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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: H-Man who wrote (9415)	1/18/2001 9:44:06 AM
From: mst2000	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

You say: Only liberals want to punish people through the tax code. Interesting and warped perspective. My reply is this: If we weren't giving so many federal dollars (in corporate welfare) to defense contractors, agricultural conglomerates, oil companies and other large companies who preach conservative philosophy (as they donate huge bucks to GOP candidates), but know of no government handout they are not prepared to accept, and no government assistance they are not prepared to lobby for, we might actually have even larger surpluses, lower interest rates and be able to enact even greater fairness into our tax system. Apparently, redistribution of wealth is only a problem for the GOP when the wealth is being redistributed to people who truly need it: the working poor, the homeless, the elderly, single mothers and families on fixed incomes, the unemployed (thanks to Clinton, there are less of them now) -- all of whom are working their asses off to make do in a harsh reality that passes on (to them anyway) precious few of the luxuries that you take for granted -- despite the fact that many of these people work just as hard as you or I do, or did when they were able. And that's because the right wing is fond of the propaganda that takes it as an axiom that recipients of governmental assistance, in whatever form, are lazy people looking for a handout. When, in fact, the really juicy handouts are going to guys who look, talk and act just like Dick Cheney and Ross Perot (two guys who made millions from federal spending sent to companies they owned or controlled -- what a laugh watching Dick Cheney, whose companiy received tens of millions in loan guaranties, trade assistance and other federal funding, say in his debate that the federal government had done nothing to help him -- hypocrisy at its worst). Well, if you cut social security and medicare out of the federal budget, and you cut interest on the federal debt (thank you Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.) out of the federal budget, and you cut defense spending out of the federal budget, what is left to spend represents less than 10 cents on the tax dollar. Of that, all but maybe a penny or two goes to fund direct grant programs to states, or to fund government employment in sectors that I think most would agree represent worthwhile expenditures of our tax dollars -- law enforcement, the judiciary, the State Department, environmental protection, etc. So the one or two cents per tax dollar spent on things that conservatives rail against is nothing compared to the dollars the business community siphons off of the Federal budget. Which is to say, if you are looking for a culprit as to why tax rates are too high, look no further than the men who will be taking the podium on Saturday to be sworn in as Prez and Veep, and those who funded their election. You guys love a good myth if it suits your purposes. And this election had a dozen of them. But the truth will be known, we are not going to let it fade away.