Well, if you're a Wall Street employee or one of the wealthiest 20% of Americans, you're going to be getting richer, easily. Rest of us? Tighten your belts like a real American.
"I'd abolish the estate tax tomorrow, cut corporate taxes in half and phase out capital gains taxes, and then have a beer," says Joe Walsh, the Republican nominee for Illinois' 8th Congressional District. "I'm one of those knuckleheads who believes that every time we cut taxes, we increase government revenues."
Well, he's certainly a knucklehead alright.
"We prefer a 10% flat tax, obviously with an exclusion for the first portion of your income until the federal poverty level," says John Ellinwood, director of communications for Jesse Kelly, a Republican running for Arizona's 8th Congressional District. In this way, Kelly hopes to simplify the tax code and create a more favorable environment for the wealthy to spend and invest.
"Wealthy people are not stupid, they resent paying 40% of their income to the government," Ellinwood said. "But they don't resent paying 10%, so they'll actually engage in more productive activities."
Like investing in Wall Street and taking trips abroad. That'll help Main Street.
"I would be in favor of a hiring freeze for the federal government in nondefense areas, and freezing salaries of people in government," says Dan Benishek, the Republican nominee for Michigan's 1st Congressional District.
Benishek is also in favor of being more vigilant in "auditing" public agencies to see if they are wasting money.
In fact, of the candidates we spoke with, several advocated the idea of eliminating two agencies in particular.
"Something like the Department of Education, I don't see the need for it. It hasn't done anything to improve the public school system in this country," says Walsh, the Illinois Congressional nominee."And I would certainly have a discussion about the Department of Energy."
Despite the fact that under Obama the number of federal employees has actually dropped, along with hundreds of thousands of state employees, we must cut more. We don't need to worry about oil rigs or smart kids or government workers, they didn't do anything anyway!
These guys are awesome. Oh, and they want to privatize Social Security too. We should totally put our trillions in hedge funds. It's not like people lose money in the markets!
Which is funny, because it sure seems like to me that the Tea Party sounds exactly like the far right GOP fringe from 5 years ago.
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"I'd abolish the estate tax tomorrow, cut corporate taxes in half and phase out capital gains taxes, and then have a beer," says Joe Walsh, the Republican nominee for Illinois' 8th Congressional District. "I'm one of those knuckleheads who believes that every time we cut taxes, we increase government revenues."
How? HOW? How the hell do you respond to that? It's just so fucking BLATANT. These people are just shamelessly fucking STUPID!
This only makes sense if you think that government is a business selling services. It is NOT. It should NEVER be that way. Government is not an opt-in process.
TAXES ARE WHAT MAKES UP GOVERNMENT REVENUE YOU FUCKING HALFWIT.
"Something like the Department of Education, I don't see the need for it. It hasn't done anything to improve the public school system in this country," says Walsh, the Illinois Congressional nominee."And I would certainly have a discussion about the Department of Energy."
THAT IS THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM YOU FUCKING RETARD! WE WOULDN'T HAVE A PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM WITHOUT THAT DEPARTMENT!
Jesus CHRIST. These people are literally fielding the most retarded people they can possibly find?
And you know what the worst part of this is? This guy isn't there to win. This guy is just out there to pull the Overton Window further right, by making what rightfully considered fucking crazy ten, even twenty, years ago seem perfectly sane.
But Jesus fucking CHRIST.
WE WOULDN'T HAVE A PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM WITHOUT THAT DEPARTMENT!
The U.S. Dept. of Education was created in 1979. I'm sure there was public education before then.
Very good try, SteveAR, so I'll give you credit for that at least. But not quite.
A quick trip to Wikipedia later:
Wikipedia on the US Dept. of Education (ED)
Wikipedia on the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The Dept. of Education, in its' modern form, was created by the Department of Education Organization Act, signed into law on October 17, 1971. It began operating on May 16, 1980.
What the act did, however, wasn't so much create the ED as it did split the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare into the ED and the Dept. of Health and Human Services.
So yeah, that date can be considered the "creation" date of the ED, if one ignores that it was a separate department under the old HHS.
So yeah, nice try, but not quite. I believe my point still stands.
StarStorm, you really need to reread this stuff. The Department of Education Organization Act wasn't signed into law until Oct. 17, 1979. So I was correct. The old Department of HEW was put in place in 1953. Even so, public education already existed even before then.
Has overall education improved since the establishment of the HEW or ED? Perhaps in some places, but not in urban areas. All that happens is the federal government throws away more money to poor urban school districts and nothing improves; they often get worse. So Republicans who believe that the abolishing of the ED will save taxpayers money and not worsen education as a whole are correct.
You do know that the budget for the ED increased some 40% over the past year, from around $65 billion to nearly $100 billion? Considering the lack of improvement in nationwide education, it seems like a whole lotta wasted money. Dump it.
We should say bye-bye to Agriculture (move the FDA to Interior or privatize it, like Underwriters Labratory), Commerce (move the Census to Interior), Transportation, Energy, HUD (dump Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac, or move them to Treasury), Labor (move its enforcement functions to the DoJ), DHS (move to DoJ), and the EPA (DoJ enforces, Congress writes the rules, as is their job) for starters. We have state governments that can do those things.
See how easy that? I just cut spending by hundreds of billions of dollars in the first year, and a few trillion dollars or so for the next 10 years. Repeal Obamacare and the savings multiply.
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