Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

[Wol4ine]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Sorry, but my definition of socialism is a little bit more than yours. Mine includes a detail conveniently left out of your definition. Where the public sector controls production as well as DISTRIBUTION. Now, can you honestly tell us that you do not see any difference in the 3 examples you gave from the 7 examples I gave? If one is socialist, then all are? If any one is not socialist, then none are?

Let's make a game out of it. Three of these things are not like the other seven;

A) Social Security
B) Medicare
C) National Defense
D) No Child Left Behind
E) Police
F) Cash for Clunkers
G) Cash for Calkers
H) Roads
I) Unemployment Insurance
J) Food Stamps

Here is a hint. Three of these don't entail taking money from one group of tax payers and giving that money to another group, without the first group recieving any benefit.

Hmmm. None of the items you listed seem to meet that definition. I guess you lose.

Are you serious? Maybe you belong to a different Social Security program than I do.

Let's see;
Production-Can you decide how much, if at all, you put into social security? or is that controlled by the government? Government- check.

Distribution-Can you withdraw money from your SS account any time you want? Can you leave the money you put in to SS to your heirs if you pass away? or is that controlled by the government? Government-check.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

No treats from Obama
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Bizarre

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

So to summarize. Some stimulus projects are good. Most aren't. In fact, the vast majority aren't. Pretty much the position i've had all along.

No stimulus is good. You stole the money from Paul, put it in the gubbermint, took your 15-20% overhead and then gave it back to Paul. Why did you take it in the first place?

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Are you serious? Maybe you belong to a different Social Security program than I do.

Let's see;
Production-Can you decide how much, if at all, you put into social security? or is that controlled by the government? Government- check.

Distribution-Can you withdraw money from your SS account any time you want? Can you leave the money you put in to SS to your heirs if you pass away? or is that controlled by the government? Government-check.

You said they didn't receive any benefit. You get a social security check when you retire. If an accident befalls you (like, say, a brain tumor) then you receive a disability check. Every American gets this. So it doesn't meet your own requirements.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Sorry, but my definition of socialism is a little bit more than yours. Mine includes a detail conveniently left out of your definition. Where the public sector controls production as well as DISTRIBUTION. Now, can you honestly tell us that you do not see any difference in the 3 examples you gave from the 7 examples I gave? If one is socialist, then all are? If any one is not socialist, then none are?

Let's make a game out of it. Three of these things are not like the other seven;

A) Social Security
B) Medicare
C) National Defense
D) No Child Left Behind
E) Police
F) Cash for Clunkers
G) Cash for Calkers
H) Roads
I) Unemployment Insurance
J) Food Stamps

Here is a hint. Three of these don't entail taking money from one group of tax payers and giving that money to another group, without the first group recieving any benefit.

So whats your point? Three programs that you feel strictly results in moving money means we are turning into a socialist country? You think spending on a police force is socialist?

At the end of the day, the US still has an incredibly vast majority of its individual products and services supplied by the free market...and regardless of what conservatives think, the country is not, nor will it ever be a socialist country. It is the fact that conservatives do believe we're heading towards socialism...that makes one not even want to listen to any of their policy perspectives.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

So whats your point? Three programs that you feel strictly results in moving money means we are turning into a socialist country? You think spending on a police force is socialist?

From what I could tell, he was using items C, E and H (military, police and roads) as legitimate functions of government.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

RE: Stimulus and roads. Are we building new roads to facilitate the economy, or repairing potholes and putting in guardrails?

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

RE: Stimulus and roads. Are we building new roads to facilitate the economy, or repairing potholes and putting in guardrails?

You have to both build and repair. It's not really an either/or situation. As for the guardrails, there seems to be a lot of pork coming through the stimulus bill on those. The govt put in guardrails all over the Twin Cities metro as a result of that bill, and they're going in the oddest places where they make absolutely no sense whatsoever - like in between separated highways during long stretches of straight-aways.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

You have to both build and repair. It's not really an either/or situation. As for the guardrails, there seems to be a lot of pork coming through the stimulus bill on those. The govt put in guardrails all over the Twin Cities metro as a result of that bill, and they're going in the oddest places where they make absolutely no sense whatsoever - like in between separated highways during long stretches of straight-aways.

I haven't seen the new roads part, just the prettying up of existing roads...not saying there is nowhere to build a new road that would increase commerce.

However, the idea that the stimulus bill is going to promote a sizable increase in commerce via spending billions on existing roads, potholes, guardrails, street lights and signage is a tad of an overstatement from what I've seen.

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Hypocrisy: Thy Name Is "Republican"....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20100222/pl_bloomberg/apeliub0jnqe



Looks like the GOP needs to pass that "purity test" they were talking about earlier, and for starters anybody who asks for stimulus money but voted against it should resign from Congress, if they had any pride.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

I haven't seen the new roads part, just the prettying up of existing roads...not saying there is nowhere to build a new road that would increase commerce.

However, the idea that the stimulus bill is going to promote a sizable increase in commerce via spending billions on existing roads, potholes, guardrails, street lights and signage is a tad of an overstatement from what I've seen.

I don't know if there are any new roads being built right now. I can't think of any new highways in the works around here. Adding lanes to existing roads would be good - it's helped a lot along the west side I-494. Still, the highway repairs need to happen, especially for the bridges right now.

 

[blockski]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

I haven't seen the new roads part, just the prettying up of existing roads...not saying there is nowhere to build a new road that would increase commerce.

However, the idea that the stimulus bill is going to promote a sizable increase in commerce via spending billions on existing roads, potholes, guardrails, street lights and signage is a tad of an overstatement from what I've seen.

1. The focus on roads and roads alone is stupid, our transportation infrastructure spending needs to be far more diverse and thought out than just that. With that said...

2. The reason you've seen stimulus used for potholes and lights at first is because those are the fastest projects to get up and running. Infrastructure spending is indeed quite stimulative, but it's hard to do it fast.

3. Passing judgment on the stimulus at this point is rather short sighted as a great deal of the money hasn't even been spent yet precisely because the latter portions will focus on the kinds of infrastructure investments that will take more time to ramp up.

4. There's value in fixing stuff just for the sake of fixing it. As St. Clown notes, if you build infrastructure you are also committing to maintain that infrastructure long-term. Likewise, the construction industry has been one of the hardest hit in terms of unemployment. Finally, we've got a lot of stuff that needs fixing. Add those three elements together and it's a no brainer - if we're going to spend money to stimulate the construction sector, we might as well get something accomplished that we'd need to do anyway.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Fortunately we don't have to fix roads and bridges because they never break.

 

[Wol4ine]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Hypocrisy: Thy Name Is "Republican"....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20100222/pl_bloomberg/apeliub0jnqe



Looks like the GOP needs to pass that "purity test" they were talking about earlier, and for starters anybody who asks for stimulus money but voted against it should resign from Congress, if they had any pride.

Color me hypocrit too. I complain about SS but then 'benefit' from it every two weeks when I take part of my check and send it to Washington.

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

I especially like this quote from a former flaming liberal Senator:

Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming named by President Barack Obama as co-chairman of a new deficit- reduction commission, said about-faces on government funding aren’t surprising.

“It’s the original sin of Washington -- it’s hypocrisy,” Simpson said. “You can’t do that then say you go out and cut the other stuff.”

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Fortunately we don't have to fix roads and bridges because they never break.

Yeah, we should figure out who does such a fine job of spending billions of dollars overseeing (or overlooking) the current infrastructure risks. But, whoever they are, if we give them more billions they will suddenly become effective. The problem is that they didn't have enough money...if they have more money then bridges wouldn't collapse.

It isn't graft and subpar performance that gives the government a bad name...it is that they are underfunded. If we just gave them more tax dollars none of these problems would exist.

As they say, "make it up in the volume".

 

[SPIN CONTROL]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Hypocrisy: Thy Name Is "Republican"....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20100222/pl_bloomberg/apeliub0jnqe



Looks like the GOP needs to pass that "purity test" they were talking about earlier, and for starters anybody who asks for stimulus money but voted against it should resign from Congress, if they had any pride.

What about someone who constantly voted against a war he didn't support but now claims credit for its success. Should he resign as well?

 

[Handyman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

What about someone who constantly voted against a war he didn't support but now claims credit for its success. Should he resign as well?

Only if a certain Governor who threatened to secede from the Union because of the stimulus then went begging for money does first

When in doubt, Texas will always find a way to trump you in stupidity

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Only if a certain Governor who threatened to secede from the Union because of the stimulus then went begging for money does first

When in doubt, Texas will always find a way to trump you in stupidity

The other 49 states tie for second place though.

 

[Patman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

RE: Stimulus and roads. Are we building new roads to facilitate the economy, or repairing potholes and putting in guardrails?

IMO... the roads are something we should be funding to maintenance levels regardless of how we label the bill. the fact we need to call it "stimulus" is stupid in its own right but its helpful when you're trying to prove "jobs".

Again though, the left lost a tremendous opportunity to go for rail or something else... but then again that's because they're not about improving the world with big ideas. They're about control and self-congratulation.