Democrats make it very hard to vote democrat.

Parent Cafe
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<p>Zoosermom, do you read your own posts? You wrote this.</p>

<p>“That’s the difference, republicans want to help those people to have dignity by working, whereas many democrats want to just throw money at their problems and keep them entrenched and dependent”</p>

<p>“whereas many democrats want to just throw money at their problems and keep them entrenched and dependent”</p>

<p>“keep them entrenched and dependent”</p>

<p>I’m responding to you.</p>

<p>Zoosermom, with all due respect, you’re wrong about republican policies. There are decent republican people and decent democrat people, but republican policies are not helping the middle class and definitely not the lower class.</p>

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<p>Dstark, with all due respect, I feel equally as strongly that you are the one who is wrong. Although I am not now, nor have I ever been, a supporter of the war in Iraq. If that is your frame of reference for “republicans” then I can’t disagree, but that isn’t the frame of reference from which I speak. If you are talking about Bush’s ridiculous spending, I’ll give you that one, too. But that isn’t the traditional “republican” policy. Here’s the thing. Much of what many (I don’t speak for you) democrats want to do for people may be perfectly fine to do on the local level, depending on the locality, but I don’t think the vast majority of what the federal government does is appropriate. Let localities set their priorities. That’s fine with me and then people can have a voice in the priorities and move if they can’t live with them.</p>

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<p>“I think much democratic policy is anti-people and is harmful and attempts to leave groups of people in squalor in order to keep them dependent on the largesse of democrats who want to keep getting their votes.”</p>

<p>Pretty outdated caricature of the Democrats Zoosermom. </p>

<p>We all have a long way to go between now and November - take a deep breath and keep an open mind. </p>

<p>And by the way, I don’t agree with the headline of the thread. I think we’ve been burned by the present administration and are unsure who can “really” lead us out of this mess. Edwards, Clinton and Obama all have the ability to be president and do it well. Each has strengths and weaknesses - none of them are perfect. I think we’re searching for a knight in shining armor - a sure bet against another 8 years like the last.</p>

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<p>“Dstark, with all due respect, I feel equally as strongly that you are the one who is wrong. Although I am not now, nor have I ever been, a supporter of the war in Iraq. If that is your frame of reference for “republicans” then I can’t disagree, but that isn’t the frame of reference from which I speak. If you are talking about Bush’s ridiculous spending, I’ll give you that one, too. But that isn’t the traditional “republican” policy. Here’s the thing. Much of what many (I don’t speak for you) democrats want to do for people may be perfectly fine to do on the local level, depending on the locality, but I don’t think the vast majority of what the federal government does is appropriate. Let localities set their priorities. That’s fine with me and then people can have a voice in the priorities and move if they can’t live with them.”</p>

<p>Zoosermom, I’m wrong? You agree about the war, you mentioned republican government spending increases which I forgot to mention, and yet you talk about traditional republican “policy”.</p>

<p>Who cares about traditional republican policy? </p>

<p>I only care about reality and what is really happening. </p>

<p>Republican leaders spend too much, borrow too much, they don’t police business well, most tax decreases go to those at the top of the economic chain and trickle down economics doesn’t happen, (there is no proof that Arthur Laffer’s ideas work and when he was asked if cutting tax rates leads to an increase in government revenues on Kudlow and Company, he said he didn’t know), republicans don’t increase minimum wages (not even with inflation), they are homophobes, the stock market doesn’t do better under republican rule, they subsidize oil companies which are making record profits, the republicans overtax social security and spend the money on other things, and people like Schwarzenegger wants to cut spending for mentally ■■■■■■■■ people.</p>

<p>I’m wrong?</p>

<p>As far as the presidential candidates go…</p>

<p>Huckabee wants us to be a religious state.
Romney goes from being a liberal to being a conservative in a couple of years.
McCain is too old and will never get us out of Iraq, but he will make permanent Bush’s tax cuts even though he voted against them.
Thompson is comatose.
Giuliani sees a terrorist on every street corner.</p>

<p>I am just so excited about these candidates. :)</p>

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<p>Ron Paul wants to restore all our freedoms, including that of religion
Ron Paul is consistent
Ron Paul is most definitely NOT a homophobe
Ron Paul may be old, but he’s feisty and would get us out of Iraq immediately
Ron Paul will address blowback, whereas all the others deny it</p>

<p>Why did you leave out the one candidate who is worth getting excited about?</p>

<p>And don’t say that ‘not electable’ crap; he beat out both giuliani and Thompson so should be considered at least as viable, if not more so, than them.</p>

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<p>But you can’t live off of them and not be rich.</p>

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<p>dstark:</p>

<p>you’ve turned Laffer’s napkin analysis upside-down. His thesis was, at some point (say as we start down towards 100% taxation), people work less, and, thus, the government’s marginal tax take is less. Obviously, at 100% income tax, people will not work. Thus, the calculus curve…</p>

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<p>NEM: a hypotheses: you dislike Clinton so much as a person that what you hear her say is warped from what she’s actually saying.</p>

<p>I had the privilege of hearing her today, though I missed getting inside to the town hall meeting by 25 people or so and listened on loudspeakers set up outside in the chilly wind. I was pretty jazzed by what I heard. Might not be the soaring poetry of Obama but the prose inspired confidence in competence, which I’ll take even if I disagree on some specific issues. </p>

<p>[I also got a chance to shake her hand and snapped a photo from a range of about 2 feet and that’s irrelevant but still cool, imo.]</p>

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<p>^ Well TheDad, at least I agree with your assessment of Guilliani (posted on another thread). :o</p>

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<p>TheDad, maybe your right, I just don’t know. I will need to hear more from her. So did that handshake and photo influence you in any way ;)?</p>

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<p>Aodh, I agree with you completely. I am also a resident of MA and I think Romney was a great governor. I will be voting for him in our primary and hope he gets the GOP bid. I also think Patrick is worthless, and should stop endorsing candidates. I don’t care who you like buddy, stop driving around a Caddy and getting your wife a personal assistant. Fix our economy.</p>

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<p>"dstark:</p>

<p>you’ve turned Laffer’s napkin analysis upside-down. His thesis was, at some point (say as we start down towards 100% taxation), people work less, and, thus, the government’s marginal tax take is less. Obviously, at 100% income tax, people will not work. Thus, the calculus curve… "</p>

<p>Bluebayou, I did not turn Laffer’s anaylsis upside down. Under his theory at some point tax rates are too high and people won’t work and the government will get less revenues. At some point tax rates are too low and even though people will work hard, the government will get less revenues. Obviously, at zero tax rates.</p>

<p>Laffer has no idea where we are on the curve and whether the lowering of tax rates over the last 27 years has increased government revenues.</p>

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<p>A little more on the mess in Massachusetts. Romney certainly did not cause all of the problem but, IMO, as govener he did little to help the situation and lots to exaperate the situation … and franky as President I’d expect him to follow a similar disfunctional paths.</p>

<p>While Mass votes democratic in most presidential elections on the state level our recent govs have been republican and directionally we’ve adopted a lot “republican” ideas (and the democractically controlled house and senate have followed or not been able to stop). What do I mean by “republican ideas” …</p>

<ul>
<li>Pushing the no new taxes theme </li>
<li>Pushing shrinking government by cutting education / human service type support from the state</li>
<li>While also cutting taxes and increasing subsidies of businesses</li>
<li>When faced with deficits and sticking to the no new taxes pledge … the govs (with the reps and senators along for the ride) push up fees of every type.<br></li>
<li>The result of no new income taxes, lower business taxes, and increased fees is the burden of funding the state expenses continuing to be more regressive. I am not judging if this is good or bad but stating the reality of the increased load on paying by those lower on the food chain.</li>
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<p>At the same time the state government (led by the republican govs) to legislate things like

  • real state taxes are capped at a 2.5% increase unless the town has an override vote (how is the state telling cities and towns what they can do a “small government” approach?)
  • the state is mandating MCLB type educational programs without providing funding
  • the state in mandating special needs type educational without providing funding</p>

<p>So where does that leave a town

  • By state law they can only increase property taxes by 2.5% at the same time the state is requiring them to pick up new expenses and the state is cutting their support
  • Property taxes make up a huge percentage of local goverment’s ability to raise taxes. (Our real estate taxes in an upper middle class neighborhood are over $12,000 per year … it is our main concern for retirement planning).
  • Within a town’s budget salaries, health care, and maintence of capital are the lion’s share of the budget … and all are growing a rates multiples of 2.5%.
  • which means towns are are screwed and faced with NASTY override votes on an ongoing basis.</p>

<p>I know this is long winded but what does this have to do with Romney … we had our 4 years of him as gov. He came touted as the brilliant venture businessman who would bring that savvy to this mess … and what did we get. From my point of view

  • Given this disfuctional set-up no leadership to try to change the set-up into something that works better … isn’t this exactly what this savvy venture capitalist should be great at?
  • Instead he pushed many of the individual levers that exasperate the situation … the towns are screwed with their budgets OK let’s mandate more things they need to pay for without any help from the state (and they don’t get releif from Prop 2 1/2).
  • Virtually all program pushed favored those on top and many hurt those on the bottom
  • His political views kept changing to whatever was expediate at the time (hmm … any evidence of that now)
  • He spent the last two years in office here campaigning for President … as a resident of this state I do not appreciate.</p>

<p>So I see a guy who ran for office not to serve but to get to his next step, does not have conviction for his beliefs, did little to nothing to help our serious problems, did much to exasperate the situation, and treated the job as a part-time job. But other than that I thought he was great. BTW - nothing I said above had to do with agreeing or disagreeing with his politics … it was that he did a horrible job pursing his policies.</p>

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<p>“[I also got a chance to shake her hand and snapped a photo from a range of about 2 feet and that’s irrelevant but still cool, imo.]”</p>

<p>So Thedad, how does Clinton look up close?</p>

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<p>dstark, welcome to the Joe Biden club. Just as with Joe Biden, you at times come across as very reasonable and pragmatic, but then, just as with Biden, you come out with some of the most stupendous whoppers like this.</p>

<p>The Republicans don’t care about low income children and education? Where do you think that No Child Left Behind came from? While you can very easily make the case that it has its own set of problems, you can’t possibly make the case that it stems from a “don’t care about poor kids” perspective. You also can’t complain about Bush’s increased spending on education (by a huge margin) and also say that “he doesn’t care” about the poor. My wife teaches in an inner city school and I hear daily stories about the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and its paralyzing impact on the future of young black kids. Bush was dead on in his diagnosis and his desire to do something to break the cycle. Perhaps the prescription needs some tweaking, but there is no way that an honest or fair person could say that this effort stems from a “don’t care” perspective.</p>

<p>Likewise, what did the Dems ever do about prescription drugs for the elderly? If one really had a “don’t care” attitude, why would he even attempt to solve the problem? As it is, despite the wailing of the Dems, most of the elderly who are taking advantage of the program are happy with it and have seen their prescription costs go down.</p>

<p>As far as things like minimum wages are concerned, the Dems once again fall into their same MO of not being able to see second-order effects of any of their programs. Now that the minimum wages have been raised, unemployment of young people between 18 and 24 has increased - just as predicted by the Republicans. So, it must be that the Dems “just don’t care” about unemployed young people. Right?</p>

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<p>fundingfather, we can pick and choose what we want to look at, can’t we?</p>

<p>“As far as things like minimum wages are concerned, the Dems once again fall into their same MO of not being able to see second-order effects of any of their programs. Now that the minimum wages have been raised, unemployment of young people between 18 and 24 has increased - just as predicted by the Republicans. So, it must be that the Dems “just don’t care” about unemployed young people. Right?”</p>

<p>Causation, correlation, or coincidence?</p>

<p>Unemployment is up in all age groups.</p>

<p>“The republicans could not care less about these people”</p>

<p>That sentence was in response to this ridiculous statement…</p>

<p>“That’s the difference, republicans want to help those people to have dignity by working, whereas many democrats want to just throw money at their problems and keep them entrenched and dependent”</p>

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<p>Perhaps you could answer allegations with facts rather than come out with your own ridiculous statement which could be lifted directly from the Dem propaganda book.</p>

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<p>Fundingfather, I admit that sentence was a little extreme. </p>

<p>I think I presented quite a few facts in this thread about failed republican policies and why I am no longer a republican.</p>

<p>One thing I do like about republican leaders is they do deliver on low taxes. I like low taxes.</p>

<p>Who are you supporting for president?</p>

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<p>Dem propaganda book.</p>

<p>When did that come out?
Did your copy come with the gay agenda?</p>

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<p>I am still an undecided. If I were voting strictly on policy it would probably be Thompson or Giuliani. However, I most assuredly do not support any of the Dems and will support whichever candidate that I think has the best chance to keep them from office. As of now, I am leaning toward McCain.</p>