mrstickball, let me comment on a few things:

* I did NOT discuss raising tariffs to create jobs.  I said you raise taxes on income taxes, and structure the tax code to make it more advantageous to employ workers.  If also, take another example, workers got their training paid for through free college education, and didn't carry debt.  Employers would then be able to pay the workers less money, because they don't have the debt load.  Also, if the tax dollars raised fund basic scientific research, and it leads to breakthroughs in innovation that can employ others, then raising taxes can create jobs.  You saw far more job creation under the Clinton administration, than the Bush administration.  The economy grew better also also, and the deficit went down.   The reality is that you can't just say you slash taxes and miracles happen.  It didn't happen under the Bush administration at all.

* There are other factors into why Texas is more favorable than Ohio for business.  Texas has had revenues from oil production, which drives costs down for oil, and gives them extra revenue (a bit why Alaska also pays its citizens kickbacks, rather than tax them).  It also has a lot of land.  You can also argue that it has a large influx of illegal immigrants who work under the table to keep wages down.  You can see similar in Las Vegas, when it is a tourism mecca.  When you have this, you can afford to keep tax rates low, and things go well enough that you don't need to regulate as much.

* Why have jobs gone to Mexico originally?  Well NAFTA put a third-world nation like Mexico into the same footing as the United States.   It also has poorer environmental regulations than the United States, so business are free to dump their polution in rivers, kill off the ecosystem, and basically make the air far less breathable than in the United States.  Also, the workers are generally uneducated and have poorer standards of living.  I guess if you are in favor of driving down the quality of life for Americans, in a race towards the bottom, that is awesome.  Well, guess what?  Apparently China, which is even in worse conditions than Mexico appeared to be a better deal, so business went there.  Yes, you can get job creation, if you feel it is excellent that Americans should be able to do manufacturing jobs for less than $2/hr, while living where the water is garbage, and the air will shorten your life expetency by at least 5 years.

In all this, if the lack of regulations and taxes is such a big deal for doing business, why don't business relocate to Alaska in large numbers, or set up shop on oceans, or in Antartica?  There is FAR more reasons why businesses go places than regulations and tax rates.  Business WILL set up shop in NYC, for example, because it has natural advantages over other areas, particularly if you are in the financial industry.

Where I am, near Poughkeepsie, NY, they have tried everything from enterprise zone taxation, to not having a lot of regulation.  Well, businesses don't come up here.  You have a number of low salary jobs working fast food and the service industry.  You also have part time work.  There is really NO reason to set up shop here, and suffers due to IBM offshoring its IT work (I got downsized as a result of this).  It was actually heavily IBM territory, and GM thought of even setting up a Saturn plant in the area, but found the unemployment rate was too loow at the time, and were concerned they couldn't find sufficient labor.  So, they didn't set up shop here.  Outside of a nice range of weather, and the leave being pretty, the area doesn't offer much at all.  There is a bit of a push for green jobs in the area, and if it ever comes through, and the area creates a center for green manufacturing, do you think this would do less than mindlessly cutting tax rates?

And you would argue, as other, "Well, we need to just slash tax rates, and all will be fine".  Look at business for a second.  Exactly what happens to businesses when their only option is to cut costs?  Does the cutting costs alone make its balance sheet healthier?  The same goes for regions where businesses can set up shop.  If the idea is to cut costs alone, how does it end up having better features?

And you said you want to slash welfare payments by 25%.  So, you are in favor of dumping a large number out on the streets to become homeless and live in shacks?  You want America to set up Obamavilles made of shanties and look like some third-world nations?  Are you even close to the welfare system?  I have had to deal with it.  I was at a situation where I could of lost my car, and Internet access, and phone, and had any chance to find work, outside of maybe something I could walk to from a shelter area... if they had any.  If I didn't have family I could stay with, I would be there.  So, you want to drop payments by an additional 25%. And that would result in more people without medical coverage.  In my case, I haven't had a chance to see an eye doctor or dentist in years, because I can't afford to.  I have over $1000 needing to be done with my teeth, and I can't afford it.  Same with my likely needing new glasses.  But I don't have coverage.  And you want to slash this by 25%.  I guess causing people to live in shanty towns would be a fine.  Anyhow, that will likely be coming anyhow.

By the way, do you know what the total deficits being run by states and governments are now?  Try over $500 billion.  So, have anything else you want to cut out?  How about installing some death panels that can decide which of the elderly should live and die, so they don't tax the system?  Actually drive them all to hate life so much they want to die, and then implement it.  I am sure, for a fraction of the costs, we can execute those who are a burden on society, including the poor.  And shoot, we could also harvest their body parts and solve the needs of those looking for viable organs.  Big medicine could actually make a profit off this.

* As far as slothful workers go, America has had the top GNP productivity, in part due to workers working extra long hours. The policy of business is to fire people and make their workers work longer.  They also like to consolidate work conditions, and close places down, like IBM has done.  A prior contract position I was working got eliminated and the helpdesk happened to move to Colorado.  This happened months after they cut headcount to the desk.  The manager of the helpdesk took his life, by the way, after spending years at IBM, and not sure he could find anything else to do.

I personally think that Medicare/Medicaid (I don't know which one is for pensioners), Social Security, and all the rest of it, are in serious trouble. I read somewhere that if you take into consideration NPVs of all expected contributions, and all expected payouts of the schemes over the next few decades, there is around a $40 trillion deficit. That's a serious figure that needs to be dealt with immediately. Puts Stickball's $500bn of savings to shame (not that they shouldn't go ahead, but that they're nowhere near enough).

You are correct.

I didn't go after them, because Richard was arguing about cuts that wouldn't hurt anyone - I went after the low hanging fruit. Obviously, if America wanted true debt reform, we would have to go after the unfunded mandates of Medicare and Social Security.

The problem with both systems is very simple: Neither system builds value as the money is given to the government. Essentially, when the systems were built, they decided that the monies earned from Social Security should not be invested in anything that would return cash value to the pensioners. Essentially, the money is given to the government, and the government keeps/spends it on itself as it wishes, and promises a disgusting 3% APR. For medicare, the issue is that health costs are rising, and it promises a standard of care....While requiring payments far below that from those that work (2.5% per paycheck).

I would love to see both systems aboolished by removing anyone 20 years from retirement from paying into the systems, while keeping those that are close to needing it, on the system. Both are horribly built systems that are the shame of FDR and Johnson. One may hate president Bush, but at least he realized this, and tried to reform social security (of course, he got blocked by Dems/angry old people).

I don't know how Social Security payout growth is determined in the USA, but in the UK, it used to grow inline with average earnings or RPI (whichever was higher), however, when Thatcher came into power, she pegged the growth at RPI as to remove the link between average earnings.

This paid off massively, as RPI has consistently been lower than average earnings increases ever since. As a result, the UK's unfunded public pension liability is predicted to be just 5% of GDP by 2050. Compared with 70% for Italy, 105% for France, and 110% for Germany.

According to Nial Ferguson, in the book "Colossus", cutting the growth rate of payments per beneficiary by half a percentage point per year (for Social Security) would shave $15 trillion off of the USA's ~$45 trillion unfunded liabilities.

A problem I have found, particularly with the Republican side, is that, when they get in power, they do NOTHING they are claiming they wanted to do now.  The congressmen get beholden to pork, because it is how they get elected.  They run up deficits, eventhough the times are supposed to be good.  They don't do anything, but decide to start wars.  They feel that spinning a crisis is the only way to get people to give up rights.  With Republicans, they end up saying government is bad at everything, but want more to fight the "war on terror". 

And then, that side is out of power, so they go all idealistic in their speaking, going down the rathole of thinking that you can shut off illegal immigration just like that, and that is all the problems.  They chase windmills.  I am sorry, but illegal immigration isn't the main reason for problems with the welfare system, or it isn't lazy people either.  The problems lay deeper than this.  But it is easy to rail when you have no power.  It is all about finding fault and offering no answers.  Less government isn't the answer.  Less government MAY result in the answer being found, but if people are going to be every man for themselves, don't expect less government to solve anything.

I personally got sick of all this, including the Ron Paul campaign I was involved with, and am registered an Independent now.  I think the government sucks at things, but they built themselves an infrastructure such that if you get rid of welfare, you will cause things to get worse.

That is why I'm a libertarian, and am only voting for serious politicians that care about reducing the size of government, regardless of party. I agree 100% that Republicans are no better...Look at the Bush years.

I believe Libertarianism has some merit.  However, I think they aren't realistic in what they want, and they fail MISERABLY functioning as a political party.  My experience at Libertarian meetings is that they argue about the meaning of things, and why they hate government.  No one wants to run on local level to prove themselves.  It is all of idealism based around hatred for a label (government) than it is about actually gathering to do something.  Also, people just want to live and pay their bills.  If you want there to be less government, you need to offer people solutions that will meet them without government.  And they refuse to listen to anything anyhow.  I end up in somewhat heated, but rewarding conversations, but nothing changes. 

Also, it is a bit of a paradox, the Libertarian Party.  It is working in a political realm, when they say government is not needed.  If the LIbertarian Party would position itself as a civics organization, and NGO, and actually work to provide solutions today, outside of government, then they would have a case.  But, they don't do that.

Anyhow, the fall out of libertarianism ended up being the Ron Paul campaign, which then led to the Tea Party.  The Tea Party is probably the strongest Libertarianism has been.  Whether or not it does anything is another story, however.

To sum up here, I disagree STRONGLY with the argument Libertarians have that less government is the answer to everything.  I believe, and this would come from the Huckabee side of the political realm (I read it in his book) that unless society collectively has a strong set of values, and deals with things on a local leve, you can't have smaller government.  I believe that government grows as citizens fail to manage their own problems.  At that point, government steps in.  So, as a society slides down the slope and loses control, you get more government.  Of course, the LIbertarian answer is that society doesn't exist and all that there is, is contracts between people.  So, Libertarianism is blinded by its own definitions, which not only causes it to make little inroads politically on an argument level, but also to not fuction as an organization, because it doesn't do anything collectively.

You mean there isn't an easy solution? /gasp

In all seriousness though, I don't think MrStick believes Libertarianism is, to borrow a phrase from the rest of this discussion, "the end-all-be-all" of solutions to the country's problems.  Just that he thinks it is closer to providing optimal solutions on the broad spectrum of problems we face than any other point of view being given any serious consideration on the political stage right now (and possibly ever).

This is one of the things I have to harp on when I discuss economics with people in person, is that free markets are not advertised to be perfect.  There is no such thing as a system that is perfect.  You simply have to choose the system that ultimately works the best for the society and the country.  And so far as I can see that system thus far is unquestionably Free Market Capitalism.  While other systems could certainly claim to be more uniform and "fair" in how wealth is distributed in society, no other system promotes the relentless advancement of standard of living for all people to anywhere near the degree that Free Market Capitalism does.  

And it is a shortsighted individual who cannot see that a system of fairly distributed stagnation is objectively inferior to a system of unfairly distributed growth. When in the latter system it takes less than a generation before the poorest individual lives better than everyone in the former system it should be obvious which is better.  And many economists and journalists have, over the years, taken the time to create a list of what you could buy as a low-income individual 50 years ago and compared it to what you could buy at that equivalent income level today.  And it is always staggering how much more (and better) crap you can buy today compared to what you could then.

To put it simply, capitalism doesn't just happen to create uneven wealth distribution, that unevenness is the very point of capitalism.  That unevenness is the reward for the person who invents something that revolutionizes our standard of living, just as it is the penalty for the person who decides they have no desire to be a productive member of society.  In that sense it can be argued to varying degrees of success that capitalism is really a very fair way to distribute wealth.  Those who improve standards of living for their fellow man are treated to higher standards of living themselves while those who refuse or are unable to participate are by default relegated to living at the lowest standard of living in a society that constantly pushes that barrier.  From there capitalism advocates that the individual, not the government, decide who is truly deserving of aid and in what amounts they will receive it.  Thus instead of creating a paternal bond between citizen and government you instead build a brotherly bond between fellow citizens.

To illustrate why it should be this way I'll close with a borrowed line from Grover Cleveland's veto of the 1887 Texas Feed bill:

"A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty [(i.e. that of the Government)] should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people."

PS - Please don't confuse what I'm talking about with a complete Laissez-faire philosophy.  I believe in limited government including some limited regulations. Or to give two concrete examples, I don't think the mortgage industry should be forced by regulations to give NINJA mortgages to people because they happen to be a minority borrower, but I do agree with regulations that require ingredient labels on all food products (i.e. a regulation that addresses a demonstrable public safety hazard with a solution that is reasonable).

I will say that capitalism alone needs to be tempered by other things, or people will suffer.  This is not necessarily more government.  It means that people need to have other things they value besides maximizing profits.  A sense of compassion would help, and people actually doing things to help their neighbor, would help a lot.  Capitalism is a great vehicle to generate wealth, but then the question remains about what the wealth is to be used for.  Are we to just mindlessly go for the generating even more wealth, or using it to help others?   Are we to build a society that manufactures false discontent, in order to get people to borrow and buy, or strive for other things?

I am of the belief a liberal will see the problems in a society, and then believe the answer is always, "GET THE GOVERNMENT INVOLVED!".  There is the line Reagan said about liberals wanting to subsidize things that don't work, and tax things that do.

A traditionalist (subset of conservatism), with a sense of patriotism and America first, will argue that a country needs to have values it upholds and remains true to, and the role of government is to help preserve those values. 

The libertarian, of course, believes all this is nonsense and it is the job of government to get out of the way, and to allow people to fail... even to the extent people die, if necessary.  It is through this failing and death, that we evolve a better society, as the superior rise to the top.

Anyhow, one can do a critique of Bioshock 1 and 2, to see this discussed.