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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (487745)	6/13/2009 3:15:06 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572856

"You starve it, or make it operate on a credit card, and you starve the country." A good case study of this effect is the city of Galveston. In the 1800s, it was one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Per capita, probably the wealthiest. It was the third busiest port in the country. Not only could they afford to rebuild after the Great Hurricane of 1900, they also raised the city by an average of 3 feet. And it has been very influential, some of the companies that were founded by Islanders are well known. American National Insurance, Borden's, Stewart Title and others. But, that isn't the case any more. Unemployment is high, wages are low. Its influence is about what you would expect out of a beach town of around 60,000. The Islanders blame the Great Hurricane for the decline, but, in reality it was on the decline before then. What happened? They stopped investing in the port. They were content with what they had and were satisfied with letting business go to Houston. Eventually, the port of Houston swallowed all of their business and now owns the port in Galveston. Now the biggest employer is UTMB and they came close to shutting it down in the wake of Ike. And that would have been a death blow.

To: Road Walker who wrote (487745)	6/18/2009 10:23:02 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572856

We have some of the lowest federal taxes in modern times Depends on how you define modern times, and whether your talking about tax rates or actual percentage paid in taxes. The top marginal rates are certainly lower than they where in the 50s-70s, but such top marginal rates are just bad ideas all around, and also the actual effective rates paid where typically lower for much of that period do to high (compared to the typical or average incomes for the time) incomes required to have to pay such rates and tax loopholes. Also the rates are higher now than they where for much of the 80s which certainly qualifies for modern times, or much of the pre-FDR period which is often considered modern times. As for starving the government that's just ridiculous. Governments at all levels in the US have been increasing spending for decades. Its more an explosion of spending than a starving of government. The federal government continues to do so. Not all that long ago the federal budget was smaller than the federal deficit will apparently soon be (sure that's in nominal dollars, but its not like inflation has been so high as to explain that explosion of spending) Previous generations have anti-ed up much higher taxes Many of them faced lower taxes. Higher top nominal rates, aren't the same as overall higher taxes. Your folks wouldn't have built the Interstate system... which is a source of our wealth. You wouldn't have regulated drugs... a source of our wealth Calling the FDA "a source of our wealth" is questionable to say the least, but I don't want to digress to another topic so I'll accept it for now. We could spend a fraction of what the federal government (or government's at all levels in the US) spend today and still have an interstate system, FDA etc. The majority of federal spending is for entitlements. Everything you touch, everyday, is regulated by our government Yes, that's part of the problem.