What the Bush tax cut could have bought

[FunkSoulBrother]

That $330 billion could have covered every uninsured child in the country and paid for millions of teachers and child-care workers. Instead it's going to the richest Americans.

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By Laura McClure and Mark Follman



May 29, 2003 | This has been a trying week for those with math anxiety, not to mention anyone who, owing either to their fear of numbers or their lack of millions of dollars of disposable income, may be struggling to understand the impact of the tax-cut bill that President Bush signed into law Wednesday. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, for instance, said the new measure, which includes $330 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years, would create "more than a million jobs." Many economists dispute Fleischer's analysis, but even if it turned out to be true, given the overall job loss during Bush's administration -- 2.7 million jobs in the private sector alone -- it would still leave us in the red, job-wise.

In fact, it is in the red where the really impressive numbers reside. The day before the East Room signing ceremony, in a move unembellished by ceremony, Bush signed a bill that allows the federal government to borrow up to $7.4 trillion -- a $984 billion increase in the federal debt limit -- to cover the tab for the tax cuts. This year's deficit, after surpluses during the last four years of the Clinton administration, already is expected to exceed a whopping $300 billion.

According to Bush, the tax cuts will give tax relief to 136 million American taxpayers -- another impressive figure, but especially if you are the kind of American taxpayer who seeks relief from taxes on capital gains and corporate dividends. Some of the less advantaged -- especially those who have children, are married, or own small businesses –- will also get tidy sums. But universal relief, or even respite, is not part of this deal.

Meanwhile, every dollar sent back to an American taxpayer, however deserving, is one less dollar that can be spent to meet the nation's ever-growing needs. To facilitate a better understanding of what kind of relief, other than tax relief, this kind of money could buy, we have listed the price tags for some of the programs and projects that comprise the nation's basic domestic wish list. With that $330 billion, for instance, the president could have bought health insurance for all uninsured children, helped states erase their budget deficits, completed Superfund cleanup at the nation's worst toxic waste sites, and funded the new state and local emergency personnel the Homeland Security department says are needed in the war on terror -- and still had money left over.

Here's an itemized list of things the tax cut might have paid for. They are diverse, pressing, some would say essential -- not just to low-income Americans, but to many citizens who, having had a choice, might have directed their billions elsewhere.

Tax-cut total: $330 billion

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 9.2 million currently uninsured children for one year: $13 billion

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 41.2 million uninsured Americans, including children, for one year: $98 billion

Amount needed to close state budget gaps across the country: $78 billion

Amount needed to end homelessness for chronically homeless people within 10 years: $1.3 billion per year to create and sustain 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing

Amount needed by the Environmental Protection Agency to complete cleanups at high-priority toxic waste sites through the Superfund program: $92 million

Cost of Head Start for all 1.8 million children, up to 5 years old, who currently need but don't receive it: $25 billion

Cost of continuing to provide grants to potentially jeopardized regional poison control centers and maintain a toll-free poison information phone number between 2005 and 2009: $142 million

Cost of USDA testing of 12,500 cattle samples for mad cow disease, in addition to homeland security measures such as physical security upgrades at lab facilities and background investigation of workers: $21.7 million

Budgeted cost of continuing to enable states to meet energy emergencies due to extremes in temperature, either during severe cold weather in the winter or sustained heat waves in the summer: $1.7 billion

Cost of measures to improve food safety in 2003, including hiring additional FDA inspectors, and developing new ways for federal inspectors to detect food-borne illnesses in meat and poultry and determine the source of contamination: $101 million

Estimated homeland security costs for full support of state and local emergency personnel in their efforts to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism for three years: $12 billion

Cost of providing housing assistance nationwide for victims of domestic violence from 2004 through 2008: $100 million

Cost of hiring 100 new public-school teachers: $3.125 million

Cost of hiring 100 state child-care workers: $2.08 million

Cost of fully immunizing 100 children against preventable diseases: $64,433

Price of 250,000 new fire trucks: $56.2 billion

Identified funding needs for community-based services in the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS in 2002: $2 billion

Identified funding needs for HIV prevention and surveillance prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $1 billion

Identified funding needs for HIV/AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health: $2.9 billion

Estimated cost of funding Older Americans Act programs for seniors -- such as transportation, delivered meals and elder abuse prevention -- for 10 years: $39 billion

Cost of providing needed assistive technology and durable medical equipment for 1 million individuals with disabilities for 10 years: $39 billion

Cost of compensating federal employees called to active duty in the uniformed services or National Guard for the difference between their civilian and military pay: $89 million over the 2004-2008 period

Yearly cost of direct treatment for mental illness in both the private and public sectors in the U.S.: $92 billion

Estimated cost of spending for countermeasures against smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, plague and Ebola under Project BioShield: $5.6 billion between 2004 and 2013

Cost of 60 million doses of an improved smallpox vaccine: $900 million

Annual cost of providing services to foster children, including educational assistance, job placement, health services and room and board: $200 million

Amount needed to establish a National Housing Trust to provide communities with funds to build, rehabilitate and preserve 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next 10 years: $5 billion

Cost, per recipient, of Job Corps, an education and training program benefiting disadvantaged youth and young adults: $17,000

Federal funding requested in 2004 to maintain the National Domestic Violence Hotline: $3 million

Federal funding requested in 2004 for the national Abandoned Infants Assistance program: $45 million

Cost of assisting states in covering the excess costs of providing special education services to children with disabilities: $8.9 billion

Annual cost of providing funding to public libraries through state formula grants so that libraries can promote wider access to learning and information: $1.6 billion between 2004 and 2009

Cost of providing grants for treatment, counseling and referral for runaway and homeless youth subjected to sexual abuse in 2003: $15 million

Annual cost of funding the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: $20 million

Sources:

Children's Defense Fund
Physicians for a National Health Program
National Conference of State Legislatures
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Natural Resources Defense Council
Children's Defense Fund
Congressional Budget Office
United States Department of Agriculture
Administration for Children and Families
Food and Drug Administration
Fair Taxes For All
Congressional Budget Office
Children's Defense Fund
Children's Defense Fund
Children's Defense Fund
The National Priorities Project
Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights Campaign
Alliance for Retired Americans
Fair Taxes For All
Congressional Budget Office
National Mental Health Association
Congressional Budget Office
Congressional Budget Office
Administration for Children and Families
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Brookings Institution
Administration for Children and Families
Administration for Children and Families
Administration for Children and Families
Congressional Budget Office
Congressional Budget Office
Congressional Budget Office

!

 

[Phaedrus]

Silly Socialist claptrap.

According to Bush, the tax cuts will give tax relief to 136 million American taxpayers -- another impressive figure, but especially if you are the kind of American taxpayer who seeks relief from taxes on capital gains and corporate dividends.

Always the inane cry that only the rich benefit form investment tax breaks. When there are investment tax breaks, people have more incentive to invest, and with greater investment (real savings) an economy is made more robust.

But universal relief, or even respite, is not part of this deal.

So, we want "universal relief" AND the Utopian turd-film scrapings enumerated below? Makes no sense to me, but I'm sure Marx could work it out on paper.

Meanwhile, every dollar sent back to an American taxpayer, however deserving, is one less dollar that can be spent to meet the nation's ever-growing needs.

Our nation does not have *needs* that it is the overall responsibility of everyone not *needy* to fulfill. This asinine rob-Peter mentality has plagued our nation for seven decades and frankly needs to stop while there's still some small hope that we might pull out of the nosedive that it has put us in.

To facilitate a better understanding of what kind of relief, other than tax relief, this kind of money could buy, we have listed the price tags for some of the programs and projects that comprise the nation's basic domestic wish list.

I don't recall being consulted on this wishlist, and neither do three other Americans I asked. So, it is not exaclt a *national* wish list, is it?

With that $330 billion, for instance, the president could have bought health insurance for all uninsured children, helped states erase their budget deficits, completed Superfund cleanup at the nation's worst toxic waste sites, and funded the new state and local emergency personnel the Homeland Security department says are needed in the war on terror -- and still had money left over.

First off, it's $ 330 billion over a 10-year period, as anyone but this author seems to know, and secondly, the day the White House quotes an honest figure on anything financial is the day you will see me doing the Charleston on a lamp post.

Here's an itemized list of things the tax cut might have paid for. They are diverse, pressing, some would say essential -- not just to low-income Americans, but to many citizens who, having had a choice, might have directed their billions elsewhere.

But no mention of those who would have chosen the cut, or crack, or nukes, were they given the choice. Again, typical leftist horseshit. I can't believe I am continually lumped in with these retards.

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 9.2 million currently uninsured children for one year: $13 billion

Boo-hoo, sick children.

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 41.2 million uninsured Americans, including children, for one year: $98 billion

It is not the responsibility of the government to take care of it's citizens' health. The often-quoted 40 million Americans without health insurance represents just 15% of our nation's population -- and refuses to acknowledge that some people just prefer other products and services over health insurance, given x amount of money towork with in their respective monthly budget.

Amount needed to close state budget gaps across the country: $78 billion

The state governments are required under Constitutional mandate to balance their budgets yearly, and are not allowed to go on deficit spending like the federal government does. Which "gaps" are we talking about then? The "gaps" between what we want and what we can afford?

Amount needed to end homelessness for chronically homeless people within 10 years: $1.3 billion per year to create and sustain 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing

Put down the bottle and get a job, losers.

Amount needed by the Environmental Protection Agency to complete cleanups at high-priority toxic waste sites through the Superfund program: $92 million

How about the person who made the mess foot the bill?

Cost of Head Start for all 1.8 million children, up to 5 years old, who currently need but don't receive it: $25 billion

This *need* is determined how? Was my own son not deserving of a head start in life just because I am not in the proper demograph?

Cost of continuing to provide grants to potentially jeopardized regional poison control centers and maintain a toll-free poison information phone number between 2005 and 2009: $142 million

If not enough people are getting poisoned in a given region, it would make sense that the regional poison control center would go out of business. Nobody cries when a gas station goes out of business, or a Stein Mart. Why think twice about a poison control center?

Cost of USDA testing of 12,500 cattle samples for mad cow disease, in addition to homeland security measures such as physical security upgrades at lab facilities and background investigation of workers: $21.7 million

As if farmers do not have a vested interest in testing the god-damned things on their own nickel, and passing along the cost to the consumer, like it's supposed to be. Stupid lazy hind-tit farmers. They're worse than the homeless for their rank pickpocketing.

Budgeted cost of continuing to enable states to meet energy emergencies due to extremes in temperature, either during severe cold weather in the winter or sustained heat waves in the summer: $1.7 billion

You want energy emergenices to disappear, deregulate utilities and let the best company win.

Cost of measures to improve food safety in 2003, including hiring additional FDA inspectors, and developing new ways for federal inspectors to detect food-borne illnesses in meat and poultry and determine the source of contamination: $101 million

You have clearly never worked with FDA/USDA inspectors before. Did you know that in the poultry business, they are required under union regs to get two fifteen-minute breaks every three hour period? Like all government employees, they are under-trained, over-indulged and utterly superfluous. As in the aforementioned cattle business, what on earth makes you think that Tyson does not have an urgently vested interest in making sure it's own damned chickin is disease free?

Estimated homeland security costs for full support of state and local emergency personnel in their efforts to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism for three years: $12 billion

Homeland Security is the beginning of the end of American Liberty. Save that $ 12 bil and put it on the Spurs to win the title, then take your winnings and send them to the taxpayers from whom that money was stolen.

Cost of providing housing assistance nationwide for victims of domestic violence from 2004 through 2008: $100 million

How much would one swift kick in the nuts for every wife/child beater out there cost? Hell, I'd do it for a reasonable per diem. And tax amnesty.

Cost of hiring 100 new public-school teachers: $3.125 million

So that 99 of them can sit on their fat asses all day pouring rote-memory crap into children's heads, and 1 of them can make a difference. I'm not sure that 3 mil is a very good price on that one teacher.

Cost of hiring 100 state child-care workers: $2.08 million

Great, 100 more self-serving idiots to come take people's children away from them. You need to visit CPS Watch sometime.

Cost of fully immunizing 100 children against preventable diseases: $64,433

If you can't afford to take care of a child, you shouldn't have one.

Price of 250,000 new fire trucks: $56.2 billion

I once saw a brilliant idea that suggested that the insurance industry subsidise emergency services. This seems a much more focused approach than just buying a quarter-million fire trucks and dropping them form the sky on randm townships.

Identified funding needs for community-based services in the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS in 2002: $2 billion

I don't even get what this means ...

Identified funding needs for HIV prevention and surveillance prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $1 billion

HIV prevention -- don't fvck whores, don't use dirty needles, always ask to see the screen results before you accept blood, etc. The easiest damned disease in the world to avoid, far easier than the flu for instance. In this day and age, you catch AIDS, you had it coming.

Identified funding needs for HIV/AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health: $2.9 billion

See above. And BTW, why do we have National Institute of Health and a CDC, neither of which seem to be doing much of anything but begging for more money for *identified funding needs*?

Estimated cost of funding Older Americans Act programs for seniors -- such as transportation, delivered meals and elder abuse prevention -- for 10 years: $39 billion

Fvck em. They should have planned better.

Cost of providing needed assistive technology and durable medical equipment for 1 million individuals with disabilities for 10 years: $39 billion

I can maybe, MAYBE buy into this one. How about that, a government program Phaedrus might consider getting behind, if it were for example taken away form the government and turned over to competent, private hands.

Cost of compensating federal employees called to active duty in the uniformed services or National Guard for the difference between their civilian and military pay: $89 million over the 2004-2008 period

We have no business calling them to duty; no one has invaded the US and no one is liekly to do so. Send them home.

Yearly cost of direct treatment for mental illness in both the private and public sectors in the U.S.: $92 billion

Would that get rid of leftism? Because if it would, I'm all over this program.

Estimated cost of spending for countermeasures against smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, plague and Ebola under Project BioShield: $5.6 billion between 2004 and 2013

We already had defences against these disease prior to the commencement of BioShield, or BS for short. It just didn't cost $ 5.6 billion because it wasn't being run as part of the War on Some Forms of Terrorism.

Cost of 60 million doses of an improved smallpox vaccine: $900 million

Smallpox vaccine? If you're that paranoid, you surely must not be trsuting enough to think I'm going to foot the bill to indulge your dark fantasy of a smallpox threat.

Annual cost of providing services to foster children, including educational assistance, job placement, health services and room and board: $200 million

How come only the shitty kids get all these goodies?

Amount needed to establish a National Housing Trust to provide communities with funds to build, rehabilitate and preserve 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next 10 years: $5 billion

Habitat for HUmanity functions on a much smaller budget than this, accomplishes much, and teaches personal responsibility to it's beneficiaries. naturally, the federal government hates H4H.

Cost, per recipient, of Job Corps, an education and training program benefiting disadvantaged youth and young adults: $17,000

A program with adocumented failure rate in the league of AmTrak.

Federal funding requested in 2004 to maintain the National Domestic Violence Hotline: $3 million

How about a nice swift kick in the nuts? How much does that cost?

Federal funding requested in 2004 for the national Abandoned Infants Assistance program: $45 million

There are $ 45 million worth of abandoned infants in the US per year? Show me the way man; a healthy white baby can fetch a good price underground. This program could be self-funding, possibly profitable.

Cost of assisting states in covering the excess costs of providing special education services to children with disabilities: $8.9 billion

My child's retarded, so I get a free pass? Why do so many of these programs seem like a lottery that rewards bad luck or stupidity?

Annual cost of providing funding to public libraries through state formula grants so that libraries can promote wider access to learning and information: $1.6 billion between 2004 and 2009

Public libraries should be closed or sold, period. If the public wants access to htis information they will get it by whatever means are neccessary.

Cost of providing grants for treatment, counseling and referral for runaway and homeless youth subjected to sexual abuse in 2003: $15 million

How come just the sex-abused ones get this loot?

Annual cost of funding the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: $20 million

OK, maybe another one I can agree with.

All in all, we could do with a $ 21 trillion tax cut, as was envisioned by James Ostrowski in this excellent essay. You'd have to have a few less ruby-studded clown noses allocated to the janitors of federal child poison, disease poverty and ragamuffinry control and indoctrination camps, but we'd be a hell of a lot better off.


Phaedrus

 

[KMAN]

Once again. More copied information instead of thinking for yourself.

KMAN

 

[lander]

Kman,
Are you suggesting it is impossible for two human beings to share the same thought?

Funny, you don't notice when it's you and Duyba

 

[Oceans11]

Tax cuts favour the trickle down theorists, which strangles economies as tax savings for the rich get squirrelled away in various bank accounts and savings plans.

Taxes are the flow down system, where the poorer classes get more juice to spend on the necessities of life, and oil the wheels of capitalism.
Food, household bills, drink, cigarettes etc etc.
Spend spend spend.

Right wingers squeal about people on welfare, but they spend every bean they have/get on the things they need/want.
You wont find THEM stashing cash away, unlike the more wealthy.

Japan has a wealthy society, but they dont spend enough, to power the capitalist wheel, and deflation is the result.
They are amongst the best savers in the world.
It aint doing them any good though.

If you want power a capitalist wheel, make sure the people that spend money all the time, get enough of it.

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

Phaedrus.

Whats with the blinking ****ing picture. Use it once, that shit is annoying. I think you need a "swift kick in the nuts".

Secondly, if you would like to indulge your fantasy of every social program in the history of this country being torn apart, you had better hope some of that tax money ends up in the hands of police and other urban defense.

Pure capitalism produces winners and losers, and the losers frankly have no reason to participate in a system which screws them on a daily basis.

People when pushed to a point will revolt.

Whats going to keep them in line? Morals? Religion? The american dream?

 

[Phaedrus]

FSB


Whats with the blinking ****ing picture. Use it once, that shit is annoying. I think you need a "swift kick in the nuts".

Think I'll pass, but the repeat of the IRS banner was actually an error on my part. I had copied your post into a Notepad window to write my response, and had already copied the url for the banner, and was cutting and pasting the sections as I wrote my reply -- which is why it appears right before each one of the snips of your message. Sorry about that.

Interesting that you feel I need a good swift kick in the nuts for this, in the same vein as I feel it is appropriate for wife and hild abusers. Very itneresting view into your priorities.

Of course, if I claimed my chronic banner posting was caused by desperation, joblessness, alocholism and my past sexualabuse at the hands of a family pet I'm sure I'd qualify for a subsidy on the order of $ 10 billion or so in the FSB universe. Strange shit.

Secondly, if you would like to indulge your fantasy of every social program in the history of this country being torn apart, you had better hope some of that tax money ends up in the hands of police and other urban defense.

Actually, I'd like all of the tax money to end up back in the hands of the taxpayers, not in the hands of 'urban defence' stormtroopers only necessary because of the natural result of the existing system.

Pure capitalism produces winners and losers,

No it doesn't. Pure capitalism (which does not exist anywhere in the real world on a large scale) produces only winners, as all exchanges are made on a voluntary basis where both parties to the exchange feel that they would be better off with what the other party has.

People when pushed to a point will revolt.

Yes, they will. Keep on taxin' and spreadin' and we'll see just how long it takes.

Whats going to keep them in line? Morals? Religion? The american dream?

This proceeds from the typical mistaken political premise that people need to be kept in line at all. It also suggests by fiat that a) all crime is the result of deprivation (ludicrously untrue) b) no such thing would exist in the Socialist Utopia envisioned by the left (please see USSR for reference and repudiation) and that if the $ 2 trillion and change a year black hole in our national economy wre removed things would get worse and not better (which I defy you to explain.)


Phaedrus

 

[Oceans11]

The purest capitalist system I have ever seen was Hong Kong, prior to the handover to the Chinese.
(When the Brits ran it)

The USA is a restricted market, that talks about open markets, but talk is cheap.
The US open market is open to US citizens, not to the world.

You cant even get a fookin US bank account unless you turn up in person at a US bank.

Capitalism? You guys aint even tried to compete yet.
But one day you will. You will have to compete.

example
How can you call baseball the WORLD SERIES????

no-one else would be so dumb.

 

[FunkSoulBrother]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Think I'll pass, but the repeat of the IRS banner was actually an error on my part.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My apologies for briging it up in the first place then.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Interesting that you feel I need a good swift kick in the nuts for this, in the same vein as I feel it is appropriate for wife and hild abusers. Very itneresting view into your priorities.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was a joke and does not in any way reflect upon my priorities. Perhaps it reflects on my sense of humor.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Of course, if I claimed my chronic banner posting was caused by desperation, joblessness, alocholism and my past sexualabuse at the hands of a family pet I'm sure I'd qualify for a subsidy on the order of $ 10 billion or so in the FSB universe. Strange shit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I realize this is your attempt at humor, but before you label what I would decide is a good social program, I'd like to make the point which I probably should have made in the first post that this is not my perfect idea of what to do with $330 billion.

Would I like to see some of these things done with it? Absolutely.

The point of the post was to point out how far that much money goes, and I think most everyone can think of something on that list they feel would be more beneficial than pocketing their tax break.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Actually, I'd like all of the tax money to end up back in the hands of the taxpayers, not in the hands of 'urban defence' stormtroopers only necessary because of the natural result of the existing system.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So you blame the few social programs that this country has for the division between rich and poor?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Pure capitalism (which does not exist anywhere in the real world on a large scale) produces only winners, as all exchanges are made on a voluntary basis where both parties to the exchange feel that they would be better off with what the other party has. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Until someone gets upset that their electric utility is a monopoly and is gauging them every month for power, and the only way they can make themselves a winner is by exchanging a bullet with the skull of the offending monopolist.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Yes, they will. Keep on taxin' and spreadin' and we'll see just how long it takes<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd be glad to keep on taxing the top 10% who hold 50% of the wealth. Are you suggesting they will rise up against the other 90% of the country? The divide is growing, and there are far more dicontent people on the bottom than on the top.

 

[outandup]

a socialists wet dream, hmmmm....

The funny shit about it is the leftist believe a couple making 90K is rich. Now if you have a fukin job you're rich in the US. What a fukin country.

"Walter Williams is my hero" outandup 2002

 

[Jointpleasure]

Head Start is a frickin joke run by scam artists who hire other scam artists.

They will steal from the taxpayer for their paycheck. No joke folks.

 

[Phaedrus]

FSB --

Regarding the banner thing, no problemo. It would help if I proofed my posts after they went up, as it is easier to catch my many spelling errors and such that way, but I seldom catch them until later.

I understand that you might not agree 100% with the article you posted -- this is a given that any thinking person can grant. Come to think of it, I can see why you'd think I needed that pointed out, given the environ.

Regarding this:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> So you blame the few social programs that this country has for the division between rich and poor? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And this:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I'd be glad to keep on taxing the top 10% who hold 50% of the wealth. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here we find an ideological difference between us so vast that it almost makes debate on the subject of welfare utterly pointless. Taxation is theft. It is taken at the end of a gun, sometimes quite literally so. Very few taxpayers voluntarily pay their taxes; they do so because they know that in most cases the trouble that will come from not paying is more of a pain in the ass than the cost of paying. These people lack vision, imho. But the fact that they prefer confiscation of some money to confiscation of all of it plus jail time does not mean that they think that the state is spending their money wisely.

As I have stated elsewhere on this forum, I am not utterly without a heart. Many social programs target real, legitimate problems which are a plague on our country and it's communities. The problem is, that many of the goals are simply unattainable -- and this simple fact is very hard to get across to any dreamer who believes in his heart that he is doing good. Add to thaty the inherent and natural corruption that the state's tainting touch leaves on everything, and it seems clear to me that such programs are better left in the preview of the private sector, where churches, endowments, concerned individuals and other entities devote a great deal of time, money and work to all manner of causes already -- and every penny (except that which is "donated" by the government) comes voluntarily from people who can afford the contribution, and who genuinely care about the cause in particular and giving a helping hand in general.

I know this this to be true, because I not only see it around me, but I partake in it -- and I most assuredly do not pay any taxes not taken from me at the literal end of the gun.

Finally:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>

Pure capitalism (which does not exist anywhere in the real world on a large scale) produces only winners, as all exchanges are made on a voluntary basis where both parties to the exchange feel that they would be better off with what the other party has.

Until someone gets upset that their electric utility is a monopoly and is gauging them every month for power, and the only way they can make themselves a winner is by exchanging a bullet with the skull of the offending monopolist.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Monopolies cannot exist for long in a market-driven economy. The only successful monoplies since the Industrial Revolution were sanctioned, abetted, financed or outright owned by the government.

Electric power is not a right. If a person cannot afford electric power from his local power company, and cannot for some reason simply move somewhere else with a cost of living more suited to his means, then I recommend he stock up on candles and kerosene. Mankind somehow managed to flourish and grow for millenia without electric power, and less than a century ago it was still not a commonplace thing even in America.


Phaedrus