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Bravo, NJGOAT. I cannot understand how ANY person thinks we are, or any policital side is currently trying to be, a "Christian" Society. And I really find it extremely distasteful whenever any one of them starts claiming to BE of Christian values. They are all exactly the opposite, from where I stand.
Wasn't there also a section that spoke of those who CLAIM TO BE Christian, but are really the direct opposite? ... And IIRC, they get the worst treatment in the end? I think it was in Revelations.
Most of the references of that nature are tied to the idea of false prophets. There are references to these sprinkled throughout the New Testament including Revelations. In general they refer to people that proclaim to be a representative of God, but do not speak for God and pervert his values. Christ warns that these people may even perform miracles and make predictions that will come true. The people who believe in these false prophets are doomed to never enter Heaven.
The recomendation is to judge the spirit of such prophets with a test of sorts. First if they proclaim that Jesus is not the son of God, than they are false. The second is that if they do not teach and embody the values of the Christ, than they are false.
The latter seems to be treading on dangerous ground for some of the Chistians out there.
i think 9/11 has been used to justify an insane amount of overspending. republicans act as if we are getting attacked by terrorists on a daily basis. the reality is we had 1 terrible attack in recent memory. i dont know how many attacks our added security has thwarted, but it seems to me like we are 1. doing more than is needed and 2. could transfer assets that are overseas doing nothing of value to us here to protect the homeland.
oh and the whole north korea thing is a huge joke. one funny thing was to see democrats start screaming about north korea when it became clear we were going to attack iraq. north korea is japan's problem, not america's. let japan deal with it. oh and they are also south korea's problem and we should pull our soldiers from that border. its funny how we have almost 30,000 american soldiers on the korean border, how many are on the american border?
and georgia is having trouble hiring people to pick this season's crops because there's less illegals coming in. it's a crazy, f'd up world....
And despite what "members" of the "tea party" say on an individual basis, I don't hear any politicians really going after Social Security or Medicare.
you havent heard democrats go after them. i believe the ryan budget was passed by the house and it does address those things. i dont think he was aggressive enough (democrats said it was draconian). but you can expect it to be addressed come 2013, not earlier. probably not so much in the elections since its a dangerous issue to take a position on.
you are painting the tea party as not wanting to touch social security and medicare and i dont think thats accurate. you are going to have various members that may hold up a sign of that nature, but i dont think thats the tea party consensus (or general feeling since i dont believe you can have consensus among the tea party because its not a party). on defense, i agree that it seems generally agreed among conservatives that we cant cut the military. i just dont understand that. our geographic location should mean we should be spending less on military than other countries. but instead we spend tons more. military should be cut drastically.
There are different shades throughout, but as brady said, I have yet to hear anyone openly talk about reforming the sacred cow entitlement programs (except from Obama of all people) or seriously cutting defense spending.
My challenge to you and anyone else whose mantra is cut, cut, cut and lower taxes is to look at the Federal budget (I posted the 1st grader version) and tell me what you would cut to make it all work without raising taxes. Then, if you want to lower taxes tell me what else you would cut to do it.
$1.294 trillion is a big number and I don't think there is anyway to cut our way to a balanced budget without absolutely gutting our government and taking away entitlements that people are depending on. This is why I believe in a compromised (there's that four-letter word again), balanced approach that cuts spending, reforms entitlements AND raises taxes back to appropriate levels in order to balance the budget. There can't be any sacred cows in the room and claiming that compromise is not an option will simply leave us paralyzed.
Are you not willing to acquiesce to slightly higher tax rates if in turn we slashed spending and overhauled the entitlement programs so that everything was sustainable and the budget balanced without cutting off our nose to spite our faces?
One of the recurring themes from many folks--particularly those of a right-wing bent--is that our government "should be run like a business".
And, then those same folks are usually the ones whose solution for all of our fiscal problems is cut, cut, cut expenses--and don't you dare raise our taxes.
Think about this for a moment:
If you were the CEO of a company that had really negative financials, would you/could you solve the company's fiscal woes merely by cutting expenses? In reality, any CEO worth his multi-million dollar salary would also increase revenues, simply because there is a point beyond which you cannot go before your cost-cutting leads to a decreased quality of product or services.
In a similar fashion, government needs to cut expenses, but unless we want to have a ridiculously reduced quality of life, and unless we want to throw our recession economy into a true depression, there is a limit to how far you can go with cost-cutting. In addition to reasonable cost-cutting, the federal government needs to increase revenues in order to actually give us a long-term solution to our fiscal problems. One way to do this is to ask the super-wealthy to pay their fair share once again, rather than the greatly reduced tax rates that they have enjoyed over the past 9 years or so.
Aside from the contradictions of the folks who want us to "run the federal government like a business", but fail to recognize that a successful business increases revenues in addition to lowering expenditures, there is the really interesting reality that the tax policies espoused by Obama are essentially similar to the philosophy of Ronald Reagan. In other words, the same folks who venerate Reagan, are lambasting Obama for advocating the same tax policy that Reagan promoted. The same tax policy that the hero of the GOP advocated is somehow "socialism" when a Democratic president says the same thing.
In case you don't believe me, take a look at this concise little video comparison of tax policy statements by these two presidents:
Are you not willing to acquiesce to slightly higher tax rates if in turn we slashed spending and overhauled the entitlement programs so that everything was sustainable and the budget balanced without cutting off our nose to spite our faces?
i think that would be the compromise position but not what id want to happen. however, it seems like when our politicians agrees to spending cuts, it just means lower increases or nothing at all.
plus, there is the issue of creating a better economic environment for business. i think that should involve less regulations, less fees and lower corporate taxes.
now that the democrats cant ram through their own legislation, they want "compromise." i dont think they were so interested in compromise when they had control of both legislative bodies and the presidency. but the problem with compromise in this situation is that one side wants to cut spending drastically and cut taxes or leave them be and the other side wants to increase spending and increase taxes on certain people. so the compromise position seems to be to do nothing, which isnt going to get us anywhere. so, im not particularly interested in compromise because any cuts are labeled draconian by democrats. states are making cuts because they have no choice. we need a balanced budget amendment so the federal government can do the same.
Last edited by CaptainNJ; 10-11-2011 at 02:27 PM..
If you were the CEO of a company that had really negative financials, would you/could you solve the company's fiscal woes merely by cutting expenses? In reality, any CEO worth his multi-million dollar salary would also increase revenues
how is a failing company going to increase revenues?
i think that would be the compromise position but not what id want to happen. however, it seems like when our politicians agrees to spending cuts, it just means lower increases or nothing at all.
plus, there is the issue of creating a better economic environment for business. i think that should involve less regulations, less fees and lower corporate taxes.
now that the democrats cant ram through their own legislation, they want "compromise." i dont think they were so interested in compromise when they had control of both legislative bodies and the presidency. but the problem with compromise in this situation is that one side wants to cut spending drastically and cut taxes or leave them be and the other side wants to increase spending and increase taxes on certain people. so the compromise position seems to be to do nothing, which isnt going to get us anywhere. so, im not particularly interested in compromise because any cuts are labeled draconian by democrats. states are making cuts because they have no choice. we need a balanced budget amendment so the federal government can do the same.
calling a lower increase in a future budget a "cut" is more accounting trickory. states do this as well.
as far as corporate taxes go though - how low do we go for a corporation to not take the fairly easy steps to set up a sub that owns a sub that is located in a place with a 0% tax rate? we'd have to go down to pretty close to 0%, or they'll keep doing what they do. OR...we could fix the loopholes in our tax laws that allow them to take advantage of those methods anyhow, and lower the overall rate as a result.
and all the democracts have done is compromise, even when they had control. that's why Obama's base is so angry with his results so far.
i understand. 4 years comes to $220,000 without calculating interest accumulated. and as you said, the added costs on top. no financial aid i guess. wow. that's unreal though. good luck!
Thanks, I need it LOL!
They don't give financial aid beyond a bachelor's degree. That's what I think is so messed up. Nowadays what does a bachelor's get you? Not much in most fields. I got some scholarships but they weren't much, a few hundred here and there. And I was at one of the less expensive vet schools in the country too so I'm sure there are people worse off than I am. At least I was able to find a job.
And once they come into payment (6 months grace until November) I am going to look at all my options as far as consolidation/refinancing goes. Problem is I can really only afford the income contingent plan and not everyone has that. If I paid back on the regular plan they wanted $5,350/month! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that. I don't even take that much home a month.
as far as corporate taxes go though - how low do we go for a corporation to not take the fairly easy steps to set up a sub that owns a sub that is located in a place with a 0% tax rate? we'd have to go down to pretty close to 0%, or they'll keep doing what they do. OR...we could fix the loopholes in our tax laws that allow them to take advantage of those methods anyhow, and lower the overall rate as a result.
and all the democracts have done is compromise, even when they had control. that's why Obama's base is so angry with his results so far.
i would say 0% for corporate income. tax the money when it goes to people.
democrats were forced to compromise with themselves, not republicans.
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