Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (20170)	12/16/1998 5:53:00 AM
From: Brad Bolen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

RE: I believe Government essentially can't help the poor... Wow, what a straight shooter...even if such an 'ideal' is misguided. I would love to take you to visit some of those poor folk that that mean ol' government isn't helping in my district but... Regardless, that is an honest and fundamental difference between opposing ideas I see barked around here. Boiled down: if you can afford it you can have it, otherwise... In a conversation with Dick Armey the year he first ran for office, we sat outside and chatted about various problems. He confessed he would secretly love to abolish social security. He suggested that people would save on their own, and if they didn't, "tough". Rush Limbaugh last week: "get rid of public schools completely, let the private sector do its work". (no need to mess around with this voucher nonsense) A typical conversation: (and one that I essentially had at the Southern Legislative Conference in Ft. Worth a few years back ...In the Arkansas suite, now that I think about it) : Devil's advocate "So, why should people on the West side of Austin, for example, have double wide streets and huge well-kept parks, while those east of I-35 are suffering with potholes and barely a swing set?" " Because they pay more property tax, so why shouldn't they get more?" The Devil's advocate: "Well why do it that way?..You would give the money to the Government just so they can eat up a third of it or more in the bureaucracy, only to give it right back to the same people that got taxed excessively in the first place? Why not just let the locals take care of their own parks...and the roads. Hell, the contractors are paying to build the roads out here anyway." "Exactly." Devil's advocate: "exactly, we always end up in the same place... Never mind whether it be parks or roads, or food and medicine...if you can afford it, you can have it." A foreign exchange student I had the pleasure of playing taxi driver for some time ago... In the middle of such a conversation as this... I deliberately drove down a street in a poor neighborhood (Dan, you need to visit more that the outside of the houses). Since he was boarding with a rich family, he had no idea of the 'otherside' of America. For fun I asked him what he thought those people must do to deserve to be so poor. His response was not subtle: "They are lazy". I realize that the above examples are much more simplistic in nature than many of the more sophisticated haggles on this board, but at least they really happened. They leave no doubt in this mind that Government has an important role in our lives. My only complaint is the WAY it handles the problems. B. What is this tonight, the Parade of the Rotten Apples?