I’m totally with you Aqua. I don’t mind a bit paying taxes to help the elderly, the poor, the sick who have fallen on hard times, or needed reasonable community services. However, I vehemently mind paying taxes for pork and waste.

As one who is self-employed (and happy to be), I have to pay DOUBLE (almost 16%) of my first $100,000 on social security and Medicare (good luck seeing any of that in future benefits). Even if I were employed and only paying half of that, it still would matter. Don’t we taxpayers have a right to know that our money isn’t wasted?

Sure they give lip service to fighting Medicare fraud, but somehow, unlike the folks at MasterCard and Visa, they never seem to get below the 60 BILLION LOST EACH YEAR TO FRAUD. Let me assure you, if we are losing 60 billion a year to Medicare fraud, you don’t want to know how many billions will be lost in a government run single payer health care system.

But then, that’s part of the plan, I’m convinced. Anyone with a half of a brain knows that Obamacare is anything but “health and care” and everything about power, control, and a “remake/transformation of the America “both Barack and Michelle promised us.

I suspect when we finally have our total financial collapse, that’s when the commie czars will step in. By the way, they make an average of $170,000 a year, combined with staff, cost about a half million each. Speaking of staff, Michelle Obama has 22 on her staff; Laura Bush had ONE.

I don’t care what side of the fence anyone is on, to not speak out against the avarice, arrogance, theft, and entitlement of this administration is at this point, to be an accomplice.

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@ Larry
I don’t think you can compare the tax code of the 1950′s to the one we have today. Back then, everyone with more than $100k had at least one tax shelter and you could deduct cotton balls. But I understand your point. You say Americans have an aversion to higher taxes. That’s just one quarter of the story. Why should we want to give more money to a government that doesn’t know how to handle it. And this is both sides. Millions of dollars to the NEA for depravity they want to call art. $300k outhouses at rest areas. Millions for a bridge to nowhere, millions for the mating habits of the zebra winged Mongolian butterfly, (made that one up), but you get the point. Many in congress, on the left and right, say this is just a drop in the bucket. Well, you keep putting drops in a bucket and pretty soon you have a full bucket. We could eliminate hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars by removing the waste in government. So no, I don’t want to send any more money than I have to, to Washington until they can show they know how to spend it wisely.
Who is paying for all of Obama’s Czars and how did that money get appropriated? Why should I be paying the salary of a person whose job should be done by an existing department head?
I won’t even go into social programs. Even if we left those alone, except for rooting out the waste and fraud, the government wouldn’t need to raise taxes and we’d have a surplus.

And as for Aye’s chart, you can’t presume to know what the GDP is going to be for Obama by 2010, much less 2012. The book is still open on that.

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@Larry

“…the article also mentioned such things as the raucous disruption of the health care town meetings and also the “Joker/Socialist” images. The later is crazy stuff; and it’s crazy stuff which appears on this blog…. “

So, you’re upset that some Conservatives and Republicans are using the same tactics that the Democrats and Far-left activists have used for decades? Interesting.

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@old trooper:

you said:

Cash for “Clunkers” did a lot for the Auto Industry…Four of Top ‘Clunkers’ Model Purchases Are Foreign

But, wait…

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/08/clunkers.html

According to data floating around Capitol Hill, the top five cars being purchased under the program are: 1. Ford Focus, 2. Toyota Corolla, 3. Honda Civic, 4. Toyota Prius and 5. Toyota Camry. Some folks are noting sourly that four of the top five models are made by Japanese companies.

The reality is not so simple. True, every Focus sold in America is made at Ford’s Wayne, Mich., assembly plant. Of the Honda Civics sold here, 95% are built in Indiana or Ontario, Canada, and all of the engines are made in the U.S.

All of the Corollas sold in the U.S. are assembled by Toyota in either California or Ontario, while “almost all” of the Camrys sold here are assembled at plants in Kentucky and Indiana, according to Toyota. Only the Prius is built exclusively in Japan. (Toyota planned to start making the Prius at a converted SUV plant in Mississippi, but put those plans on hold after hybrid sales collapsed last year along with gas prices and the U.S. economy.)

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach

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@aqua and Aye:

Reagan/Bush/Bush nearly doubled Debt:GDP, from about 0.32 to over 0.6. Even if Obama increases it from 0.6 to 0.8, it will be much less of an incremental debt load.

Debt/GDP was up near 1.0 after WWII and we still managed the Marshall Plan, the GI Bill, Medicare, the Great Society, and Vietnam, all the while paying down the debt:GDP down to close to 0.3 (end of Carter years). Now it’s back up, but Paul Krugman says that it still has a good bit of what he calls “running room” before it causes problems for us.

Our biggest problem is our aversion to taxes. We prefer to borrow money to finance tax cuts, as opposed to cutting spending (Reagan/Bush), and we prefer to borrow money to finance spending increments (Obama).

The economy grew during the Eisenhower years, despite a marginal tax rate of 90%. And the debt/GDP improved. And the economy grew through the 70s, with a 70% marginal tax rate. And confiscatory estate taxes. And debt/GDP came down. It was only with Reagan’s illusory “Laffer Curve” tax cuts that the debt/GDP ratio started to go back up.

The economy will survive an increase of marginal tax rate from 36% to 39%, which the hysterics on this blog decry as “socialism.” Tell that to Eisenhower. To Nixon. To Ford. To Reagan.

P.S. Aye’s chart is misleading, as it only purports to show raw debt and not debt:GDP, which is what is meaningful. If I have a million dollars of debt and assets of $100,000, I’m in trouble. If I have assets of $10,000,000, I’m not in trouble. Aye’s graph doesn’t show growth in GDP. Which is why Reagan’s increased debt load was actually more severe than even the increases currently being projected for Obama.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

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I’ll be doing a one hour talk radio show this Sunday, beginning at 8 AM Pacific (11 AM Eastern) on WCBM (AM) in Baltimore. Typical talk radio, with listener call ins. Post-show, it will be available via podcast. They stream live (URL below). I’ve currently got their stream of the Limbaugh show on as background chatter.

http://www.wcbm.com/

I’ll be talking about cancer in general and our lab tests in particular. I’m fairly outspoken about “cancer in general,” and it should generate a little bit of heat, which is the mother’s milk of talk radio.

@Mata

I’ll get to all the above questions later on, and I’ll diligently address all your health care-related posts of which I’m apprised and on which I’m invited to comment.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

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Larry: In the article I quoted, about the White House wanting to tar conservatives with the birther brush, the article also mentioned such things as the raucous disruption of the health care town meetings and also the “Joker/Socialist” images. The later is crazy stuff; and it’s crazy stuff which appears on this blog, and it plays right into the hands of the Democrats. That was O’Reilly’s point, and I think that he’s right.

I agree about the joker/socialist images. I personally don’t consider this “news”, so I generally give wide berth to such nonsense. And I also agree that focusing on such inconsequential events is damaging.

But I have to say that “damage” should first be inflicted on the media, who fans the flames of the inconsequential to begin with, Larry. This is a blog, and none of us here are investigative reporters, breaking news stories. We all – authors and commenters alike – provide opinions and perspectives on stories and issues we choose to highlight. But we don’t make up what made the news to begin with.

In that sense, rather odd for the media – predominately left leaning – to bring this BS up, and then lay that albatross on the shoulders of the conservatives or GOP in general, don’t you think?

Nor is this blog one person and one voice. Curt is our “founding father”, but he has expanded this to be a community of diverse conservative voices and styles as authors (as well as reader posts), and our participants are also composed of a cross section of political beliefs. Frankly, when I read the one liner zinger comments on other blogs, I’m proud of the more substantive discussions that take place here. And I do welcome your perspectives and spunk, dispite our disagreements.

I will take up your offer to shoot you an email on particular posts that I would like your comments added to the mix. I also remember you mentioned starting your own blog. I’ve lost that link and very much like to you let us know where you are residing with your medical technology perspectives so I can also read what advances you are involved with. Tho I know most will be way over my head.

Last is a question to you… when you get time. You’ve opted out of Medicare participation with your “concierge” services. From what I understand, any provider must wait two years before they take on a private paying, Medicare qualified patient. Will you comment on that? Also, the advances you make… is Medicare refusing to pay for those treatments? In which case, don’t you find it a disadvantage for Medicare/quasi govt run health plans to deny the latest treatments to the elderly?

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@Aqua:

Larry lives in fantasy land.

He really does.

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@ Larry
Dude, I have got to get me some of those glasses you wear. Seriously!

The later is crazy stuff; and it’s crazy stuff which appears on this blog, and it plays right into the hands of the Democrats. That was O’Reilly’s point, and I think that he’s right.

First, O’Reilly is a populist, much like Lou Dobbs. Second:
Vanity Fair, Bush Portrayed as Joker
Bush Portrayed as Hitler
Bush Portrayed as a Chimp
Did this play right into the republicans hands? Or is it just ok as long as it isn’t your president?

This is a good strategy if the economy stays in the toilet, only it’s not staying there. So Obama will get all the credit and the GOP will end up with egg on its face.

Are you serious? You say:

But tax cuts piles up debt, just as much as spending piles up debt. Reagan came close to doubling the debt/GDP ratio, which is a much better metric than debt, per se.

Is that only for Reagan and other republicans. Here’s a little taste of reality for ya. This is from the liberal leaning PolitiFact: Obama’s Budget to take National Debt to 80% of GDP

Obama is unlikely to increase debt/GDP as much as Reagan did, and Obama inherited the greater fiscal mess.

Wrong and wrong. On his current track, Obama is surely going to at least double the current debt/GDP. And Reagan inherited an equally big, yet dissimilar mess.
When Reagan took office in 1981, the unemployment rate was 7% and climbing fast — much like today. Consumer prices had soared a stunning 12.5% the year before, and interest rates in the high teens were crippling residential real estate and business investment.
You want to know one big difference between Reagan’s mess and Obama’s mess Larry? Go out on the web and try to find one speech where Reagan blamed Carter for the mess he inherited. Not a speech when he was campaigning for President, but a speech where he blames Carter after he took office. The answer is no. He just went to work and fixed it.

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@Old Trooper:

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

Sounds like a great program to me.

/ sarc

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