The BEST Question Ever:Who can answer it?

A person is inherently bad also, so wether it is controled by 'peoples' or a 'person' it is still controled by inherently bad persons.

 

CENYDD posted some thoughtful definitions but failed to include "Progressives". This classification includes those who know we do not (and cannot) live in the past; but we can learn from it! On a scale of 1 to 5, as a measure from too little to too much government, I offer the following arrangement of the political spectrum:
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1. Libertarians don't care what people are as long as there's no government to control anyone or anything, even if what they are doing is actually bad!

2. Liberals believe that the government should be controlled by the people at as local and effective a level as possible, and should only provide a legal framework to ensure that 'bad' people aren't able to destroy the freedom of everyone else in society by their actions.

3. Progressives do not believe in "big government" or "little government". Progressives believe in "efficient and effective government" combined into any size that creates and sustains a productive, prosperous and stable society. Progressives know that social systems must change in order to survive. Progressives believe political and economic ideologies (which always include assumptions about human nature) cannot replace knowledge and reason as the best means to a political end.

4. Conservatives believe that the people should control each other by enforced social conformity (through religion or other means), and that government becomes largely irrelevant in the face of that.

5. Authoritarians (including, but not limited to, socialists) believe that people are 'bad' and must be 'controlled' by the government (that's an overly simplistic way of describing it, of course!).
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NOTE: 1 and 2, as well as 4 and 5, rely on an "ideology" (of one persuasion or another) as a means to a political end. "Progressives" do not share that trait with the other four species. Of course, it goes without saying, "4" and "5" will always view "3" as "liberal". This is inherent in the 5-step political spectrum.

 

That was a close definition when the concept originated during the time of the Magna Carta.

However the "liberalism" being practiced in the US today is thinly veiled socialism where every problem only becomes solvable through government intervention.

A true "liberal" government would not even dream to intervene and prevent Boeing from opening a factory outside of Seattle for the sole purpose of supporting the union. A true liberal government would find abhorant the idea of forcing people, regardless of income, to buy a product or service from a private sector company as is the case with OSWebamacare - that in fact is Fascism.

A true liberal government would never have considered handing over $7 trillion of taxpayers money to failed bankers without some form of repayment structure; likely they would simply let the institutions fail. A true liberal government would be disgusted at the idea of tenure for grade school teachers and a payment structure based on longevity instead of performance.

The liberal movement of that era was formed to end cronyism, despotism and unreasonable intrusion into the lives if the populace. Can you honetly say that about the Owebama administration?


Didn't think so.

 

If we simply measure spending then social spending and education (fed/state/local) outspend defense by a good bit, and with pretty poor results.

 

Thank you for that lesson from grammar school.

If only they taught you to exchange ideas in grammar school.

 

Hmm.. wouldn't the more logical and sensible reason be the necessary replacement/upgrades of equipment worn out by war?

How many Humvees and Strykers have lost to roadside bombs? How many helicopters have we lost to mechanical malfunction and enemy action?

The military budget is public and online. You can check it for yourself. The most recent DoD budget requested an increase of 1.2% to cover the increased costs of Pay/Health Care/On Base Housing renovation and retirement for our troops.

The DoD budget is not some dark secret, its available for review online. Do you need a link or are you a big boy and capable of finding it for yourself? Its really rather mundane to tell you the truth.

 

Maybe you forgot about the entire "Transformation" upgrade that the Bush administration enacted?

You know, that is where we completely reorganized the military from a heavy armor force into a lightweight anti-insurgency capable force?

Just how much do you think it costs to completely and totally revamp our military?

The reorganization alone to go from a Division Centric structure to a Brigade Combat Team structure is massively expensive.

 

Who do you think makes those Humvees and Strykers? Here's a hint, it isn't small businesses.

I find it quite telling that you rush to point out a request for a 1.2% increase to explain a 133% increase in annual budget.

War is a racket...

Continued at the link...

Stop shilling for the big government for big business corporate oligarchy.

 

Defense spending increased much faster than domestic spending since 2000, though the latter category caught up a bit in the Great Recession.

http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12039/HistoricalTables[1].pdf Table 7

 

yet defense is still Much, much less.

 

Shouldn't it be?

 

The government stops growing when the population stops growing. Simple

 

If the rate of Government growth has outpaced the rate of population growth, should we correct this problem now, and return the size of Government to proportions at existed when the charter for Government was first created?

 

New smaller governments come into being when population grows. The federal government does not need to continue growing.

 

Upon national collapse.


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Why? Defense is a specified responsibility of the federal government, welfare is not.

 

My question wasn't relative to welfare spending. Do you think we don't spend enough on defense?

 

When nitwits stop playing the two party circus

 

the economy kicked ass because all of the western world was still rebuiliding from WW II and we were one of the only countries that didnt get their infulstructure bombed to death.... we also had loan repayments given back to us from most of the allies in europe.

it also kicked ass because we repressed an entire section of the populace. and we had thousands of manufactoring jobs at the time that 3rd country could not do yet.... simply raising the taxes back to 91% on the highest income earners will fix the problems we have today.

 

This is the fatal flaw with almost any centrally planned system. No one or no small group of people will ever be smart enough to know what is going to be the best for everyone. So try as they might, no matter how much power and money and authority they might have, it will always fall apart. There will be something they did not anticipate, or an unintended consequence they did not plan for, or flat out people will do things in ways they did not expect. And all of those things will alter the outcomes on which they planned.

That is why capitalism is the best and so radically different from any centrally planned system. Each person as an individual, decides for themselves what is the best thing to do. Not all of them will choose the best for themselves, but the vast majority will. And in the end I think most people would rather choose for themselves than have someone else choose for them. It is what I like to call "living life as an adult". But that is just my take on it....

 

The govt only stops growing when the people are mad enough to force it, be it peacefully or otherwise.

Did I win, Silicon Magician?

 

Penguin1634 Said: I support a tax raise on the rich, but not a huge tax rate of 70% or more.

I agree; 70% seems a bit steep for a 7-figure income, i.e., from $1,000,000 to 10,000,000. But more and more, we hear reports of personal income expressed as "billions". One might ask if it's possible for any individual to actually "earn" $1,000,000,000 or more in a single year? At some point, big money earns more money and the owner of the money becomes irrelevant. There may be a point at which 70% (or higher) is not unreasonable.

A progressive income tax structure based on a bell curve (in lieu of 4 or 5 tax brackets) would be an innovative and fair way to distribute the overall tax burden. The use of a bell curve to tax income at, below and above mean income, would be an improvement over tax "brackets"; but of course, the application of bell curve theory to actual practice is another problem altogether. I'm not certain how (or if) it could be done.

 

Nothing like many hands working independently of each other to create massive redundancies and inefficiencies, eh?

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights was enacted for a few million member population in 13 colonies. Since that time, we've grown to over 330 million in 50 states with more global influence than most other countries combined. If you don't think that requires and exponential growth in the size of government, I don't know what to tell you. My take is not that government is too big, the decision making is in the hands of too narrow a group, Congress. Congress needs to be streamlined so that every Congressman can actually know what they are voting for and why. Selling and trading votes to lobbyists, party and each other has caused the worst of our government. My proposal has always been to break the 435 member house into 8-10 smaller houses (same approximate number of reps total) and give them each a smaller, more limited federal focus, with the Senate still remaining to ratify. Have a House of Commerce, House of Defense, House of education. That way, you elect officials with specific backgrounds and a specific focus, thereby eliminating the possibility that they might come to Washington for one specific reason, and then farm out their votes to the highest bidder for everything else, which is our current system and why government does grow so rapidly.

Currently, the format for government is for reps to run on the idea that they will cut OTHER districts spending, while promising to get things for their own district. As long as that pattern exists, no one cuts because they all compromise with each other in order to get themselves reelected in their own district. If you don't scratch a back...

 

Economies kick ass for any number of reasons. But as your post points out, contrary to the claims of conservatives, it kicked ass with marginal rates up to 91%. It also kicked ass in 1993-2000 after Clinton raised taxes, again, contrary to the claims of conservatives.

 

First of all, you said that spending can't be cut in good times or bad times. So automatically, your question precludes any other possibility but continuous spending with zero cuts. Logical fallacy that would never happen. Automatic fail.

Secondly, not cutting spending doesn't mean spending is increasing either. Spending could remain completely staganant and the government would grow/shrink exactly 0% every year.