Sold out by IFR

Unfortunately there will only be a few choices and Teddy Roosevelt is not
running this year. A major problem is that the candidates in the election
had to win the primaries. It is difficult to win the Democratic primary
without being a big government, tax and spend, bleeding heart. It is
difficult to win the Republican primary without being a big government,
borrow and spend, friend of big polluting business and the religious right.
Looks like, no matter who wins, we will have a big government with Santa
Claus at its head. Of course the real Santa Clause brought presents to
everybody and government Santa Clauses favor their constituencies.
Basically each generation is trying to steal from the next. The retired try
to steal from the working by demanding medical and retirement benefits
vastly greater than any taxes that they paid to fund them. The working in
turn try to steal from future generations by running a deficit in good times
and bad. The future generations have had nobody since TR to advance their
cause.

Mike
MU-2



The concept of future generations being penalized as a result of a
federal government deficit has always appeared a bit one-sided to me.

Future generations get the benefits of costs incurred by previous
generations - including tangible benefits in the form of roads built,
national parks, functional government institutions created to help
maintain a stable society, as well as considerable intangible benefits
such as freedom and the benefits of wars won in the past (whose costs
were undeniable and borne by previous generations). If future
generations get the benefits of the hard work of previous generations
(in the form of a better standard of living and more perfect society),
should they not absorb at least part of the cost?

It is beyond me how to equitably allocate the costs among generations
(i.e. - determine what level of deficit a future generation should be
required to assume), but it does seem fair that future generations
should pay at least some of the cost of instititions and assets built
for their benefit. John.

"John" wrote in message
om...
My wife goes to the grocery store (12 miles each way) almost everyday
to
get something that she forgot the previous day, so she could certainly
improve her trip planning. As a result of cheap gasoline, people are
living
great distances from their workplace with commutes of over an hour being
common in many parts of the country. If gasoline was $5/gallon you
would
see commute distances shorten, more telecommuting, smaller vehicles,
better
trip planning.

The economic costs of doing all this are tiny and probably there is
actually
a benefit. If there was simply a $4 tax on gasoline and an equivenenat
tax
credit (transferable) for income taxes, there would be no net economic
cost
and a huge incentive to use energy more efficiently. There would be
casualties in businesses catering to people traveling by auto but that
is
about it.

Mike
MU-2



Mike - I don't agree with your statement that there are no economic
costs. The government bureacracy to administer a $4 dollar fuel tax
and process a $4 income tax credit would be enormous.

Also, I presume you would be in favor of refunding your $4 fuel tax to
lower income people who don't pay income tax or pay it at low marginal
rates? If not, then you are really looking at an additional tax on
middle/lower income people at $4 per gallon. If you are interested
in refunding the tax irrespective of taxable income, then you haven't
really caused anyone to change their driving habits - you've just
created a new government department to collect money and refund it to
the same people.

Less 25% for administrative costs.

Food stamps delive 22 cents on the dollar in benifits to the end user.

That's fine, but how do future generations benefit from the ever increasing
welfare handouts?

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny


"John" wrote in message
om...
but it does seem fair that future generations
should pay at least some of the cost of instititions and assets built
for their benefit. John.

"Ray Andraka" wrote in message
...
That's fine, but how do future generations benefit from the ever
increasing
welfare handouts?

Genocide of the old.

"Ray Andraka" wrote in message
...
That's fine, but how do future generations benefit from the ever
increasing
welfare handouts?

(ie, wealth redistribution...class to class and generation to generation)

Quite so, considering that these "costs" are something like 60% of the US
budget and thus the major reason that deficits occur.

--
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message ...
John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny



I always thought that neither governments nor families should go into
debt or live beyond their means. It is disappointing that neither
party is focused on managing the debt, as this will create much bigger
problems in the future. The key is moderation and balance - some
debt passed long to future generations is justified and representative
of investments made on theior behalf; selfishness in current spending
with the bills to be paid by others is wrong, though. The key is
balance, which I will up to economists and scholars far smarter than
me. John.

John wrote:

"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message ...

John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny

I always thought that neither governments nor families should go into
debt or live beyond their means. It is disappointing that neither
party is focused on managing the debt, as this will create much bigger
problems in the future.

Neither party may be sufficiently focused on it, but there's been a
substantial difference between Republican and Democratic administrations in
this regard. Since WWII, Republican presidents have been in office for 31
years and during their terms the national debt has increased an average of
9.1% per year; Democrats have been in office 27 years and the debt has
grown at a much smaller 3.7% per years during their terms. There's a huge
difference between a growth rate of under 4% compared to over 9%.

Just looking at more recent administrations, the debt grew about 14% per
year under Ford, slowed to 9%/yr under Carter before rising back to 14%/yr
under Reagan and 12%/yr under Bush Sr. Under Clinton's administration the
debt growth steadily slowed with the average being 4%/yr and only 0.3% his
last year. Bush Jr.'s administration has reversed that trend and pushed the
rate of growth of the debt back up to 7% per year. In Clinton's last year
in office the debt grew by $18 billion, in 2003 the debt grew by about $460
billion.

"Peter" wrote in message
news:6_YUb.234289$I06.2628540@attbi_s01...
John wrote:

"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message
...

John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls
the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny

I always thought that neither governments nor families should go into
debt or live beyond their means. It is disappointing that neither
party is focused on managing the debt, as this will create much bigger
problems in the future.

Neither party may be sufficiently focused on it, but there's been a
substantial difference between Republican and Democratic administrations
in
this regard. Since WWII, Republican presidents have been in office for 31
years and during their terms the national debt has increased an average of
9.1% per year; Democrats have been in office 27 years and the debt has
grown at a much smaller 3.7% per years during their terms. There's a huge
difference between a growth rate of under 4% compared to over 9%.

Since WW2, the CONGRESS (the spending authority), Democrats have held the
CONGRESS for 32 years and the Republicans for 18 years. During that time the
enactment of NON-DISCRETIONARY spending has been 88% from Democratic
CONGRESSES, and 12% under Republican. During that same time the GROWTH
factor has been 6.7% under Dems, and 2.1 (until the past two years) under
Republicans.

The DEFICIT took it's biggest LEAP under the democrats and their baseline
budget process during the Nixon years (so they could maintain control of the
purse strings).

Every Dem administration since 1900 left a mess in it's wake that compounded
and INSTITUTIONALIZED the spending and deficits.

"John" wrote in message
om...
"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message
...
John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls
the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny



I always thought that neither governments nor families should go into
debt or live beyond their means.

And in your previous post you said it was good to carry deficts to following
generations that benefit from currect spending...as if they won't have their
challenges and battles to fight.


t is disappointing that neither
party is focused on managing the debt, as this will create much bigger
problems in the future. The key is moderation and balance - some
debt passed long to future generations is justified and representative
of investments made on theior behalf; selfishness in current spending
with the bills to be paid by others is wrong, though. The key is
balance, which I will up to economists and scholars far smarter than
me. John.

Spending and taxation is POWER, the prime mover of human activity.

Not love, nor, lust, not wealth...POWER.