Posted on 11/11/2007 12:39:35 PM PST by PlainOleAmerican
Thanks, and I mean that most sincerely.
Show me what legislation he has written that has reduced the size of the federal government. Not co-sponsered, what bills he has written.
Thank you for posting that. I sincerely appreciate it.
That wasn't my point. My point was reducing pork, the size of government and privatizing SS aren't on our politicians radar, because few are clamoring for it. FR Paul-lites assume this is the reason for the surge in his popularity(5% yeah haa!)
What IS the reason for his popularity this presidential run?
Now, what have we seen protests for in cities around the country and in Washington DC?
Can you remember another recent Republican candidate that advocated surrender as his foreign policy?
Do you see the connection between these two questions?
Are you?
How many were enacted into law?
I don’t doubt that he has sponsored and cosponsored lots of good bills that would reduce government, cut government, decimate government agencies. He has the right idea for domestic issues, but he’s way out on the end of that very shaky branch of a very tall tree. A good chunk of the citizens aren’t going there. They’re just staring (if they see him at all) and wondering if he is going to jump or be blown off.
Where are the results of all of the legislation? What would make the results different if he were by some miracle elected president?
Executive orders?
Captain Pickard “Make it so!”
Dissolve congress?
Are you?
Staging sit in protests? Nope. I'm busy earning a living and getting arrested would not help me further that objective.
Am I trying to get my reps attention? Yes, but I'm being out-shouted by generations of people that think they have claims on the fruits of my labor.
So you say you want smaller government, but aren’t staging sitp-in protests to get it. You’re just sitting back throwing brickbats at other who claim to want smaller government because they’re not staging sit-ins either.
No base line budgeting, no adjustments for inflation. If 2008 budget was 2.9 trillion, that is the budget for each year, every year for their entire term in office. Politicians would be forced to make some choices on how best to spend a shrinking budget. And that's a good thing.
If we did that for 8-12 years, we would shrink the government by our growing economy making it a smaller percentage of our GDP.
So you say you want smaller government, but aren’t staging sitp-in protests to get it. You’re just sitting back throwing brickbats at other who claim to want smaller government because they’re not staging sit-ins either.
You are not comprehending the point I am making. It's NOT on our representatives radar. You can get many people to agree with "YEAH! we want a smaller government! We want it NOW!"
When the rubber meets the road and it starts impacting them personally, they change their tune. When it is their son-inlaw that loses their federal job down at the department of agriculture, or their daughter's job at the department of health and human services. When their retired parents start asking for money to help pay for prescriptions and their heating bills, they WILL reconsider their wish for a smaller government.
There are 2 million civilian federal workers excluding the post office. 5 out of 6 work outside of Washington DC.
Two thirds of our budget is income redistribution of some type or another.
I'm going to say this again
Two thirds of our budget is income redistribution of some type or another.
It sucks doesn't it? How many voters are the recipients of that income redistribution?
How do you reconcile Libertarian principles and continuing to spend two trillion dollars a year redistributing income? Or do their principles get compromised in some way to avoid being lynched?
How many potential voters would be allied against Ron Paul and his merry band if they were true to their principles and cut this spending to zero?
If RP gets elected,(somehow) is he going to force his idea of of government on the people?
It is a dilemma, one best approached not by flipping 75 years of socialism off like you switch off a light.
That leaves "working to roll back decades of federal government largesse" as little more than empty words. It's been claimed that Republicans (both rank and file voters and the leadership and candidates of the RNC) pay lip service to "smaller government" on the campaign trail, only to abandon it as impractical once in office. Is that who we should be, what we should represent, and the best we can hope for?
But it would achieve what we want. It would make government smaller. It would keep making government smaller as the economy would grow and the government would not.
Are you not comprehending that slash and burn done on the government will not go over with a majority of American citizens? Is this failing to sink in? Maybe if I say it another way ten more times ten different ways? If I type slower? Will that help?
If the Republicans would like to remain out of power for the indefinite future, yes they can continue pulling the same shit. They got lazy, they got complacent, they got beat down. I hope to hell that they are not all stupid as you assume they are and they will refuse to learn why they no longer control the house and senate.
It wouldn't even make a dent in the deficit by the end of his term, and you characterize anything more than that as "slash and burn". A couple of decades of that would be undone by a single Democratic administration, and you know it.
I’m not even saying that our politicians are CAPABLE of doing this. It is a less painful way to shrink the government. IF THEY WERE CAPABLE OF DOING IT. It is a start.
If our GDP was 22 trillion dollars and the budget was 2.9 trillion and stayed there for 4 years.
Assuming a 4% growth in GDP for this exercise
At the end of 4 years the budget would have gone from 13.1% of GDP to 11.2% of GDP.
From 13.1 to 9.6% of GDP after 8 years.
And if they’re not capable of it, then what? Put them right back in office because they’re “not Democrats”, and make sure anyone who proposes actually cutting anything gets ridden out of town on a rail.
Or by nominating Ron Paul who would lose any match up with a democrat in 08.
Electing Ron Paul as president changes this how?
Ah yes. He can't win, so whatever we say about him, or his arguments for limited government is all good.
HE CAN’T WIN! He has 5% support!
Gee, I don't know. Maybe there's a chance that he might actually get some federal program or other eliminated, and people would see that it really can be done, and it isn't TEOTWAWKI?
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