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Lets get this straight, the President doesn't approve budgets, he doesn't determine what gets spent (beyond the stuff inside the White House). Congress makes the budgets, Congress determines spending, Congress decides to spend 14 million on bridge in Alaska that services 6 families.
The President can veto the bill and then it goes back to Congress which then gets to vote to approve it regardless of the President's opinion.
You can blame GWB for making the spending easier for Congress, but getting in Congress's way, would just make them more obstinate when it comes to spending the GWB wants to have approved. If GWB was more popular then he copuld stand up in a press meeting and talk about how Congress is doing this or that and get public opinion to sway Congress... but for the most part, unless it is about Iraq, GWB has little pull now.
Lay the blame to those that have earned it... not just on the President.
This is a perfect analogy for illegal immigration:
20 people sneak into a movie theater. When caught, they say the line was too long to wait for and we are buying popcorn and drinks, so what is the problem?
Well, for one while some of you are sitting in movies that many aren't watching, the rest of you are going into sold out movies and the people that have paid can't find a seat. People have noticed that you have been sneaking in and now even more people have been sneaking in than before. To cut this down, I have to hire more security, so I have to raise the ticket price on the people that haven't done anything wrong to keep people out that shouldn't be here to begin with. I don't mind you buying popcorn and drinks, since I make a good profit from it. When I call the cops to throw you out, they don't do much beyond walking you to your car and you'll try to sneak in tomorrow anyway.
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Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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I dont agree with Bush's stance on illegal aliens. We have "real" americans fighting and dying in battle at this very moment. We have "real" americans working everyday and paying their taxes and abiding by the laws of the land. We have legal immigrants
who had to go thru a legal process to become "real" americans. I am proud to be an american and we as american citizens dont deserve to have the value of being an american citizen lowerd by illegals demanding that we let them stay and they havent payed any dues. You are illegal you have only the right to be sent back to your country of origin or to jail. We dont have to negotiate with criminals. There is a legal
proccess that can be followed to become a citizen and if you cant qualify thru that proccess then you shouldnt be here in america. Also we speak english here in america. If you want to become an american learn the language. You cant be speaking spanish and waving a mexican flag demanding to be an american.
It seems like the water fountain is a separate section of Aximsite. There are some people here that I never see posting in the other sections.
I guess I'll pop by time to time.
Sorry for getting off subject...
Simply put - I respect the President even if I don't completely agree with everything he does. No matter, who is elected, no one will agree with everything the President does.
I hope this thread is not offensive to any members that reside in other countries.
@ pocket brain, i'm confused it's 8.5 cents per dollar from the oil companies. but I thought it was 50 cents per dollar for all taxes average?
3rdQ 2005: 8.2% avg. profit per sales. Carry fwd. to today (and I ain't saying it hasn't changed), for a $3.00 gallon, that's 24.6¢. Weighted avg tax in FL for a gallon of petroleum at the pump is 49.7¢, I think. I certainly don't think that we should back off the taxes, since that would mean our roads would start to fall apart.
Note that our friends across the pond have been paying $5.00 per gallon or more. And you Brits remember that the US pumps and refines much of its own petrol, and our country is much more spread out, so we are prone to complain about a price you would relish to have. http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp http://api-ec.api.org/filelibrary/ACF1C0.pdf
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If I want to live really well, all I need to do is borrow a few hundred thousand dollars and things will be great. Well, for a while. That is what Bush has done. We have a staggering deficit. Bush trashed the entire surplus that Clinton left and borrowed (FROM CHINA AND SAUDI ARABIA MOSTLY) more than all previous presidents combined. Oh yes, things are ok now. But we have to pay it back and try to retire someday.
Terrorism didn't just start in 1972. The US overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 so that we could install a dictator (the Shah) to protect corporate oil interests. So the eventual overthrow of the Shah and subsequent hatred of the US has something of a basis in logic. I suspect that most people reading this would also hate the US if they were born in Iran.
In spite of that, many Iran youth (more than half of the country is under 30) were leading a strong pro-democracy movement until the US invaded Iraq and proved that the religious fundamentalists were correct and that the US only wanted to control the oil. Because, make no mistake about it, our government (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc) planned to attack Iraq as part of the Neo-Con dream of America running the world. Google for information on a thinktank called the Project for a New American Century. That was their plan all along. 9/11 was so convenient for them that you would almost think that they had a hand in it.
We've overthrown elected governments all over the world whenever they've gotten in the way of corporate profits. When you hear our corporate leadership bleating about democracy, translate that into "corporate monopoly capitalism".
Why is it that the most powerful country in the world manages to come in #29 on the life expectancy chart, right after Bosnia? Because we can't afford better healthcare than they do? Why do 30% of our children go to bed hungry, and the rest get fat on junk? Why do 30% of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth? They must vote for Bush.
Why does the home of "freedom" have more people in jail than any other nation on earth? Not by percentage, by absolute number. More than Russia, more than China.
I love America but that doesn't mean I'm going to be silent when corporations and not people are running our country and aiming to run the world.
Bush trashed the entire surplus that Clinton left ...
"Budget" surplus, resulting from refinancing of national debt. The debt is still there. And yeah, we really don't need to pay for this war, but the UN hasn't offered us any cash. Cheapskates.
Originally Posted by DaveK
Terrorism didn't just start in 1972.
Terrorism didn't start in 1953 either, it started before Christ was born. But yeah, Iran is still very ticked about the whole Shah thing.
Originally Posted by DaveK
until the US invaded Iraq and proved that the religious fundamentalists were correct and that the US only wanted to control the oil
Not the reason, but arguing that is a matter of semantics.
Originally Posted by DaveK
Why do 30% of our children go to bed hungry, and the rest get fat on junk?
2/3 of those kids' parents can afford beer and cigarettes. The rest are actually too poor for food.
Originally Posted by DaveK
Why do 30% of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth?
Probably the low standards of public education. Funny that a competitive system, as advocated by current administration, is common with many countries that come in higher educationally than the U.S. I wonder if they realize it would be counter-productive, that it would severely reduce the number of flat-earthers?
Originally Posted by DaveK
Why does the home of "freedom" have more people in jail than any other nation on earth? Not by percentage, by absolute number. More than Russia, more than China.
Perhaps because they put a lot more of their prisoners to death? Also the stupidity that surrounds "Zero Tolerance" and "Three Strikes" laws.
Lawmakers grapple with voters' anger over 'pork'
an Associated Press report 05/02/06
WASHINGTON - Strange things are happening in Congress.
The playground bully in the Senate -- the Appropriations Committee -- actually took a loss last week at the hands of senators determined to strip so-called pork barrel projects from a bill that's supposed to be devoted to the war in Iraq and hurricane relief.
And the House this week will vote on requiring members to attach their names to "earmarks" -- those hometown projects slipped into spending bills. The idea is that the sunshine of public scrutiny will mean fewer wasteful, silly sounding projects like $500,000 for a teapot museum in Sparta, N.C.
Lawmakers say voters are getting sick of all this pork; there's even a recent poll that says reforming earmarks is the most important issue facing Congress. Could it be that politicians are losing their appetite for the other white meat?
Hardly.
The House Appropriations Committee reports it has received 21,863 project requests from lawmakers. That's about 50 each for 435 members and a few nonvoting delegates. Still, it's progress. Last year, the panel got 34,687 requests.
And the so-called porkbusters' victory in the Senate -- a 51-44 vote to eliminate $15 million for a seafood promotion program -- probably doesn't presage long-term gains.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who led the charge to kill the seafood program, won the vote chiefly because the earmark was tacked on to the war spending bill. That seemed beyond the pale to a majority of senators.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the war and hurricane relief funding bill "should not be used as a Christmas tree to hang extraneous spending measures on. There's very much a consensus building that that's bad."
Coburn is likely to have considerably less success when the Senate turns to the regular spending bills it passes each year. Last year, he routinely lost votes to scrap earmarks by margins like 82-15.
That was the tally on a Coburn move to dump the "bridge to nowhere," a $223 million span in Alaska to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island, which has a population of about 50. Ultimately, shortly after a story mocking the bridge appeared in Parade Magazine -- which reaches 36 million households -- Congress decided to dump the bridge, though Alaska got to keep the money for other roads.
Now it turn out the state is budgeting $91 million to get the Gravina bridge started after all.
Earmarks run the gamut from grants to local law enforcement, road and bridge projects, visitor centers, agricultural research and contracts for homestate industries. The House Appropriations Committee says earmarks inserted by lawmakers into annual spending bills totaled $17 billion last year.
Politicians love to claim credit for channeling money back home, but Coburn is sensing an attitude adjustment when it comes to actually voting on earmarks.
"People don't want to go home and have to defend votes like the bridge to nowhere," Coburn said. "The American people are sick of wasteful government spending."
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., has taken modest steps to rein in the earmarking excesses. He now requires lawmakers to submit applications justifying their requests and has stopped the practice of slipping projects into bills during final House-Senate negotiations conducted behind closed doors.
But after a year's respite, Lewis also will resume earmarking a giant bill funding education, labor and health programs. No earmarks were allowed in the bill last year because of a budget squeeze. Despite an even bigger 4 percent cut proposed by Bush, the education-labor-health bill will contains up to $1 billion in earmarks this year.
Coburn's victory against seafood promotion occurred a day after he was on the losing side of a nail-biting 49-48 vote to keep alive a controversial $700 million project to relocate a rail line along the Mississippi coast so the state can build a new east-west highway. Only an all-out effort by Mississippi Republican Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott kept the plan alive.
Coburn is pushing to strip more earmarks from the war funding bill, such as one to give Northrop Grumman Corp., owner of the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., up to $500 million in compensation for business disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Northrop Gruman has insurance coverage for the business losses and is currently in litigation. The Pentagon says the company's insurers shouldn't be let off the hook if taxpayers are left holding the bag.
Coburn may also try to kill $230 million for three unrequested V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft tucked into the bill despite concerns about their safety and suitability for use in Iraq.
__________________
Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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My two cents... the system is corrupt. Both party's are corrupt. Both party's lie equally.
As for all you oil people out there. Everyone's complaining about this war is for oil. It's much more complicated than that. Let me tell you. I bet we don't have half the facts on why we are at war. No one is telling us the truth. But let me give you a thought. Are you willing to fight for oil?? Well, gas is 3 dollars a gallon and you would think the sky is falling the way everyone is complaining. I bet if gas hit $9 dollars a gallon and you could no longer buy your Axim toys, eating out, watch movies, afford video game boxes etc... You might rethink your position. How would you feel if you had to pay say $1100.00 in gas per month just to get to work and grocery stores and stuff. It might make you fighting for oil mad!
So in the end there is no easy answer. We live in a corrupt world and have a corrupt political system that has left the people behind. You just have to do the best you can and keep trying to get the right people elected, but sometimes your only choice on the ballet is the lesser of two evils. God help us all. We are doing this to ourselves.
First off...this is our water cooler break and the chat is appropriate...
Second, I am a registered republican, I voted for Bush twice and would NOT vote for him again even if I could :rolling: :
-His immigration policy is BAD for America:realmad: - ignores laws, mocks enforcement, favors cheap labor at the expense of our laws, over free market wage adjustments. I could go on for pages and pages, but refer to my blog at www.muccings.blogspot.com if interested.
-His energy policy is BAD for America:realmad: . His lack of leadership toward energy independence is breathtaking.
-His head in the sand perception of Islam being the "religion of peace" is a huge mistake - unless he has a grander, more intelligent purpose he hasn't shared with us yet...I'll not hold my breath on this one.
These are my three reasons for the moment. They are more serious deficiencies than any good he has done.:realmad: :exc:
Gas price gouging? I think not. Tax price gouging is what is happening and not only at the pump. We are so over-taxed it pathetic.
I am a conservative "republican", but I am completely dissatisfied with the republican party. Almost all of them act like a bunch of liberals who want to spend, spend spend and are too afraid to tell the American people how they really feel.
The reason Bush's poll numbers are so low is because the democrats will not give him good marks, no matter what he does and he has abandoned conservative values which has the conservatives (such as myself) upset with him (and Congress as well).
Almost all of these political idiots have obviously never taken an economics course and are completely ignorant as to the responsibility of the CEO which is to maximize corporate value, not give the American people a "price break".
Lastly, the politicans blame the gas companies for the high costs. However, it is the government that has not allowed any drilling (to increase supply) in 40 years, have not allowed and new refineries to be built (to increase supply) in 30 years, and that has placed about 50 cents per gallon gas tax on us.
Blame the government, not the oil companies. And when its all said and done, neither Bush nor Congress will likely put an Energy policy in place that will do anything to reduce our dependence on foreing oil or lower gas prices. Those cowards couldn't find their ass with a map and a flashlight.
By the way, I do not, nor have I ever worked for a gas/oil company.
Gas price gouging? I think not. Tax price gouging is what is happening and not only at the pump. We are so over-taxed it pathetic.
I am a conservative "republican", but I am completely dissatisfied with the republican party. Almost all of them act like a bunch of liberals who want to spend, spend spend and are too afraid to tell the American people how they really feel.
The reason Bush's poll numbers are so low is because the democrats will not give him good marks, no matter what he does ...
:realmad:
Actually we dislike Bush because he is a liar and took us to war when there was no need to do so. Their own Project For A New American Century spelled out the NeoCon dream of ruling the world. Not a conservative dream, a NeoCon dream. Step one was to establish permanent bases in the Middle East so that we have control of the oil supply.
The war was not about 9/11, in fact it simply opened up a recruiting and training ground for terrorists. Hussein was a bullwark against religious fanatics. The war was not about WMD because they knew that his weapons had been destroyed by the inspectors and that any left over were useless because chemical weapons degrade over a short period of time. And, since we gave him the precursors, we knew exactly what he had.
The war was not about freeing the Iraqi people since all US corporate interests care about is making money and we have replaced democracies with dictatorship whenever we felt like it.
Of course, it didn't hurt that corporations are making a killing off the American taxpayer, which sort of explains why the gap between rich and poor (and middle class) in the US is exploding.
We also dislike Bush because he's an untreated alcoholic, because he's delusional, and because years of drinking and cocaine use have reduced his ability to see anything other than simplistic solutions to complex problems. Plus his entire government is hopelessly incompetent.
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