Why I am leaving the US...

[fastyxx]

HappySqurriel said:

fastyxx said:

@ mr. stickball

You act like the people that are promoting the wars aren't the same people decrying taxation.  The very opposite is true  I agree the wars are an incredible economic drain.  But the Cheney/Rove neo-cons are the ones that want the Bush tax breaks wars = no deficit.  Which just is impossible.

I think you need to consider that there are social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, libertarians (or classical liberals), independent voters and partisan republicans who vote for the republicans; and just because one segment of their supporters favoured both the wars on terror and tax-cuts without spending cuts does not mean that everyone did/does.

I’m not an American but I supported the initial effort in Afghanistan (as did the United Nations and most western countries) because there was a legitimate reason to go to war, I rejected the war in Iraq because I doubted the reason to go to war, and I believe that since the United States choose these wars they have an obligation to remain in both countries until they are stable and secure countries with growing economies and raising standards of living. I am for tax cuts but only if there is a proportional decrease in spending, and I believe that cutting taxes without cutting spending is just as reckless as increasing spending without increasing taxes; and the deficit spending that results from either is more damaging in the long run than the problems you’re trying to solve with the increased spending or decreased taxes.

Right.  But if you look at the voting records in the Senate, especially, this never happens, especially on the Republican side, but true for both major parties.  The thought that cutting taxes for the rich will stimulate jobs and wealth trickling down to the rest of the country has utterly failed.  It only furthered the re-distribution of wealth in the upper 1/2 of 1% of the country.  And they cry about Obama or whomever "redistributing wealth" as if it's a criminal concept - - when that's what they themselves have been doing since 1980 (with the aid of Clinton, to an extent, once he had loss of the Congress midway through.)  

They've squeezed out the moderates in the Republican party in a race for the money that comes from the extreme social conservatives who are trying to cling to a fundamental  Christian model for the country:  which of course is ironic in that Christians are taught to care for others and the poor and the weak and they turn around and cut every support possible and treat the poor like their own personal slave labor force.  Their response is that the private sector and charitable organizations will pick up the slack through donations, but it's just not the case, especially in economic situations like our current one.  Charitable donations are way down except in the case of a disaster, like Katrina or Haiti.  People just don't feel like they have the extra money because the short term future is so uncertain.  But the people claiming the moral purity are largely using that as a front - - they delivered very little on that front throughout the Bush years.  Their larger goals are really to protect their money and the corporate structures they all have large investment and stake in and that fund their campaigns.  (The latter is true for most of both sides.)  You only need to look at how they handle reform on Wall Street, the banking crises and the BP oil spill to see this.