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Post by packerconvert on Oct 6, 2012 8:44:07 GMT -5
TW:
What are your thoughts about Gary Johnson.
I was thinking that I may vote for him. I know many will feel its a "throw away" vote, but I think it would ease my consicence to vote for a person who reflects my values instead of voting against a candidate by voting for someone I really don't trust either.
Your thoughts?
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Post by TW on Oct 6, 2012 9:39:29 GMT -5
A lot of what Johnson stands for makes sense. The problem is, there isn't enough grass roots support to make his candidacy relevant. That means voting for him is nothing more than a lost vote for one of the two major candidates.
What a lot of people don't realize is that when there is strength in 3, 4, or even 5 political parties, and they each take some seats in government, there is a "deal making agenda" that really turns into nothing more than "pork" constituting most of the budgets, and direction of travel. It also ends up growing government because each party wants "more" representation in the bureaucratic nightmare that develops.
At least, with only two parties, this is lessened to a greater degree, and because there are only "two sides to an issue," not a six-sided pair of dice, what's said and done isn't lost in the shuffle of fighting between sides. We see this problem in countries like Iraq, where there are actually six factions covering three religious aspects, and all seem to have their own agenda, and deal striking is destroying the idea of one government with enough clout to keep the nation intact.
Johnson is an interesting person. Obviously a self-made man, and someone who quite honestly is a staunch conservative. I saw him interviewed on several venues, and felt he had some valid points to make. If elected President? He'd have no choice but submit to the party controlling Congress. If it was a split Congress, like we have now, we'd have pure stalemate until he was out of office, and if one of the two parties had control, they'd stonewall him until he was out of office.
I like some of what he says, but not everything. Of course, that's how I feel about our two candidates and parties now, so it's only a matter of total capability when it comes to governance.
On a different note. Who actually decided Romney was the man for the Republicans? It wasn't Republicans who made that decision. They voted for him - yes - but it was people like the Koch Brothers, who threw millions of dollars into campaigns to get him nominated. Romney isn't the choice of Republicans, he's the choice of those with deep pockets, and quite honestly, everything he says, then later retracts, when it shows he's losing traction, is straight out of the handbook of how you control a nation that could have been written by the Rockefeller family, along with all the financiers and business magnates from nearly one whole century past.
As I look at "where" the money is coming from to support both Obama and Romney, I realize that the difference in "who" is supporting each candidate financially in their quest for the White House is completely contrary to each other. When Obama gets the upper hand in contributions during a given period of time, it takes thousands upon thousands of donors, whereas Romney's support is coming from less than a dozen contributors.
I find it difficult accepting too much from a candidate that fails to recognize the need to reach out and touch all potential contributors as being meaningful in their campaign.
Just my opinion.
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Post by happypacker on Oct 6, 2012 10:42:42 GMT -5
+1 TW.
the system has for years been reworked and tweeked for this society going down the wrong trail, GREED, and self serving.
This country has so many good things that if the ruling Public would take hold of a good moral way, they can still have the wealthy, and we would still have the lazy poor. but the real differnce would be the working majority would be working hard AND being able to pay for health care , housing, food, etc, the things needed to live with comfort and respect. but people like Romney only want the few wealthy and everyone else poor and at the whim of the rich. we can have a strong middle class and a rich top tier if the greed stops.
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Post by packerconvert on Oct 6, 2012 14:04:10 GMT -5
Most likely, I feel I will step into the voting booth and for Gary Johnson. His values, or at least what he proposes, are more in line with my values.
If I could combine Romney with Obama and have Obamney in office, I'd feel so much better.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2012 11:54:27 GMT -5
I'm having a really hard time with this election. I don't trust either candidate and I don't believe either one is going to make a difference. They are both puppets IMO. I don't know much about Gary Johnson.
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Post by nick20 on Oct 9, 2012 14:15:09 GMT -5
Obama is my choice and its not close. Romneys tenure at BAin cionsisting of taking over companies, paying themselves large managing fees, which sucked money out of those compabnies until those companies went bellyup. then like a bull walking away from a china shiop they just wrecked, they walked away while fed had to gurantee the workers pensions. Romney is the stereotypical super-ruiich guy who doesnt interact well with those of a lower socio-economic class. While I have my issues with obama (taxes need to go up not down, and I'd like to see more efforts on conservation), hes still far and away the better choice. the truth is, taxes have gioone down for 30 years, to a point where we cant afford to fix our roads, maintain our infrastructure, or do the things a top flight country does. taxes need to go up, considerably. right now you hit the top tax rate at 400K, under eisenhower, you had to get into the millions before you hit the top rate. it was i believe as high as 3 million. the estate tax hardly affects anybody, under current law of 5 million dollars, it affects about 3000 families or a quarter of 1 percent. if you raise the effective number to 10 million, the number of families affected drop to 40. thats right 40 families in the entire country. So leave the estate tax. the top tax rate should be 70% and kick in once you reach 100 million. that would narrow things down, and, unless one of you has a gold mine under their house, none of us here would ever come close to hitting that. Put a 1% tax on stock market transactions. that means buy or selling bonds, stocks derivatives and other instruments. the US had a transaction tax from 1914-66, in the final year it was .1 for stocks. .11 for bonds, and that was cut in half once the stock or bond was sold. currently there are no taxes on stocks apart from a . o34 tax which pays for the SEC. Given how many people are invested in the stiock markets, and how many stocks bonds etc are traded every day, the revenue from even a 1% tax would easily be in the hundreds of billions, if not into the trillions. We pay taxes on just about everything, whether its called a tax or not. so why should the stock market be any different? When you buy stock, you pay the broker a commission and other fees, this is just adding a small cut to the feds on top. split it between the buyer and seller like how the SS tax is split between employer and employee.so the buyer pay.5%, and the seller pays .5% Look at the current economic climate its not as if these guys will find a safer location to put thier money. Europes a mess, China is slowing down and we are still the worlds wealthiest country.whats 1% of a stock valued at 500? 5 bucks.
As for obamacare, had the SC struck it down, it would have left both medicare and SS vulnerable to a challenge of thier constitutionality. besides Obamacare is really the Republican alternative to Clinton's healthcare bill, which the right dubbed Hilarycare. Funny what the Republicans put forth 20 years ago and championed, they now run away from when the other guy thinks its a good idea. The Supreme court, when deciding a case, has to decide not only if a law is consititutional, but whether there are other governmental powers that the bill can pass muster if it is construed as an exercise of that power. knowing the disdain Americans have for taxes the Obama administration cast it as a use of the commercial clause. while the SC didnt buy that, as i said before they had to decide if the law was constutional if it was construed under a different governmental power. a 5-4 majority found that it did, under the taxation power.
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Post by packerconvert on Oct 9, 2012 15:56:03 GMT -5
I appreciate your candor Nick, but quite frankly, uncle Sam doesn't have the right to a person's hard earned cash.
Taxes should be about the community and many of the cookie cutter programs that the Feds oversee should be sent back down to the State and let us take care of our own instead of FORCING Americans to support programs that they either morally or ethically simply do not agree with.
A State should be a reflection of it's people, but the Federal Government tries to force Americans to be a reflection of it's "values." Scary schit!
I do not want the values that our Congress has respresented over the last 15 years forced upon my fellow Americans.
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Post by nick20 on Oct 9, 2012 19:37:21 GMT -5
the probvlewm with that Pc, the states would not be as effective in maintaining those programns as the fed does. For example.public lands, the funds to maintain such vast holdings are just not there in a state, and under the aegis of a state, it would be far easier for a big corporation, say BP or Pebble to simplt donate enough money or grease enough palms, to get thier project through, than it is to get both state and fed oks. It would be far sioimpler to have all federal parks mmonuments, refuges etc, under one department- Conservation. that you combine all the currents budgets and say ok you get 100 billion a year for conservation projects, instead of the widespread and varying funding spread across different departments. Effective government has all related agencies in the same department As for taxes, as oliver Wendell Holmes said I like taxes, wtith them I buy civilization.. the truth is Pc, the effective rate is always far far lower than the rate on paper
in the 70s when the rate was 70, the effective rate was 23
currently the effective rate is 15, which is lower than it should be. the local taxes have also gone down. normally they account for 12 percent
current they are around 9.5. part ofdf this can be fixed with jobs, but also as stated in my prior post by addressing our infrastructure needs and getting them up to par. we are expecting by 2050 to have 100-150 million more citizen tha n now, who will be needed to be supported though taxes, and who will want jobs. cyurrently there are not enough jobs foir the 320 million americans currently residing here. that needs to be addressed. Uncle Sam, id you and me pc, collectively with everyone in this country. the government is in charge not only of the defenbnse of this country, but also for the welfare of its citizens. that includes a social safety net. it does not mean you can slack off in your undies all day, it means in return for assistence in bumpt times and time of retiremenbnyt.you provide out of talents and treasure abnd contribute what you can, when you can. i believe that government has an important role to play its citizens lives. i reject reagans idea that governbment in and of itself is the problem. it is a problenm when people who dont believe in it are running it. take a look at bush and how well government functioned under him. now consider romney would have many of those same geniuses in his ad,ministration, and well i think we'd probably interverne in both syria and iran, nevermind we already put two stupid decadelong wars on the credit card and have never tried to pay them off. do we really need more war pc? i for one am tired of it. we need a time of peace and national recovery, lets say 15-20 years. we are in a catch -22. we help the rebels in syria assad paints them as tools of the wEst. we let things play out, and the rebel biatch that we''ve abandoned them. cant win, no matter what.
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Post by TW on Oct 9, 2012 20:01:57 GMT -5
I keep wondering how creating 50 state bureaus to handle these things done now on a federal level, will create less cost. It seems to me that we're talking about redundancy. Add to this the fact that the Fed will no longer be responsible for programs, therefore will slowly quit funding them, diverting the tax monies to other areas, and leave the states in one helluva hole in shortfall to cover the costs.
Of course, nobody is talking about that. Too short-sighted to see it!
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