Constructive gadfly
Published on August 6, 2008 By stevendedalus In Politics

 

 

Supplying him with 50,000 more troops from global bases, order General Petraeus to launch a final mop up of all pockets of resistance in Iraq.

Enact single payer universal health care by extending Medicare to all, doubling Medicare payroll tax and a 1% national sales tax. Employees will expect compensation in wage adjustments.

For every dollar spent on environmentally sensitive domestic oil drilling two dollars will be spent on alternative fuels and modernization of railways. No new automobile will be built that does not meet 40mpg by 2012, and a national speed limit of 60mph on highways will be strictly enforced effective immediately. Gasoline tax will be increased 5 cents.

Negotiate with NATO to increase its quota of combat troops in Afghanistan and issue an ultimatum to the Taliban and al Qaeda to surrender, including bin Laden, or be obliterated. Every effort will be made to herd women, elderly and children to safety zones.

Forcefully broker a deal with Israel and Palestine to end hostilities or forgo US aid to both.

Ten percent of Iraqi oil production to be exported to the US as payback.

Congress will disband earmarks, replacing it with equitable revenue sharing for legitimate state needs.

A $1-10 surtax on every tax return for the purpose of mandatory campaign expense; and each private exercise of “freedom of speech” limited to $500 per candidate—no exceptions. All surreptitious angles such as 527s will be outlawed.

And so it goes. …



Copyright © 2008 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: Aug 6,  2008.

http://stevendedalus.joeuser.com

http://www.lulu.com/rrkfinn


Comments (Page 1)
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on Aug 06, 2008
You are probably right - and I am so glad the 22nd was passed. As he was clearly a socialist, and anti-poor. Both the taxes you suggest (and I suspect would have been at his cornerstone) are extremely regressive. And people bitch about Bush favoring the rich?

Some say FDR was right for the times. Others say he made the times through his arrogance and errors. Let's leave him in antiquity and hope we do not get any more like him.
on Aug 07, 2008
You are a superb iconoclast and explains your positions on virtually every comment made.  
on Aug 07, 2008

Supplying him with 50,000 more troops from global bases[/quote]

I can just hear the Great Leader Kim Jong expressing his support now. Lock the front door and leave the back door wide open. We have other commitments.

quote]Enact single payer universal health care by extending Medicare to all, doubling Medicare payroll tax and a 1% national sales tax. Employees will expect compensation in wage adjustments

Raise taxes, put more small businesses out of business, and make others move overseas. Great plan. We need less in our pay checks, so when jobs dry up we can work for peanuts for the employers that stay.

Gasoline tax will be increased 5 cents

You love those taxes, huh? Why not just make everyone that's 18 and older (businesses and organizations too)a one time offer, they must choose for the rest of there life to either be taxed and receive the benefits of the Democrats or the less taxes and fewer government cheese handouts of the Republicans. My prediction? Those well-meaning left wing celebrities and philanthropists will be feeding and providing health care to all the freeloaders that chose the left. We'll then see who puts their money were their mouth is.

Negotiate with NATO to increase its quota of combat troops in Afghanistan and issue an ultimatum to the Taliban and al Qaeda to surrender, including bin Laden, or be obliterated

Half the NATO forces there NOW refuse to take an active aggressive part in the fighting.

So your prepared to invade Pakistan? That's where the Taliban and al Qaeda are. They would love the support they would receive from 100's of millions of Pakistanis should the US invade. Your gonna need more than those 50,000 other troops. FDR had 12 million in uniform by the end of the war to defeat the Axis with a much smaller population than modern Pakistan.

Forcefully broker a deal with Israel and Palestine to end hostilities or forgo US aid to both.

You can't cause your fighting World War III in Pakistan. But suppose you could, try breaking up a fight between two pit bulls and let me know how that works for you.

Ten percent of Iraqi oil production to be exported to the US as payback.

This is just a plan to justify the lefts cries that we invaded for the oil, which couldn't have been farther from the truth, to their great dismay.

Congress will disband earmarks, replacing it with equitable revenue sharing for legitimate state needs.

Agreed, but the majority in Congress do not want this Democrat and Republican. Give me one example when they did something the people wanted but they opposed? Not an earmark, but 70% of the people in the US want the US to open drilling here, seems like a no brainier doesn't it?

A $1-10 surtax on every tax return for the purpose of mandatory campaign expense; and each private exercise of “freedom of speech” limited to $500 per candidate—no exceptions. All surreptitious angles such as 527s will be outlawed.

Again with a tax on the people that pay taxes. But I like where your going with it (except paying for free speech, that should be free always, rich or poor). How about the the public pay 0 on their tax return. The candidates pay for their own advertisements, limited to $1 million (that should mean lots of campaign buttons and bumper stickers). The gov can give them each two, one hour specials to make their pitch to the people (one after securing the nomination, one two weeks before the election) and three public debates.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and attribute this article to pining for the good old days of the depression and WWII, a time when people gave more, ejected less and mostly whinnied to themselves in at all.

But here are some of the things FDR (a great salesman) promised about social security:

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social
Security (FICA) Program.  He  promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be
Completely voluntary,

2.) That the participants would only have to pay
1% of the first $1,400 of their annual
Incomes into the Program,

3.) That the money the participants elected to put
I nto the Program would be deductible from
Their income for tax purposes each year,

4.) That the money the participants put into the
Independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the
General operating fund, and therefore, would
Only be used to fund the Social Security
Retirement Program
, and no other
Government program, and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees
Would never be taxed as income.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
   -Thomas Jefferson

on Aug 08, 2008
Not an earmark, but 70% of the people in the US want the US to open drilling here, seems like a no brainier doesn't it?


You forget that big oil abandoned their own domestic wells decades ago--dreamers always looking for the path of least resistance.
You'll hear from me later.
on Aug 08, 2008
It's long past defending S. Korea. Get over it.

Old Hat thinking: progressive taxes actually create jobs as opposed to the trickle down that doesn't work.

Strictly for conservation purposes.

Taxes are the substructures of governance; it is silly to poo-poo the engine that makes our democracy work.

Obviously common knowledge but not etched in granite.

You're good at exaggerating but pointless comparing to WWII. Invade, no; cut off aid, yes. Pinpoint strategic air raids, yes.

Enough already with those two; either they end the bullshit or we walk away like Ike did.

You're very generous to foreigners, but not to our own; a payback would surely help immediately at the gas pump. Your answer is, of course, ideologically constrained--God forbid anyone suggest the crass motive to go to war.

How about exercising freedom of the air waves and enforce the MSN to free political but constructive advertising?

This was not meant to be whistling in the winds of the past.

1. "Voluntary" doesn't work; can you imagine employers voluntarily matching funds?
2. Adjusted for inflation.
3. Politics is not crystal ball gazing.
4. The trust fund could not grow without government borrowing.
5. It isn't for those who have no other retirement assets.

A government sensitive to its people's needs, is strong in enlightenment to see they are met. sd
on Aug 11, 2008
Old Hat thinking: progressive taxes actually create jobs as opposed to the trickle down that doesn't work.

Strictly for conservation purposes.


Strange, then why are the liberals complaining about the spending of the Rich? Seems if Trckle down was discredited, they would not care. And I think this was laid to rest when the idiots in congress decided to "soak the rich" and slap an onerous luxury tax on boats. We all know what happened then.

on Aug 11, 2008

5. It isn't for those who have no other retirement assets.

Yeah like my mom and her $600 monthly social security check, she pays no tax...what a lucky girl.

So you read what FDR promised, now take a look at what his political decendents did deliver:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the
Independent "Trust Fund" and put it into the
General fund so that Congress could spend it
?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically
Controlled House and Senate. 


Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security
annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the
"tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the US


Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving
Annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That's right! 

Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65,
Began to receive Social Security payments! The
Democratic Party gave these payments to them,
Even though they never paid a dime into it!


Then, after  violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

on Aug 11, 2008
A government sensitive to its people's needs, is strong in enlightenment to see they are met.

I'm beginning to think you really are a communist. You sure that didn't come from the Little Red Book?

Nice prose, but I'll go with Jefferson's take on government.
on Aug 12, 2008
Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?

Amen. Many of the wealthy simply put their checks into trust for their kids.

It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically
Controlled House and Senate.

To help pay for the disastrous war; better than having China pay for the current war.
Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

When was it ever deducted?
Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.


This is bs. Immigrants still need to be on social security--even for widow's pension.
  
on Aug 12, 2008
I'm beginning to think you really are a communist.


Communists have no sensitivity in governance.  
on Aug 12, 2008
Amen. Many of the wealthy simply put their checks into trust for their kids.


SOCIAL SECURITY ANNuities! Not trust funds. Why do you advocate double taxation? Social Security has already been taxed. So you want to tax taxes now?

on Aug 12, 2008
So you want to tax taxes now?


No, but excess income spirals more excess, the money game that keeps the country club gentlepersons happy so they should stop whining about having to pay taxes on new money.
on Aug 12, 2008
No, but excess income spirals more excess, the money game that keeps the country club gentlepersons happy so they should stop whining about having to pay taxes on new money.

Now, you've confirmed it. You are a communist.
on Aug 12, 2008
issue an ultimatum to the Taliban and al Qaeda to surrender, including bin Laden, or be obliterated

Um...how? Seeing as I was under the impression that the US and Nato want them to be obliterated already, this implies you'd be looking at a nuclear option of genocidal proportions, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands to millions of innocents, to be sure you could obliterate them, although the act alone would cause the taliban's ranks to be swelled, meaning you'd need to nuke every possible place the taliban and bin laden could be, to make sure the organisation would be dead, even if a new one would just spring from it's place. Either that or you're talking about hundreds of thousands of troops pouring into Afghanistan to stop the taliban, but then they can just run away to neighbouring countries and friendly countries, regroup, and survive (albeit in a greatly reduced form), so I fail to see how you could obliterate them. Hence, is there really much point in issuing an ultimatum that everyone knows you'd be unable to enforce?

Taxes are the substructures of governance; it is silly to poo-poo the engine that makes our democracy work

Taxes should be for government intervention to correct market failure, and redistribution of wealth. With redistribution of wealth you have a trade off between total income (of the country/average income per person) and the variance of that income (that is, how close people are to all having the same income). The more you focus on equal incomes, the smaller the amount of income you have for everyone. The trade off level deemed acceptable is determined by the government in power, and in terms of the political spectrum left wing governments will view a higher trade off (i.e. a greater loss of income for closer to equally distributed incomes) as acceptable while a more right wing government will typically only view a much lower trade off as acceptable. (pure) Communism meanwhile ends up trying to get everyone's incomes equal, fails miserably due to human nature, and has a hopeless economy.
on Aug 13, 2008
Now, you've confirmed it. You are a communist.
Attempt at humor?

you'd be looking at a nuclear option of genocidal proportions, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands to millions of innocents, to be sure you could obliterate them


Hardly, there's a middle ground, you know. Flamethrowers and Napalm bombs.
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