Go vote.

[Evan]

Lincoln Chafee and the moderate R's deserved better.

interesting statistic: Chaffee's approval rating was 62% but still got voted out.

[BLINGMW]

Also, it's just plain sad that VA only had 52% voter turnout.

I'm surprised that you guys see 50+% turnout as a bad thing. That's higher than usual! And honestly, getting 50% support and participation when you're talking about millions of people is pretty damn impressive to me.

[Mike]

52% is pretty damn good.

[Evan]

My only hope is that Jim Webb isn't the utter douchenozzle his own campaign ads made him out to be.

From Day One, his ads were "George Allen is a racist puppy rapist." I can't stand that shit.

[G.Irish]

What I don't understand is how everyone expects taxes to be magically lower when we're spent over $200 billion on a war as well as a couple hundred billion on the Dept Homeland Security(which is as wasteful and inefficient as they come). You can't spend more money and make the government larger and expect to pay less taxes unless you cut a lot of other things back. Just from those two costs alone each American's fair share is about $1300.

Where's the federal deficit? Well, it was around $6 trillion at the start of all this and now it's $8.5 trillion. Bottom line is that we have to pay for all of this. Lower taxes would be nice, just like lower car payments would be too. But in both cases we eventually have to pay our debt.

It's just kind of funny to me that polticians can get away with dangling the carrot of lower taxes when we're massively deficit spending. I guess that's the same trick salespeople use to con people into 0/0/0 car notes or interest-only mortgages. Borrow now! Pay...don't worry about paying, borrow now!!!

Either way I don't think either party addresses the real underlying issue which is that the federal government wastes a ton of money either through the incompetence or laziness of it's employees, underperformance and wastefulness of contractors, and pork barrel spending as a result of campaign kickbacks or out and out corruption.

Whether it's 'tax-and-spend' Democrats or 'borrow-and-spend' Republicans you're still getting screwed.

[.RJ]

Either way I don't think either party addresses the real underlying issue which is that the federal government wastes a ton of money either through the incompetence or laziness of it's employees, underperformance and wastefulness of contractors, and pork barrel spending as a result of campaign kickbacks or out and out corruption.

Its a catch-22. The gov't is horribly inefficient..... but are you going to cause an employment and housing market crash?

[Apoc]

Whether it's 'tax-and-spend' Democrats or 'borrow-and-spend' Republicans you're still getting screwed.

+1

We should just plain spend less (read: smaller government).

The majority of people employed by government couldn't hack it in the private sector. Maybe they should be taking the illegal immigrants jobs back because the jobs "that no one wants" are being filled by immigrants because we have an overbloated federal government to support the lazy. The housing market could use a correction too.

[G.Irish]

Also, it's just plain sad that VA only had 52% voter turnout.

I'm surprised that you guys see 50+% turnout as a bad thing. That's higher than usual! And honestly, getting 50% support and participation when you're talking about millions of people is pretty damn impressive to me.

That just means only half the people in this state (and really the country) care enough about who's running it to vote. And sometimes it's down near 40%.

Let's look at some of our counterparts in the developed world:

Japan: 71%
U.K.: 76%
France: 76%
Canada: 76%
Germany: 86%

*Numbers from Mark N. Franklin's "Electoral
Participation", found in Controversies in Voting
Behavior (2001). <Wikipedia>

Makes us look pitiful in comparison.

[Andy]

idnore

[Evan]

Gerald you do make a good point about the cost of the war. In fact from the beginning my biggest objection with that has been that we cant afford the war.
But.... if you think the tax increases will go towards depleting the federal deficit I really dont think you have been paying enough attention to the democrats.

The first thing the democrats are going to do is make sure everything gets all democratized and shizzle. That extra tax money is going to go towards income redistribution such as welfare, social programs, healthcare and other items to create bigger government and send us closer to socialism.
Im all for smaller government, less spending and massive government spending, budgeting, and hiring/firing reforms. Unfortunately we took a step in the wrong direction last night.

[G.Irish]

Either way I don't think either party addresses the real underlying issue which is that the federal government wastes a ton of money either through the incompetence or laziness of it's employees, underperformance and wastefulness of contractors, and pork barrel spending as a result of campaign kickbacks or out and out corruption.

Its a catch-22. The gov't is horribly inefficient..... but are you going to cause an employment and housing market crash?

Either you pay for it now, or you pay for it later. Paying for it later causes inflation, which will eventually result in the same outcome.

[G.Irish]

Gerald you do make a good point about the cost of the war. In fact from the beginning my biggest objection with that has been that we cant afford the war.
But.... if you think the tax increases will go towards depleting the federal deficit I really dont think you have been paying enough attention to the democrats.

The first thing the democrats are going to do is make sure everything gets all democratized and shizzle. That extra tax money is going to go towards income redistribution such as welfare, social programs, healthcare and other items to create bigger government and send us closer to socialism.

For the leftest of the left that is true, and it may be true now. When Clinton was in office he brought spending back to a budget surplus so it's not entirely impossible that Democrats will do the same once they're in power. The big $$$ items the Democrats will most likely go for are healthcare and Social Security but I doubt anything will come of either in the next few years.

Politics of late are forcing more of the left to come closer to the center so maybe we'll see more conservative spending and fiscal responsibility in the coming years. Ironically fiscal responsibility is one of the central tenets of the Conservative/Republican platform and the last few years has seen anything but.

Hopefully with such a narrow Democratic majority and a Republican president we'll see both sides of the political spectrum come more to the center where we are not spending irresponsibly for any reason and we pay for the things we are already sinking money into.

[HAULN-SS]

I'd love to see that too. I call myself a republican, but I can't fucking stand deficit spending. I could actually give two shits about the tax rate, as long as they go up for everyone, it doesnt amount to shit. The thing I worry about, like you all are pointing out is the potential new income going to shittiest of causes : welfare and SS.

Also, just to point out - everytime this country has been in a declared war against nations, the economy has boomed. Everytime we're half-assing it like this "war on terror" everything goes on a decline.

[Apoc]

So we're in agreement. Fuck the poor and underemployed, let them work for it.

[Kaan]

umm the economy isnt in the shitter. though it was said so over and over by the political left last night. Though the last none of the economic specialist said anything of the sort.

Clinton did have a budget surplus... I wont argue that... but he also didnt react to the bombing of the cole and our embases either... which would have quickly spent that money.

Call me crazy... but this is the kind of election Binladen wanted. Strike with a reactionary president, get them tangled up, turn the people against the government, vote in leaders that are much less reactionary, strike again... and now he can live in the open again.

[HAULN-SS]

i dont know if you were being sarcastic or not - but yes, basically. I think I read somewhere that the average persons taxes support 7 other people, and projected X number of years away - that will dwindle down to like 2.5 or something. Fuck that.

The ONLY socialist move I think this country should make is on prescription drugs. Medicare/Medicaid going to support seniors taking 19 pills a day and getting absolutely raped by the pharmeceutical industry. Now - there is a difference between this and socializing the entire health care industry. If I am wealthy, and want to pay Dr. X a million dollars to do my cancer treatments, I should still be allowed to.

[G.Irish]

Call me crazy... but this is the kind of election Binladen wanted. Strike with a reactionary president, get them tangled up, turn the people against the government, vote in leaders that are much less reactionary, strike again... and now he can live in the open again.

You are crazy. We might actually have gotten Bin Laden had we not pulled special forces from Afghanistan to go get involved in Iraq. Instead we loosened the noose and he's still at large.

[.RJ]

The ONLY socialist move I think this country should make is on prescription drugs. Medicare/Medicaid going to support seniors taking 19 pills a day and getting absolutely raped by the pharmeceutical industry. Now - there is a difference between this and socializing the entire health care industry. If I am wealthy, and want to pay Dr. X a million dollars to do my cancer treatments, I should still be allowed to.

I've read this 3 times and I have no idea what you're arguing in favor of.

[Apoc]

Clinton did have a budget surplus... I wont argue that... but he also didnt react to the bombing of the cole and our embases either... which would have quickly spent that money.

'cause Republicans were too busy trying to impeach him. :wink:

Did Kaan just say the terrorists won? lol.........

[Andy]

So we're in agreement. Fuck the poor and underemployed, let them work for it.

Wow. What just happened? Helping the poor or unemployed doesn't necessitate welfare/handouts or whatever you want to call it. Training the unskilled segment of the population can have a lot of positive effects on the economy. Thomas Sowell's "A Citizen's Guide to the Economy" or his other book, "Knowledge and Decision" makes a great counter argument against indiscriminate slashing of public spending. Don't worry, he's a fiscal conservative and supporter of the free market.

The best argument is Adam Smith's "The Theory on Moral sentiments." He's the author of what is considered by many to be the "Bible of Capitalism" or the Capitalist manifesto.

In summation, pushing down the underclass is, at best, bad for business and at worst, leads to some beheadings/extremism/mob violence.