Posted on 08/30/2012 6:56:56 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday told Politico he disagrees with the GOP’s stance on gay marriage and believes the U.S. needs to consider raising taxes to balance the budget.
Koch, who is serving as a delegate to the Republican National Convention from New York, spoke to Politico after delivering brief remarks at a reception held in his honor him by Americans for Prosperity, the political advocacy group he chairs and has helped fund.
The 1980 vice presidential nominee for the socially liberal—but fiscally conservative—Libertarian Party, Koch told Politico, “I believe in gay marriage”, when asked about the GOP’s stance on gay rights. … Koch said he thinks the U.S. military should withdraw from the Middle East and said the government should consider defense spending cuts, as well as possible tax increases to get its fiscal house in order—a stance anathema to many in the Republican Party. …
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
No, of course not. lol That would require a bit of pain and sacrifice on the part of our pampered citizens and would require politicians to actually become leaders.
I know that raising taxes is bad bad bad, but the money has ALREADY BEEN SPENT! We're up to our eyeballs in debt folks. We're so far in debt, it can't be paid with current revenues. Spending MUST be materially cut, and more revenue needs to come in from somewhere to balance the budget.
If this budget debacle is ever settled, going forward, we should NEVER spend a dime more than we bring in with CURRENT tax revenue, barring a state of war/facing annihilation.
I fully expect the situation to deteriorate to where the United States will be in a Greek style crisis and the political leaders of both parties like Romney, Ryan, Clinton, Reid etc. etc. will advocate higher taxes and spending cuts at the same time.
Austerity measures for America.......
Koch = Soros
Seems to be getting this way
The show Bar Rescue, John Tapper explains “Businesses have to be profitable, profits comes from managing cost”
One cost for Business to manage would be taxes. How does anyone expect the economy to grow? Spending is the issue, higher taxes is just passing the buck.
I didn’t say ELIMINATE the military budget that way. I said reduce it.
That has nothing to do with post 35. I asked a simple question in post 35, do you have a response?
Post 35 reads:
We should also reduce the military budget by issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Let the private sector put up the money and make a profit from some of these conflicts.
How would that work in Grenada, or Desert Storm, Or the Iraqi invasion, or Afghanistan, or in a close to war stand off with China?
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Sorry, I thought it is obvious that countries can’t invade other countries using letters of marquis. So they would have no effect on Grenada, either Iraq invasion, or Afghanistan. Therefore, we would still need a strong military and a robust military budget.
In a standoff with Red China the threat of using them to disrupting their oil imports and would be a help in keeping them in line.
China gets almost all of their oil by tanker. Private companies could capture those tankers and sell both the tankers and cargo for a nice profit. Many tanker owners would refuse to carry oil to Red China and risk losing their ships. This would slow Red China’s economy and hamper their ability to make war.
We could also threaten to use them to shut down all their seaborne trade. Private warships could devastate their economy by substantially reducing their imports and exports.
The savings would not be anywhere near the savings from cutting out things like socialized schooling or Obamacare or Bushcare. But they would be more than we’d get from eliminating things like the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and numerous other programs that should be eliminated. It would save some money and every dollar we don’t spend is a dollar we don’t have to borrow.
Who are these forces strong enough to intimidate China, which country allows such a powerful military force to live within their borders? Who pays them and supports their permanent existence, who replenishes their destroyed materials and manpower after massive battle losses, who protects their bases and their flanks, and transports them into battle?
Where do they maintain their naval bases, and air bases? Who reigns them in when they go renegade, do you remember that Mike Hoare’s personal retirement plan was to conquer Seychelles, and he was leading just a few dozen guys, you are talking about creating one of the biggest militaries on earth
I misunderstood you, we can still invade, which means we save no money because we still have to maintain the same size military.
Why would Romney have any better idea on how much military we need than Koch does?
We save by needing fewer ships not by needing fewer ground troops.
Our navy blockades countries now. Let private companies do it.
Private war ships can intimidate Red China. They are paid by taking enemy ships, then selling the ship and cargo. The privateer keeps half the proceeds and the issuing country gets half. All losses are born by the owners of the licensed ship. The ship transports itself to battle.
Where do they maintain their naval bases, and air bases? Who reigns them in when they go renegade, do you remember that Mike Hoare’s personal retirement plan was to conquer Seychelles, and he was leading just a few dozen guys, you are talking about creating one of the biggest militaries on earth.
We already have several very powerful mercenary groups that the military contracts with. Google Blackwater or Erik Prince. These companies get multimillion dollar contracts from our government. They were active in Iraq and are still in Afghanistan.
Privateers would make money for the country. If we are using mercenary groups on the ground why not use them on the sea?
You didn’t even come close to answering my post.
OK if you say so.
Your thinking is bizarre and shallow.
OK, if you say so. LOL
Would somebody lay out, in a few succinct paragraphs, who they are and who or what they are "running" in the Republican Party?
On the one hand, I hear the Koches are allied with the Tea Party (who are generally not Romney-ites). Then I hear the are hugely backing Romney (who is generally not a Teeper.)
Then I hear they are far-right Conservatives. And/or Libertarians. But they are pro-gay marriage, and I don't see how that's either Conservative or Libertarian.
It's not Conservative, because the deconstruction of marriage is directly antagonistic to the conservation of families, nations and civilizations, or even the rule of legitimate law based on Natural Law. (Which is supposed to be the foundation our American political philosophy, via the Dec. of Independence.)
And it's not Libertarian, because the LGBT agitators are a tiny minority elite organized to demand government perks & affirmative action, and to coerce public respect for their sexual proclivities, when in fact they are entitled neither to coerced perks nor coerced respect.
So ---who are these Koch brothers and what are they really trying to achieve?
My rough impression is that they are in some ways analogous to Soros: hyper-rich political/social manipulators, paying out big money through a variety of front groups.
The very kind of people I have NEVER had any sympathetic twitches for: the Secular White LeftRight. The kind of powerfreaks who would crush me with a casual boot-heel in a New York minute.
Am I right? Or will somebody 'splain it all to me?
With liberals, all it boils down to is the brothers in question being major GOP donors. The libs then invent the rest.
The Koch brothers are libertarians...so while they have fine positions on economics, they’re not on the same page as most social conservatives.
We have to keep our perspective here....the Koch brothers are wrong, but they’re not pushing that crap.
I don’t agree with everything every politician says. Koch isn’t a politician, he is a businessman pushing for more free markets. And on that we can agree.
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