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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (203035)	4/17/2007 2:46:56 PM
From: JDN	Respond to of 793738

LEST WE FORGET!! jdn Pelosi Congress Sending You a $2,641 Bill NewsMax.com Wires Sunday, April 15, 2007 The average American family will have to pay an extra $2,641 a year if President Bush's 2003 tax cuts are allowed to expire -- but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have given no indication they plan to extend the cuts. "The mugging will lift $3.3 trillion from purses and wallets because the 2003 cuts will begin expiring soon," Ernest Istook – a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation – writes in the Washington Post. "The budget resolution moving through Congress is the blueprint for what's coming. Higher spending – by hundreds of billions – is the plan. Renewing tax cuts isn't." Istook calls the expiration of the tax cuts in 2010 a "back-door tax increase" because the Democratic-controlled Congress doesn't have to act to usher in the increase – it simply needs to take no action to extend the cuts or make them permanent, "something the new majority says it won't do." Last September, Democrat Charles Rangel of New York – who is now chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee – said in an interview that he "cannot think of one" of Bush's first-term tax cuts that merit renewal. In a January interview with John Browne, contributing editor of NewsMax's Financial Intelligence Report, Rangel was again asked about the tax cuts. He indicated he was open-minded about the issue, but was noncommittal, saying: "That's 2010. What happens in 2010, happens in 2010, depending on what the economy looks like … what the budget looks like… "I for one just don't see how you can give tax cuts to the rich and just come to the Congress and ask them to put young people in harm's way and give tax cuts to the rich." The tax cuts have not substantially reduced current tax revenues, according to a Heritage Foundation report in January, and economic growth rates have more than doubled since the 2003 cuts. But if the tax cuts are allowed to expire, the federal government will grab more than 1.5 percent of GDP a year in extra tax revenue by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Without the cuts, "personal and business income tax rates will climb," Istook writes. "Capital gains taxes will go up. The death tax will have new life. The marriage penalty will once more punish husbands and wives. Child tax credits won't continue. And the alternative minimum tax will hit more and more middle-income workers. "The sneaky thing is that instead of voting to raise taxes and going on the record … Congress won't have to do a thing. "Taxpayers should keep their eyes focused on their own pockets. They're about to get picked."

To: LindyBill who wrote (203035)	4/17/2007 4:14:30 PM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 793738

Ahh, yes. In their minds, that's the essence of evil And if he's Asian, it's second best.

To: LindyBill who wrote (203035)	4/17/2007 4:29:06 PM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793738

Unarmed and vulnerable Bradford B. Wiles Wiles, of New Castle, is a graduate student at Virginia Tech. On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: "You need to get out of the building." Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn. It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself. Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech's student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime. I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out. First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police. Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway. Third, and most important, I am trained and able to carry a concealed handgun almost anywhere in Virginia and other states that have reciprocity with Virginia, but cannot carry where I spend more time than anywhere else because, somehow, I become a threat to others when I cross from the town of Blacksburg onto Virginia Tech's campus. Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness. That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself. I would also like to point out that when I mentioned to a professor that I would feel safer with my gun, this is what she said to me, "I would feel safer if you had your gun." The policy that forbids students who are legally licensed to carry in Virginia needs to be changed. I am qualified and capable of carrying a concealed handgun and urge you to work with me to allow my most basic right of self-defense, and eliminate my entrusting my safety and the safety of my classmates to the government. This incident makes it clear that it is time that Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia let me take responsibility for my safety. roanoke.com