On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 00:50:17 -0800, Lowell C. Savage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Travis Pahl, wrote, in part: > > How about you look at this one first... > > > > http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue11/dont_blame_liberals.htm > > Uhm. Besides the fact that most Dems these days are socialists rather than > liberals.... Most people call Pataki and Guiliani "liberal" or "moderate" > Republicans.
They were also the stars of the convention. They along with Arnold are always mentioned as the future of the party. Does that say something to you? > I'd have trouble voting for either one of them. And yes, > Reagan made a promise to Brady that he'd support something Brady thought > would help. Reagan was a man of his word. Just like W. I don't always > like the promises they make, but I admire them for keeping them. This sounds like just more excuses. And what about nixons quotes in there? > > > There are very few states or Congressional > > > Districts where voting for a Democrat would have made that outcome more > > > likely and there is no chance that voting for a Democrat for President > > would > > > get this bill anything but vetoed. > > > > No. But it is not going to happen anyhow and at least with a > > democrat, the republicans would try to stop spending. With the > > republican in the white house, the republican congress feels like they > > need to spend like there is no tommorow. > > You're right there. If they don't get it under control, they're going to > get clobbered one way or another. I am 99% sure they will not get it under control. > So, the question is, how will the Dems respond to that? Will they play to > their base and go further to the left? Or, will they abandon their > discredited economic issues and pick up the opportunities the Republicans > leave them by continued social spending? Don't laugh, it happened > before--in the '30s. Roosevelt ran for election in 1932 criticizing Hoover > for attempting to fix the economy with government programs for people who > were out of work. Then, when he got into office, in his famous first 100 > days, he out-Hoovered Hoover by creating more government programs and > spending more government money than Hoover had. (He also prolonged the > Depression by doing so, but that's beside the point.) yeah, it is scary to read his platform in 32. It sounds so free market that you would never guess it is FDR. > The Democrat party > switched from being the party of small government to the party of big > government within a decade. And because that was all that was left, the > Republicans did the opposite. Wilson had brought them along ways a decade or so earlier. but yes it was the point where the parties flipped in their relative spending habits. I think the the past 10-15 years has shown it to have flipped again at least on the national level. Or is in the process of flipping. But the relative difference is really too small to tell or care which is worse/better. > If the same sort of thing happens again (with the parties in opposite > places) then the Democrat party will become the natural home for > libertarians. I doubt it because the relative difference between the two will not increase and the mean will stay far away from anything libertarians will feel confortable with. Plus you still have the anti gun stance, anti drug stance, etc... to deal with in the D party. > On the other hand, if the Dems retreat to their socialist base, then the LP > could have an opening. The Green Party would get swallowed up by the Dems > desperate for any sort of electoral victory (or be pilloried for spoiling > Dem politician's chances ala Nader in 2000). The Reps would become the > centrist party, the LP would become a home for people unable to stomach what > the Reps had become but absolutely horrified by the Dems. That is what it should be now. Yet many libertarians are for some reason still able to stomach record increases in federal government spending, presidents that support AW bans, 60% increases over 3 years in unconstitutional federal departments, interventionist foriegn policies, etc...) > You could then > see coalitions between Reps and LPs on economic issues (where the LPs supply > votes that the Reps lose to some of their dissenters on those issues) and > coalitions between Dems and LPs (and possibly Rep dissenters) on social > issues. Sometimes that would work for freedom, and sometimes the Dems and > Rep dissenters will work the opposite coalition to pass laws restricting > freedom. I really do not see enough difference on any issues that would keep the R's and D;s as seperate parties. The only thing I could see keeping them apart is neither team wanting to give up its team colors. :) > The other thing is that Bush looks to be pushing some major structural > reforms through which might have a much greater effect on government > spending than any education bill or even bloated Pentagon budget. One of > the things that has made some pro-freedom progress possible on the economic > front has been the democratization of investing in this country. If you are refering to his SS program, although pushed by Cato, I think it is a bad plan that will result in too much government interference in the market. > Reagan's IRAs weren't much when they got started. But they are probably the > main reason that we now aren't demanding ever more government spending on > retirement. We now have a majority of voters who invest in stocks and > bonds--either directly or indirectly. That has changed the culture of this > country so that people have a better understanding of economics and are more > willing to take risks with the market. If it took the "Reagan deficits" to > get that, they were worthwhile. it did not take deficits to implement such a program if it were accompanied by spending cuts. Unfortunately the republican party has not cut spending in my lifetime. > Bush is proposing to push that kind of investment into Social Security and > health insurance. In other words, some of the money you pay into Social > Security goes into an IRA-type investment in return for a reduced (or no) > payout from SS when you retire. Which means that current retirees are drawing from less money, and government regulations on what you can invest will eventually play a giant role in stock prices and will give great power to the government. just imagine the first time the market goes down and people complain about their SS accounts being low. Then congress passes a law restricitng people from investing in 'risky' stocks. Who defines risky? Then the environmentalists start lobbying congress to not let people invest in natural resource extraction companies because they lead to drilling in the artic and strip mining in the rckies. Then religious conservatives start passing moral decency provisions into the regulation book. No more investing in companies that prmote pornography and the gay lifestyle. Evenetually more and more companies are cut off from an ever increasing share of invested money. It is not direct control of the economy, but the government WILL see that it CAN control the economy indirectly by allowing and disallowing certain comapnies access to this large pool of money. central planning works bad enough when they control directly. When they try to control indirectly it will be even worse. . > I can already hear the objections from the libertarian crowd. "Well, what's > the moral basis for making me pay into my health insurance or retirement if > I don't want to?" Sigh. Same one there is now--none. But you aren't going > to get elected saying that in more than about 2 or three congressional > districts (Ron Paul represents one). So you can go for all or nothing and > get nothing. Or you can continue to educate people and build that 3 to 30. then 30 to 100. then 300, etc... > Or you can go for something that's an improvement on the current situation. I do not see his solution as fixing. I see it as prolonging something that does not work. If there are X amount of benifits to be paid to the current and soon to be retirees and they do not have X, then taxes will have to pay the remainder. If you take the taxes that go to SS and say that some now go into a seperate account that the individual 'owns' then there is even less in the governments expected revenues that can go to pay that X amount. That X amount will still be paid, but will now come from either general income taxes or debt and interest. Either way I have to pay the same amount. In Bushs plan, I also have to invest in a certain acount that the government has control over. > Then, once you get the improvement going and people find out that it > actually DOES work better than the previous system, you can try to persuade > them that giving people even MORE freedom would work even better. All the luck in the world to you. But there are two types of people in this world. old people that have paid into SS and expect money rightfully so, and young people that want nothing to do with SS. Wait long enough and the young will end it all at once. Put in Bushs plan and you are not going to convince anyone at all that SS is bad that does not already think so. but you will get plenty of converts to the new system, and we will be stuck with it for the rest of our lives. And of course as I point out above, the lure of power that the SS fund (now a collective of individual accounts) will again be too attractive to congress and they will start messing with it. This time instead of taking our money, they will tell us where we have to invest it to achieve their political goals. I would much rather wait until enough young people vote and the whole thing will be thrown out at once. > Bush is proposing to turn government from a HOLDER of retirement and medical > insurance funds into a REGULATOR of the companies that hold those funds. > Yes, he's still going to have a lot of requirements to satisfy the nervous > ninny nellies that people won't take that money and go do something "stupid" > with it. And he may very well show great caution in these regulations. Just as he has shown great caution in enforcing the patriot act. But both are too tempting for future politicians and will be abused. > And if you want to look only at those requirements and claim that > "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Bush's proposal and the > current system, then you can help keep the current system in place until it > falls apart. Which is exactly what I want. I want the current system to fall apart. Or to be more exact, i want it to be voted to peices, which is what will happen in about 10-15 years. > But if you go along with Bush's proposal, you may be surprised > at how quickly people using the new system start requesting even more > freedom than they've just been given! Darn that'd be a terrible problem to > have--popular demand for more freedom! :-) Like the huge demand to end rent control in NYC? (something other cities did all at once decades ago) or the big demand to end government schools in the states with vouchers? Somehow I think they may ask for a larger amount to be allowed to be invested in their SS acount, but I think if anything it will lead to more support for government in its new form than if we did nothing and waited for the current 35 and younger crowd to vote it away altogher which I am positive would happen if we did no stupid half ass plan that Cato and Bush have come up with. > And if that happens, we may look back from 15-20 years in the future and > wonder what all the fuss about the budget deficits was about. I am more expecting my kids to ask me when I am older what people were thinking when the kept raising the debt limit when they knew they could barely afford to pay the interest already. Travis _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
