both sides want to spend more than they should. and i really dont hear the democrats saying much less doing anything about reducing defense spending. i cant say i blame them on a purely political level though, as calling for it would give easy ammo to the republicans. if obama and the democrats were really interested in reducing military spending they would support barney frank and ron pauls proposal to cut the pentagons budget by $1 trillion over 10 years. the thing with republicans though is that they are fine w/ out of control spending wrt the military and spending money to kill people, but seem to think trying to help the poor in this country makes us nazi-socialist-commies. i dont believe anyone who supported bush is sincere about their desire to reduce the deficit or limit the size of government. when their guy was doing it not only did they defend him, but they attacked others who dared criticize. and now that obama comes in all of a sudden they want it lowered? i dont buy it. "deficits dont matter" - dick cheney
Agree, although the tax cut extension rests in the hands of the lameduck Congress, not the newly elected House and Senate. There are several popular and unpopular agenda items IMO we must do: 1) Withdraw troops from countries like Germany and Japan that are perfectly capable of defending themselves. 2) Reduce the number of extraneous/redundant military bases across the nation -- regardless of how some communities scream. 3) End sending food and medical supplies out of the country -- use them on the needy right here in the U.S. 4) Warn Mexico to end the drug wars or risk ceding those border areas to the U.S. so that we can control, reduce and end the violence. 5) Declare English as the official language while simultaneously striving to teach our children to be bi- and tri-lingual. However, until a child can speak and understand English, he or she can't attend public school. 6) Pass a balanced budget law while creating a 5-person panel (a majority party Senator and Congressman, a minority party Senator and Congressmnan and a representative appointed by the President). That panel would hold a line item veto wielded using a 5-vote secret ballot. However, there would need to be some restraints like "no state could lose or gain more than x-amount over or under that of any other state using some proportional measure to make it fair for large and small states." 7) Give a significant tax penalty for U.S. based companies who hire non-U.S. workers. This includes a $10,000 per week penalty for every undocumented worker. For example, if a maid or lawn-care company certifies a worker is a legal worker but they are wrong, the contract company gets the fine.
I've brought this up before but as a small business owner I can tell you that tax cuts mean nothing when you have little to no revenue.
I would love to see some huge budget cuts in conventional military spending such as what you recommended in #1 and #2. We could use these funds to bolster the right types of intelligence for fighting Al Qaeda and drug/crime lords. I disagree on #3. The last thing we need is a war over food in 3rd world countries. We have the means to help others out and it keeps our food producers here at work. All in all, we need to take a hard look at our military spending. If we want to make budget cuts, this has to be the first place we look.
I tend to agree with this although in the transition it will create a lot of geopolitical problems. I agree and I think this has been going on for awhile. Keep in mind our humanitarian aid pales in regard to the amount of military spending, also a lot of what we pledge is never delivered. At the same time that humanitarian aid has a strong affect in improving good will towards the US. As far as saving food for the US we aren't facing a food shortage. There are people going hungry but that is a problem of distribution not supply. Wouldn't taking over the Mexican border cost a lot and what guarentee is there that we can end the violence? Consider how much blood and treasure we have invested in Iraq and Afghanistan and there still is sectarian violence. If a child who can't speak English can't attend public school how do you propose we teach them English? Line item veto has been ruled unconstitutional.
Why is it the U.S. job to make the Mexican border towns safe to the point where we would annex them? English as the official language is pointless, and against the American tradition. Traditionally immigrants have had large numbers of first generation parents who didn't speak much English and that changes by the next generation. Furthermore not allowing students to start public school until learning English is ridiculous on many levels. First of all in K many students don't really know English. Secondly students who have 4 or more years of learning English as a second language do better than English only students on their tests.
In most of the areas where we deliver food and medicine, very little gets to the people for whom it was intended. The bulk of it goes to war lords and drug czars who use it to buy arms to perpetuate their violent control of regions. Also, if you are going to cut aid to one faction's favored child, you must be willing to cut the aid to all the favored children.
Can you quantify this? We have learned from Somalia and the US in general does a good job of distributing emergency aid. After the tsunami, Haitian Earthquake, and even Pakistani Floods the US directly helicoptered and air dropped aid and didn't rely upon local sources to deliver it.
Of course we do. That is why the poor in those countries eat so well and have houses made of solid cloth and canvas.
I agree with the military statements, but think some other issues may have long-term negatives. I wouldn't want to alienate those who can't speak English in schools or try to take over part of the border area with Mexico. I'm sure we could move troops from Germany/Japan back home and have more troops on our border keeping the drug war and the illegal immigration issue at bay. I'm very concerned with non-US hire's and fines etc. as protectionism is a usual result of a strong recession and usually only serves to drag it longer as other countries become protectionists which limits the specialization in labor and results in higher prices across the board for all Americans. That is less discretionary money to spend on consumer goods or life or anything which is what is affecting our country at this point.
Illegal immigrants would push their children to speak English along with their native language and, in so doing, would learn English and hence make societal integration all the more quickly. As with the "Pygmalion" character who "can't" be English because she speaks English too well, children born in the U.S. can't speak or write proper English because we no longer stress doing so. For example, I challenge Walmart store managers constantly to change their signs from "20 items or less" to "20 items or fewer." The examples of this type of "illiteracy" are absolutely overt. As far as my border annexation threat, that might jolt the Mexican government to take action. Too many of our citizens are being killed in the crossfire. I was talking with a school nurse this weekend who is desperate to flee Tucson for Northern Arizona because of the violence and threat of violence along the border.
1. Children of immigrants already do learn to speak English. 2. The Annexation is because of violence to U.S. citizens? I guess any violence to U.S. citizens is too many, but it isn't really that big of a threat according to statistics. Of course if you believe the bogus about beheadings and the like, then a nurse may want to flee. But looking at actual facts, there haven't been any real increases in violent crime.
Actually, "20 Items or less" is correct because they are just shortening the sign to fit in that little box. It's actually referring to "20 items or less than 20 items" which is perfectly acceptable grammar
Historically - tax cuts have done little to stimulate economic activity since the mostly impact the rich and contrary to the argument that they invest access money most of the time they just save it. That's why they do those rebate checks, because they get spent since it's being applied evenly. If you want to balance the budget it could be done by Rolling back all Bush Tax cuts ($200 billion) Reducing military spending to $500billion (saving $150 billion) Cut entitlement programs 10% (saves $200 billion) Cut spend on federal agencies by 10% (saves $60 billion) Cut Earmarks by 2/3 (saves $10 billion) That would all be pretty draconian in the sense that you'd eliminate a lot of jobs and certainly have a "reverse stimulus" effect, but since people care about the debt more now....that could save $620 billion or about half of the debt. That's pretty good for an anemic economy. Further cuts would need to be made to get us back to a surplus in future years.
"less" = degree/volume "fewer" = quantity "20 items or fewer" is correct. "20 items or less" is not. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/150 http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7591905.stm
This is the truth and is ignored in order for people to pretend feel powerless in their role to reduce the debt.... Prisoner's Dilemma times 10 trillion. The last exit polls results showed ambiguity on what direction voters wanted politicians to go. " Reduce debt?...How? Regain jobs?....and reduce the debt? Don't regain jobs, but reduce the debt by cutting costs in who knows where. Smaller government, but still give me checks and insurance because you need to take care of the little guy! " We are headed towards a California-like cluster**** on a larger level. Their debt crisis began in the recession before this one and continues to snowball in a combination of political gridlock and insolvency. 15 years and no real reform or results because everyone wants to have their cake while talking up a good game of responsibility and prudent spending.
The word "items" is a unit measure (requiring "fewer") rather than a liquid measure (requring "less"). Example: Fewer dollars, less money or fewer gallons, less water. The size of the sign has nothing to do with proper English. "Fewer" and "less" are not interchangeable.
This is my point exactly. Common English is not necessarily proper English. Every language has corruptions, but commonality does not make them correct. It's a minor point in and of itself. However, we hear and see these mistakes daily and do little to nothing about it, let alone helping children to understand and develop pride in their language.
