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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (76215)	5/15/2006 1:44:11 AM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

What do we need government for then?

To: Dan B. who wrote (76215)	5/15/2006 4:13:48 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 81568

Gougers and white collar criminals do not "work" for their profits. Unless you count illegal behavior and corruption as "work", which I guess it is. This is like the S+L debacle but ten times as bad. Right now, Big Energy and Big healthcare know they can charge us anything they want, there's little or no competition and Bushies won't lift a finger. That is why we have a trillion dollar ripoff going on.

To: Dan B. who wrote (76215)	5/15/2006 8:43:14 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

>>My point is that you are angry at the very folks who get the job done, for making a profit. These folks use those profits to continue to get the job done. That government takes more than these folks who do the work, is just an indication that your anger is out of line. Roads are important, yet few will believe government gets them built and maintained efficiently. In truth, we never needed government to build highways, and they do a typically lousy job.<< Dan - If "getting the job done" means making sure that America remains dependent on oil, and particularly on foreign oil, then yes, the oil companies are doing that. The status quo works just fine for them, so they will lobby against any kind of progressive energy policy, while we, the people, pay more and more. Another thing that bothers me is your continuing repetition of the idea that the government takes more in taxes than the oil companies make in profits. Can you back that up with some real numbers? By the way, I find it quite strange that conservatives such as yourself don't trust the government to do something as complicated as building roads, yet you believe we should give the executive branch carte blanche with respect to wiretapping and other aspects of national security. The concept of having this same government, which is too incompetent to build a road properly according to you, make life and death decisions on behalf of the citizenry should be abhorrent to you. Anyway, as far as the government's success at road building goes, I think it might be wise to look at more recent history. As fascinating as the building of 7,800 miles of private roads between 1792 and 1840 may have been, I think the example of the Interstate Highway system, a project spearheaded by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950's, is more relevant today. Currently, the National Highway System comprises more than 160,000 miles of roadways, and is a vital part of our nation's economy. - Allen