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<p>Correct. One of the reasons the business community is interested in health care reform is that the cost of health care benefits is a severe drain.</p>
<p>“Oh, I see. You conveniently left out the beginning of the quote which made clear that she was talking specifically about the Bush tax cut for the highest income earners in the country.”</p>
<p>I didn’t conveniently leave anything out. I made it clear that I didn’t have the original. Did you conviently ignore that? The Bush tax cuts are important to me and the context of the speech was about all of the Bush tax cuts and I don’t want to see them expire. You can feel free to disagree, but please don’t accuse me of dishonesty.</p>
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<p>OK.</p>
<p>BTW, how do the candidates you support (I assume Republican, since all of the Dems plan to let those cuts expire) plan to pay for them? Or, is it OK to just continue massive Republican federal budget deficits and borrowing from China indefinitely to preserve those tax cuts?</p>
<p>“BTW, how do you plan to pay for them? Or, is it OK to just continue massive federal budget deficits and borrowing from China indefinitely to preserve those tax cuts?”</p>
<p>I’d like to cut spending, eliminate some major pork, and being to wind down some military operations abroad. If only I could run things for a week or so, what a wonderful world it would be!</p>
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<p>Well, the “pork” has come from six years of deficit spending Republican control: Presidency, House, Senate, so this must put you in a bit of voting booth dilemma. The party that gives you your tax cuts is also the party of uncontrolled deficit spending.</p>
<p>BTW, the notion of budget savings from military spending over the next decade is pure folly. The cost of “resetting” the force capability and health care for our troops returning from Iraq will require massive federal funding for the forseeable future. The actual funding for direct Iraq expenses has been largely “off-budget”, done in emergency supplementals so that it is not included in deficit calculations.</p>
<p>Yes, the business community is involved in Hillary education reform, too (see the NCEE). I don’t find corporate socialism any more reassuring than government socialism.</p>
<p>“Well, the “pork” has come from six years of total deficit spending Republican control: Presidency, House, Senate, so this must put you in a bit of voting booth dilemma. The party that gives you your tax cuts is also the party of uncontrolled deficit spending.”</p>
<p>Is it just the message board thing or is there a snarky tone there? I would like to point out to you how often I have decried Bush’s spending and failure to use the veto pen. My posts on that are legion. Not a dilemma. A serious annoyance. I would not vote for democrats because there’s no hope for them on taxing and spending. I can and do hope that the next administration is more fiscally responsible.</p>
<p>As for the Democrats on tax and spend we did after all balance the budget the last time we had the WH under Clinton and under Carter we cut the Ford/Nixon deficit in 1/2. Reagan came in and with his deficit and spend policy drove the deficit back up. W. Bush has done the same, H.W. Bush less so</p>
<p>The Rs are just forcing our kids to pay for thier foolisness</p>
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<p>Why do you say that? The last time there was a balanced federal budget was during the 1990s under a Democratic administration.</p>
<p>“Why do you say that? The last time there was a balanced federal budget was during the 1990s under a Democratic administration.”</p>
<p>I would say that because you conveniently forgot the TAX portion of the equation. It’s abundantly clear that taxes will rise if a democrat is elected president.</p>
<p>Voodoo economics aside, yes…to balance a budget, the government does generally have to increase revenues and reduce outlays.</p>
<p>Tax cuts while increasing expenditures is the tried and true Republican formula for massive federal deficits.</p>
<p>“Tax cuts while increasing expenditures is the tried and true Republican formula for massive federal deficits.”</p>
<p>The bottom line FOR ME is this. I earn my money and I’m sick to death of other people acting like it belongs to them. Our federal government has gotten completely out of control and I find it hard to believe that the Founders would have approved.
By the way, is everything about political upsmanship for you? Some of us actually just want a decent life.</p>
<p>“The telephone poll was conducted for CNN and WMUR television by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. It involved telephone interviews from June 6 to 10 with 309 adults who said they plan to vote in the Democratic primary. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.”</p>
<p>Ummm… not a very big survey!!! The good thing about caller ID is that most people never answer! (…or they are at work or eating dinner when the calls come in…) :D</p>
<p>Zoosermom–near as i can tell, your income is about twice ours, and I think we have more than a decent life. I imagine, actually, that everyone wants one. </p>
<p>And, more to the point, as long as we’re spending and not taxing, we’re asking someone else, in the future, to pay for our decent lives. Doesn’t seem very sporting, to me.</p>
<p>That is not oneupmanship; it’s just the plain truth.</p>
<p>"Zoosermom–near as i can tell, your income is about twice ours, and I think we have more than a decent life. I imagine, actually, that everyone wants one. </p>
<p>And, more to the point, as long as we’re spending and not taxing, we’re asking someone else, in the future, to pay for our decent lives. Doesn’t seem very sporting, to me.</p>
<p>That is not oneupmanship; it’s just the plain truth."</p>
<p>DId you not see my specific post about cutting spending and blaming Bush for that? I also never said that I wanted anything that others didn’t. I simply expressed my priorities. As far as our income, as I’ve stated repeatedly, my husband works two jobs and has for years because his primary job involves step increases and he’s only made that money recently. For most of our marriage he made less than $20k per year. I also have at least a 60-hour work week because of the overtime and the commute. I would have a much nicer life if I didn’t pay New York State and New York City income taxes in addition to everything else and my cost of commuting wasn’t so ridiculous. Most of my issues are with local taxes, but I do think think the federal government is the beast that ate our income, as well.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of all the NH state polls (for the Democratic primary) conducted this year. Each poll lists the number of Democratic respondents (if provided):</p>
<p><a href=“RealClearPolitics - Election 2008 - New Hampshire Democratic Primary”>RealClearPolitics - Election 2008 - New Hampshire Democratic Primary;
<p>Here’s the actual results report of the CNN/WMUR poll. It has some intersting “internals” on candidate perceptions, pretty much in line with the national characteristics I posted above:</p>
<p><a href=“http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/06/11/top3dem.pdf[/url]”>http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/06/11/top3dem.pdf</a></p>
<p>BTW, the small sample sizes is one reason these tracking polls tend to bounce around this far before the election. The other is that support for candidates is fairly “soft” or vague. For example, most Republican respondents to the polls right now can’t identify Rudy as the pro-choice candidate, etc.</p>
<p>“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” --Oliver Wendell Holmes</p>
<p>In addition to homeland defense, the benefits taxes provide for include clean air and water; safe food and drugs; national parks/forests; highways; public schools, libraries, and transportation; veteran’s benefits, police and fire departments; workplace safety standards, etc, etc. And yes, taxes also help provide a safety net for the poor, elderly, and disabled. </p>
<p>I’m as rankled as anyone when I see the enormous deductions from my paychecks every other week. Even more irritating is the knowledge that America’s tax system often seems mismanaged and is not always fair. The reason I tend to keep my resentment to myself is that I also agree with Holmes. If we want to maintain the type of advanced and caring “civilization” we now enjoy in this wonderful country, it just won’t come cheap. Can the system be tweaked for the better? Undoubtedly. But general hostility toward taxation seems irrational–to me.</p>
<p>“But general hostility toward taxation seems irrational–to me.”</p>
<p>Different people can have different points of view. My perfectly rational hostility to taxation stems from the sense of entitlement of the people spending the money I work so hard to earn and their lack of understanding that it’s MY money.</p>
<p>Now I don’t feel so bad. According to the CNN/WMUR poll, 48% of NH Democrats are undecided. There’s certainly still a contest to be had, and a long time for the contestants to be spending time in our wonderful state!</p>
<p>I don’t think this poll even addressed the undecided “Independents”, like me.</p>
<p>Yup, a registered Independent.</p>
<p>By the way, I find the new polls really interesting. McCain is not doing very well at all right now.</p>