[smc]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Your obligatory uncalled for whining is noted. Next time just make an acronym of this and put it in your sig.

Just because you pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, or that everyone else doesn't know, doesn't make the fact disappear.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

This can be done largely with a flat tax. Then we can get rid of the IRS. There's a huge chunk of change saved.

Deja vu. Again, flat tax.

The flat tax is regressive. That's why so many wealthy people and their think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation support it. A lowly service worker needs a greater percentage of her income to survive than does a wealthy "captain of industry" or me, or, I suspect, Tracy Coxx. Why shouldn't we pay a higher percentage? What good does it do our country to have a regressive tax?

Of course, if you are a person who hasn't a thread of social solidarity in her or his bones, it makes perfect sense to call for regressive taxation on income. Tracy Coxx, is that where you stand?
There is absolutely no reason why taxes should not be higher the more money you make.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

This would be irresponsible.

That's better...

I'm for eliminating the entire "offense" budget, as I made clear. Why do you support keeping any of the "offense" budget, Tracy Coxx?

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Absolutely. And let's stop paying to get Brazil set up to do offshore oil drilling. That's a subsidy not for American companies that employ others oversees, but foreign companies employing people overseas... WTF?!!!

I hope that you will state without equivocation -- that is, without raising an ancillary issue -- your support for a 100% elimination of the subsidies I mentioned to which your response above corresponds.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

recognizes the huge amount of waste already in our government.

Note to all readers: the quote above is the Tracy Coxx "ending" to the following statement of mine: "Anyone who thinks cuts without revenue increases will solve the budget problem ..." It is not a substantive response to the point I made, and answers nothing.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Even Obama recognized how harmful that would be to our economy.

You know that's bullshit, and yet you post it anyway. It was a horrible compromise made by a president who is largely spineless. But he made clear he did not think it was a good idea. We understand you don't like him; you've called him names. And now we see again that you cannot conduct a debate based in honesty.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

...knows that American corporations and small businesses drive the economy. And if you raise taxes too much on these corporations they will move over seas and drive someone else's economy.

Note that the above quote is Tracy Coxx's ending to the following that I wrote: "The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, but its wealth is concentrated in an unsustainable way that will provoke social unrest and class warfare as time goes on. History is clear. We can either have an equitable nation, or we can have a nation that kowtows to the interests of a wealthy few. That is the nation Tracy Coxx wants, assumedly because Tracy Coxx ..."

Where are these engines of the economy right now, Tracy Coxx? Corporations reap profits and hoard their moneys. The financial institutions take bailout money and make little credit available. "Drive the economy"? You are correct. They are driving it into the ground, because the profit motive -- which has nothing to do with job creation per se -- trumps any interest in what's good for society. And that means it trumps any interest in what's good for you.

Notably, you said nothing about my main point about sustainability, equitability, and social unrest.

As for the "entitlement" discussion, I have no doubt that GRH is more than capable of responding. I will simply note that your argument "by definition" is about a definition given the word for political purposes. It is a charged word meant to connote a negative. You are smart enough to know this, so why do you adopt the posture of a Sophist to make your argument. Surely you are capable of arguing the point on the merits, rather than using a trick to avoid that argument.

How I wish, every time I read your posts, that you were available for my rhetoric class. I wouldn't have to give my students printouts for reading. I could just have you verbalize that which you write on this forum, and save some trees from having to give their lives to become paper.