<p>McCain is against raising taxes! Obama has already said he wants to raise taxes and “redistribute wealth to make it fair”.</p>
<p>I think it is better so stop giving the beast money to grow and waste.</p>
<p>So government is now a beast. Wow. You must just cringe every time you drive by a fire station.</p>
<p>momof2inca,</p>
<p>My morning paper had an article today on dead people in HUD housing! To me that is a wastful use my hard earned money I had to give to the government in the form of taxes.</p>
<p>The more we workers give to the government the more it needs, it waste.</p>
<p>Momof2inca,</p>
<p>I do cringe when I drive by my local fire stations, because our fire stations have over $100k of art work in front of them. Art work is nice but we need other neccessary things more than we need art work.</p>
<p>Wasteful spending in my opinion.</p>
<p>Yes, well my morning paper had another story about a corrupt Congressman and yet I don’t call for cutbacks in congressional salaries or in the number of representatives a state gets. </p>
<p>Of course it’s a scandal about HUD housing dead people, but maybe they are so underfunded that they don’t have enough employees to actually fact-check these things, so the public is getting away with abusing the system.</p>
<p>Remember - HUD doesn’t house anyone. Private contractors build the housing. Private businesses usually own the housing. And except where managed by non-profit housing authorities, private businesses manage the housing, and collect the checks.</p>
<p>That supports my point, mini, about HUD being UNDERFUNDED and not able to check up on the corrupt private-enterprise people/public.</p>
<p>^I agree congressional salaries are out of control, and some are very corrupt!</p>
<p>Even more reason not to send them any more of our money! They will just blow it!</p>
<p>I never asked for anything for free. How much waste is too much? 5%, 10% of the money?</p>
<p>Hud is funded enough. They gave vouchers to dead people.</p>
<p>AMom2, do you really think they gave vouchers to dead people because they a) just don’t care about that kind of thing or b) have so much money to share that why not? </p>
<p>I’m working hard to understand your mindset and to engage you in a meaningful conversation with relevant, supporting commentary/facts, but your black/white pronouncements and exclamation marks make it a real strain on this fine Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>“Hud is funded enough. They gave vouchers to dead people.”</p>
<p>The dead people didn’t collect, and neither did live ones, other than the private landlords who could cash 'em.</p>
<p>If you cut congressional salaries all you will do is discourage anyone who is not rich from running for a seat in congress. The system will slowly exclude middle and upper middle class representation. It will become a government of the rich. And a government of the rich is a government for the rich: call it the third world or call it a defacto monarchy, but it certainly won’t be a democracy.</p>
<p>pmrlcomm. Waste of any kind is not good and is unacceptable. Yet chronically underfunding public agencies does not get rid of waste as easily as you might hope. Rather it often leads to more waste as the public catches on that oversight is not as stringent (i.e. welfare fraud, social security fraud, etc…). It’s the attention to detail that prevents waste and fraud and if you do not have enough eyes on the accounting sheets or in the purchasing departments or in the HUD agencies, then fraud multiplies. It’s the same with crime. NY crime was cleaned up thanks to many, many small vigilant acts by public workers, such as city code enforcement fining businesses that didn’t fix their windows. Fixed windows prevented crime because suddenly it looked like there was oversight. If you didn’t have enough city workers to get out on the street, note the small problems and follow up, the murder rate would have continued to increase. </p>
<p>As I said, large government agencies are inefficient because of their size not because the employees are wasteful pigs.</p>
<p>^Surpise, most congressman are rich!</p>
<p>McCain backs off his no-new-tax pledge</p>
<p>By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 29, 7:04 PM ET</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s signal that he may be open to a higher payroll tax for Social Security, despite previous vows not to raise taxes of any kind, is drawing sharp rebukes from conservatives.</p>
<p>McCain’s shift has come in stages, catching some Republicans by surprise. Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security. “I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table,” he said.</p>
<p>He went a step farther Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” in response to a question about payroll tax increases.</p>
<p>“There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table,” McCain said. “I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.”</p>
<p>That comment drew a strong response from the Club for Growth, a Washington anti-tax group. McCain’s comments, the group said in a letter to the Arizona senator, are “shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances.”</p>
<p>During a town-hall meeting in Sparks, Nev., McCain insisted anew Tuesday that he would not raise taxes if elected.</p>
<p>He frequently has promised not to raise taxes.</p>
<p>At a July 7 town-hall meeting in Denver, he said voters faced a stark choice between him and Democrat Barack Obama.</p>
<p>“Sen. Obama will raise your taxes,” McCain said. “I won’t.”</p>
<p>In a March 16 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, McCain said he would cut taxes where possible, and not raise them.</p>
<p>“Do you mean none?” Hannity asked.</p>
<p>“None,” McCain replied.</p>
<p>Both candidates have said Social Security’s funding formula needs to be changed to ensure the program’s long-term viability. Obama has called for imposing a new payroll tax on incomes above $250,000. Currently, only incomes up to $102,000 are subject to the 12.4 percent payroll tax, which employers and employees split evenly.</p>
<p>When Obama announced his plan June 13, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told reporters that as president McCain would not consider a payroll tax increase “under any imaginable circumstance.”</p>
<p>McCain has made no specific proposals for Social Security, refusing to rule in or out anything to strengthen the benefit program for retirees and the disabled. Both candidates have said that, if elected, they would try to work out details with Republican and Democratic lawmakers.</p>
<p>Asked for an explanation of McCain’s latest comments, campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said the Arizona senator “has a clear and demonstrated record of opposing tax increases. John McCain is going to cut taxes” and improve government discipline, he said.</p>
<p>Promises never to raise taxes have bedeviled past Republican officeholders. Before being elected president in 1988, George H.W. Bush said, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” But facing severe budget problems, he reneged on the promise. Some conservative groups never forgave him.</p>
<p>[McCain</a> backs off his no-new-tax pledge - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080729/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_taxes]McCain”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080729/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_taxes)</p>
<hr>
<p>momof2inca,</p>
<p>You said it best:</p>
<p>Large government agencies are inefficient because of their size not because the employess are wasteful pigs. So you agree with me we don’t need to make the govenment bigger to become efficient. </p>
<p>The government needs to tighten their belts and look to cut spending, fraud and waste.</p>
<p>Obama has said he will raise taxes to redistribute wealth. McCain doesn’t want to raise taxes.</p>
<p>"<code>My plan is detailed and specific when it comes to cutting spending,‘’ the Democratic candidate said in a July 7 speech in St. Louis.</code>In fact, all my new spending proposals would be more than paid for by spending reductions.‘’ </p>
<p>Budget analysts from across the political spectrum disagree. His spending and tax-cut proposals, they say, would do little to curb runaway federal spending, resulting in more red ink at a time when the White House is already forecasting a record $482 billion budget deficit for next year. </p>
<p><code>Clearly, this is not a spending-cut agenda,‘’ said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based nonpartisan group that advocates budget restraint.</code>You’re likely to see continuing large deficits from the Obama plan.‘’ </p>
<p>The shortfalls Obama would produce don’t approach the size of the deficits John McCain’s budget threatens to bring. The Republican candidate’s tax cuts alone would increase the debt by $5 trillion by 2018, compared with $3.4 trillion for Obama, says the Tax Policy Center, another nonpartisan group." </p>
<p>– Our owners are prepared to buy it, so what’s the problem?</p>
<p>McCain doesn’t want to, but he will if elected. Same difference. So, whose taxes and what taxes?</p>