the Constitution are, practically speaking, merely quaint historical phrases no thinking person should really take seriously and think are applicable to our modern progressive era:

Quote:

Excerpt from Article IV Section 2 (1789): The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

Excerpt from Article V (1789) : The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress

Excerpt from Article VI (1789): This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land

Amendment V (1789): No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment XIV (1868): Section 1. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XVI (1913): The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration.

Everyone knows, right, the US Supreme Court has on its own authority amended Amendment XVI to read:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration, and without regard to anything else in the US Constitution.

Who needs the Rule of Law, anyway?

You completely missed my point about the rebates.
Please accept my apology.

When Clinton left office there was a surplus. Bush said that he was going to give the money back to us with it. He should have saved it for a rainy day instead since the rebates didn't amount to more than a couple of trips to grocery store at best anyway. That way when 9/11 came around we would have had a little more money for the economy than we did. I am not saying that would have held off the recession, but every little bit helps when money is tight.
Foolish me. I believe those economists who then and now allege that distributing those rebates helped reduce the severity of the recession and its attendent loss in jobs and job income that had been brought on by the burden of excessive income tax rates. They allege that the bigger help to reducing the recession was/is the additional tax rate cuts that followed. (Our personal rebate, because we pay a 15% tax rate on our income was about $600.) By investing and/or spending that rebate, I think one did more to improve the US economy, its attendent increase in jobs and job income, and its consequent increase in subsequent income tax collections, than leaving it with the US Treasury would have done.

The most succinct statement regarding this war and the statements by the administration as regards why and how it goes that I have seen....

blatham's signature: "Conservatives understand that there can be a difference between a lie and an untruth".

Ican you are a conservative, I am a democrat, we see all these economic issues differently.

I don't know what the label conservative really means, so I don't know if I'm one or not. I also do not know whether any of the following other labels apply to me: rightist, republican, leftist, liberal, or democrat. I don't know what any of these really mean either.

I want to conserve the rule of law. I want the rule of law and its governance to conserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I believe one honors oneself simply by willingly and knowingly joining that group whose members all honor the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all members of that group, regardless of the risks. But maybe that makes me a liberal too.

I agree we see economic issues differently.

Wars cost money that don't come from the private sector but comes from the government and if you give it all away you are not going to have it so in desperation you have to talk about taking away benefits from the very people who serve in the wars and from other needy people like the disabled and elderly and public schools...

Here's an example of our disagreement on economic issues. I think all of the money that pays for government services including those paying for fighting a war, come from the private sector in the form of tax revenues paid by the private sector to government. This money does not ever come from government. All of this money is limited both by tax laws and the wealth and income from the private sector. Any tax money paid to government reduces incomes and investments, and consequently reduces employment opportunities. Unfortunately, if the government tries to take too much tax money from the private sector, the total amount of tax revenue collected by the governent is actually reduced.

For example, if the government were to take 100% of the income received in the private sector, the government would actually receive as much tax revenue as if it taxed 0%, because it would discourage people from bothering to earn any taxable income at all. People wouldn't voluntarily risk investing their money or labor in their own or anyone else's enterprises. To survive, people would seek other ways to trade value for value than using taxable money. Perhaps secret barter agreements would work in many cases. If the tax rate were say 50%, many people would still look for non-taxable ways to trade value, because that is exactly what a great many are doing now. While I don't know the optimum tax rate that will produce maximum tax revenue for the government, I bet it is somewhere between 10 and 29%. I bet less than or more than that optimum rate will produce less tax revenue.

Of course, the Supreme Court could simply decide to repeal both Article V of the Constitution and the 13th Amendent, and compel us all into involuntary servitude to the governent. While some might prefer that, I'm not one of them. Maybe it's that that makes me a conservative. I want to conserve my and everyone else's liberty. Whoops! There I go again. Maybe that makes me a liberal too!

Its all very well to say that the rebates helped to avoid an even bigger recession when there is no way to prove such a thing since the rebates were taken out of the surplus and we did have a recession and we are now having to talk about drastic cuts to cut down on the ever growing defecits that has always grown under republican presidents and under Bush has reached record highs. But of course it is clinton's fault. Everything is always everyone else's fault besides Bush.

I have repeatedly stated here in this forum my opinion that every president of the US has errored, bungled, and blundered. Bush is no exception. Some of these presidents have nonetheless managed to make timely corrections that enabled them to accomplish making things better and not worse. I don't know yet whether Bush will be able to do that too.

Your claim that ever growing deficits and its consequent federal debt has always grown under republican presidents is false. For example, deficits were eliminated under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and deficits were increased under Roosevelt, Johnson, Carter and Reagan. Historically, some presidents from all political parties (democratic republicans, whigs, federalists, republicans, democrats) have run deficits.

We have no way to prove anything with certainty without assuming at least one thing which we cannot prove with certainty. For example, I assume that a particular airplane I fly is airworthy, but I cannot prove with certainty that is true. If it is true, and if I fly it competently, and if other airplanes do not collide with mine, then I won't crash. In other words you, I and billions of other humans are repeatedly taking the risk of making decisions based on their judgment and experience about what will work. Some decisions work and some don't work. Some decisions work better than others. Some decisions don't work as badly as others. One thing we can be relatively confident of: making no decision will probably not work for very long. That seems to me to be too close to being brain dead.

By the way the rebates were not taken out of the surplus. They were taken out of tax revenues we the people paid that same year. Those rebates were truly refunds of some of the taxes we previously paid in.

Quite an inspirational column by the Albanian Ambassador in today's Washington Times.

We Albanians are a nation of freedom fighters who know something about living under oppression," Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano wrote in a letter to President Bush. "That is why we wholeheartedly support the American-led effort to free the people of Iraq. And though we are a small country with a small military, we are proud to stand side by side with our allies in the fight to end the reign of terror in Baghdad."
...
Upon committing Albania to the Coalition of the Willing, Prime Minister Nano urged his fellow European leaders to visit Normandy
"to see for themselves what the United States has been willing to undertake in the name of freedom. We should all visit Normandy. We should pay homage to those brave Americans who stormed ashore at Omaha Beach and gave their lives for the freedom of others. The wonder of it is that the Americans are willing to do it again," Mr. Nano said.

Note, my point to all this which I admit has been labored past the point of interest, is that now we are having to pay for all those tax cuts which in the beginning were justified because we had so much money and then justified to spur the economy.

Yes, we will have to pay for those tax cuts. We will see whether we will have to pay for those tax cuts with higher tax rates on our higher incomes, or with higher tax rates on our lower income, or with the current tax rates on our higher incomes. I bet its the last one, but of course we agree that no one can prove whic until it actually happens oneway or the another.

If the people are not paying money into the govenment which funds the wars then we will simply not have as much money. It is so simple I don't understand why it is made complicated.

Yes, if we don't pay the money into government to fund the wars in a reasonable time, government will go into still greater debt. That will fuel still greater inflation which will make our incomes worth less. That result is equivalent to a consumption tax that hurts the poor disproportionally more than the rich.

I will now shut up about this. :wink:

Me too ... for now. :wink:

Ican, I will give you that some democrats had rising deficits, I spoke hastily. I was just remembering the difference between the clinton years and the former Reagan years and now Bush years and that is why I said what I said.

You are also correct that the reason the rebates were given was to stimulate the economy. I got the rebates confused with the tax cut and Bush saying the words, “give it back”. In any event, the argument still stands that we should have not spent the surplus which we had under Clinton and saved it for a rainy day. Bush also justified his tax cuts by saying that we would have such a huge surplus under him that we should give the money back to those who made the surplus possible. HE was wrong. We should have saved it for the following hard years.

Yes, only Clinton (who did it with a tax increase) ran a surplus since Kennedy (who did it with a tax decrease) did that, and only Kennedy did that since Eisenhower (who did that with a tax decrease) did that. As for tomorrow: "We shall see my little chickadee." After all you said we cannot prove now what we claim now will happen in the future.

Some links of interest to the subject at hand.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/02/24/national/main274334.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36514-2005Mar15?language=printer

Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post profiles SCIRI preacher Jalal al-Din Saghir of the Baratha Mosque in Baghdad. Shadid finds him full of a rhetoric of excess, a black and white view of the world, and a Shiite triumphalism that scares the Sunnis.

It was Saghir's election to parliament, as part of the United Iraqi Alliance slate, that Americans got all happy and excited about last January 30.

Richard Ingram on the current role of the British Army in the south of Iraq::
"According to Ms Philp, the town of Basra is today controlled by fanatical religious militias which disapprove of things like picnics. So what has happened to the British army which, we thought, was in charge? When one of the students appealed for help at the British military base he was told to 'go to the Iraqi authorities'. From this account, it appears that our army is confined to barracks waiting to be told what to do by a government that doesn't exist. That probably suits Mr Blair, as the last thing he wants is more British casualties hitting the headlines. But one wonders what the army thinks about it. "
Sun, Mar 27, 2005 23:30

1. No Government and 16 Dead US Generals revealed on...
No Government and 16 Dead

US Generals revealed on Sunday that a) guerrillas in Iraq are able to keep the number of attacks at about 60 a day and b) that the proportion of fighters that is foreign jihadis has increased somewhat in the past few months. (The proportion seems to have been about 5 percent through last fall). The CIA is worried that the jihadis are getting training in Iraq that will allow them to contribute to destabilizing the Middle East and might impel them to attack the United States, as the veterans of the Reagan Afghanistan Jihad did.

By the way, if there are 60 attacks a day, why do I only read about 7 or 8 of them?

Here's an example of our disagreement on economic issues. I think all of the money that pays for government services including those paying for fighting a war, come from the private sector in the form of tax revenues paid by the private sector to government. This money does not ever come from government. All of this money is limited both by tax laws and the wealth and income from the private sector. Any tax money paid to government reduces incomes and investments, and consequently reduces employment opportunities. Unfortunately, if the government tries to take too much tax money from the private sector, the total amount of tax revenue collected by the governent is actually reduced.