On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 3:27 AM, Jerry Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > > "Out of curiosity, which Tea Party group did you get that platform from? As > far as I'm aware, there is no uniform Tea Party with an established > platform." > > Since there is no official Tea Party, it would be hard to have an official > platform. This pseudo platform was voted upon by the multitude of tea > parties. The top ten issues make up the "Contract From America".
Ah, thank you. I was not aware that there had been a vote, good to know. > "That being said...good lord that is a horrid platform. It sounds like it > was passed by a bunch of retards who don't understand basic economics." > > Kind of like Keynesian economics. > > Seriously, are all of the points "retarded" or just some. Are you against a > balanced budget amendment? Are you against simplifying the tax systems as > it stands? Are you against including why a law should be constitutional in > each new law? > > I figure that you're for cap and tax, health care deform, bleeding the rich, > growing the government, and earmarks so I won't ask about those. If you're > not for all of these, it would be a pleasant surprise. I'm not, generally speaking, in favor of cap and trade, no. I suppose that it could be done in reasonable fashion but the proposals I've seen allow for too much concentration of pollution credits within one company/area and basically say "screw this place, it can die for all we care". There is a lot of potential ambiguity that comes out of the proposals. I think that a consistent, firm regulatory framework will do a better job overall in reducing uncertainty for businesses and lowering the potential for a class of Haves and Have Nots. I am against a balanced budget amendment. It is a stupid idea, though attractive sounding. I'm in favor of fiscal discipline but I've been in business long enough to know that you are going to have quarters where your outlay is over your income. Have you ever run a business without a line of credit? Seriously, when revenue tanks if the first thing you do is slash spending across the board, chances are good that you're going to end up in worse shape the next quarter. You want to run a taut ship and do what you can be to efficient. Pay down your debt when you have money coming in. But a rule requiring government to slash spending when the economy is shitty and therefore when people need help the most? That is really, really stupid and mean. I feel meh about the health insurance reform measure that was passed. Pretty weak tea and doesn't really accomplish what I had hoped the process would. There are some good things in it but honestly the biggest thing about it is at least they did something. Not a whole lot, mind you, but more than has been accomplished in the previous attempts over the last 40+ years. As for earmarks and requiring that people say why a law is constitutional, I don't care so much about either. Earmarks can be odious but they are a tiny percentage of the budget. If you get rid of them, they'll just fold the requests into departmental appropriations instead of specific earmarks. You can ban them, fine by me, but it is really just symbolic and isn't anything approaching real reform. I'm ok with making people say why a law is constitutional if it makes you feel good. Seems like basically same thing as making a candidate say "I'm Joe Blow and I approved this ad". I don't see how that has substantially changed anything in political advertising but it if makes you feel good, go for it. Just not something I'll get rilled up about because it won't actually make any difference. I am in favor of reducing the tax code complexity. I'm against a flat tax. I'm against the across the board renewal of the irresponsible, deficit ballooning tax cuts but in place by Bush. I'm rather appalled that any group who supposedly considers themselves all about rule-abiding government and fiscal responsibility can be so in favor of those tax cuts which ballooned the deficit and were passed by reconciliation and bypassed parliamentary rulings that showed that they violated the paygo rules. You know, those rules and procedures that those same groups bitch about Democrats trying to get around. Cheers, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:326272 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
