Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
From the LP website:
Libertarian Solutions: How to solve the United States' $6,736,489,356,420 problem by Bill Winter LP News Editor If you had visited the online National Debt Clock at 12:00 noon on August 1, you would have seen this figure: $6,736,489,356,420.66. That's the amount of money owed by the federal government. (Over $6.7 trillion dollars.) But if you visited it again just 30 seconds later, you would have seen a different, bigger number: $6,736,489,954,145.59. That's an increase of about $590,000 -- a half-million dollars -- in 30 seconds. It's a stark reminder of just how quickly the politicians in Washington, DC are plunging this nation further into debt. The more time that passes, the scarier that number gets. If you visited the Debt Clock (at www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) one minute later, the number would have been $1.2 million larger. An hour later, it would have grown by $70 million. A day later, it would have swelled by $1.68 billion. Over the course of the year, the numbers add up to about $613 billion in additional debt owed by the government. Yes, the national debt is back. And so are deficits. Before we go on, let's define our terms: The deficit is the amount of overspending politicians do in one year. In 2003, for example, the federal government will take in $1.75 trillion in tax revenue, and spend $2.21 trillion. The difference -- $455 billion -- is this year's "official" deficit. (We'll examine later why that number is different from the $613 billion mentioned above.) The national debt, by contrast, is the sum of all the yearly deficits (minus whatever the Feds have paid off). The current number shown on the National Debt Clock -- $6.7 trillion -- is the result of decades of overspending. As a political issue, deficits dropped off the public radar in the late 1990s. Thanks to a surge in tax revenues and modest fiscal restraint -- prompted by tension between Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress -- the federal government technically "balanced" the budget for four years. (They didn't really balance it, as we'll see in a moment.) All that changed in mid-July, when the Bush Administration announced that this year's federal deficit will be $455 billion. In raw dollars, it's the government's largest-ever deficit, and it catapulted deficits back into the headlines. Let's look at that discrepancy now: If the deficit is $455 billion, why does the National Debt Clock say it's $613 billion? Because $613 billion is the real deficit; $455 billion is the phony deficit. Thanks to arcane accounting policies, the federal government counts Social Security Trust Fund surpluses as an asset, which reduces (on paper) the size of the deficit. This year, Social Security will take in $160 billion more than it will pay out. That money -- supposedly deposited into the Trust Fund -- is counted against the real $613 billion deficit, lowering it to $455 billion. The only problem: It's not true. Social Security Trust Funds are immediately spent on general government programs. The government just deposits IOUs (Treasury bonds, which it owes itself) in the Trust Fund. It then counts those IOUs as an asset. That's like your right hand lending your left hand $10, spending it, and then counting that $10 as an "asset" you owe yourself. Don't believe that the government could get away with such blatant deception? The proof is in the numbers. In both 1998 and 1999, politicians claimed there was a budget "surplus." Yet, the federal debt increased $120 billion in 1998 and another $162 billion in 1999. Bottom line: Alleged surplus or acknowledged deficit, the national debt gets larger every year. So why is deficit spending bad? Here's why: 1) Deficits increase the cost of government. When the government spends more than it takes in, it sells U.S. Treasury bonds to cover the difference. To get people to buy them, it has to pay interest on those bonds (anywhere from 2% and 12%, depending on when they were issued). With a $6.7 trillion debt, interest payments add up in a big way. In the fiscal 2003 budget, the Bush Administration allocated $181 billion for interest on the debt. But with the deficit ballooning, interest payments are ballooning, too -- to almost $1 billion a day, according to U.S. House Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS). "In the first nine months of fiscal year 2003, the Treasury spent $278 billion on interest on the debt," he said. That makes interest payments the federal government's third-largest expense, trailing only Social Security and military spending. In other words, about 20% of every tax dollar goes to pay interest on money borrowed by politicians 10, 20, and 30 years ago. 2) It crowds out private borrowing, which can cripple business growth and hurt the economy. As Benjamin M. Friedman, a professor of economics at Harvard University, wrote in the Boston Globe (July 27, 2003): "What's wrong with continual large budget deficits ... is that they take away the economy's means of achieving economic growth. "When the government spends more than it takes in from taxes, the Treasury has to borrow in the financial markets to cover the overage," he wrote. "This borrowing absorbs some of the saving done by families and firms, saving that otherwise would have remained available to finance investment in productive new plants and equipment." It's happened before, noted Friedman. During the country's last huge deficit spike, in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, "the share of U.S. national income devoted to net new investment in plants and equipment fell to the lowest average level in the postwar period, and real wages -- and therefore the income of the typical U.S. family -- stagnated." 3) It means less money for you and your family. More federal spending means less money for you to buy what you want, noted the Future of Freedom Foundation's Richard M. Ebeling (January 17, 2003). That's true whether government spending is paid for in today's dollars (via taxes) or tomorrow's dollars (via borrowing). For example, wrote Ebeling, Bush's $455 billion deficit will cost more that the combined total of all the furniture and household items bought by Americans this year ($319.2 billion), or clothing and shoes ($321 billion), or single-family residential housing ($245.3 billion). "In other words, these are the kinds of things that Americans will have less of when their dollar equivalents are borrowed away by the federal government to cover the expected budget deficits," he wrote. 4) It makes future generations pay for current spending. When the government runs a deficit, it is "essentially taking money from one generation and giving it to another," said Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss in the Salt Lake Tribune (July 20, 2003). That's because the government has to eventually pay off the money it owes. For example, this year, the Treasury paid off the last of the 30-year bonds it used to finance the final year of the Vietnam War -- in 1973. So, today's young taxpayers are paying for the mistakes of Richard Nixon, just as tomorrow's taxpayers will pay for the mistakes of George W. Bush. The immorality of deficit spending prompted Thomas Jefferson to write in 1791: "We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves." Jefferson understood that a big-spending government is bad. But a big-spending government that pushes the costs onto the nation's children and grandchildren is even worse. Given the damage caused by deficits, here's what we should do to start restoring the government to fiscal health: 1) Cut government spending The "cure" for a deficit is not much different than the cure for obesity, which is: Eat less and exercise more. Translated into fiscal policy, that means: Spend less and exercise more self-restraint. Politicians don't agree. Republicans say the deficit is caused by a dip in tax revenues and the cost of fighting terrorism. Democrats say the deficit is caused by President Bush's modest tax cuts. However, in their more honest moments, even the politicians admit the real cause. "These are spending-driven deficits," U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle (R-IA). chairman of the House Budget Committee, told Fox News on July 16, 2003. The evidence is clear, reported Bloomberg News columnist Caroline Baum on July 22, 2003. "The dirty little secret that neither party wants to talk about is that President George W. Bush is a big spender," she wrote. "Stripping out the increase in national defense outlays, discretionary spending rose 12.3% in fiscal 2002 and will rise 12.6% in 2003." Adding in his 2001 spending, Bush has increased non-defense discretionary spending by 20.8% (adjusted for inflation), noted Baum. That's more than the full four-year term of Jimmy Carter (up 13.8%) or the second term of Bill Clinton (up 8.2%). Bush has apparently never met a spending bill he didn't like: He has yet to veto a single spending bill. (By contrast, Ronald Reagan vetoed 22 bills during his first three years in office.) If politicians need suggestions about what to cut, they could look at the Cato Handbook for Congress, which lists dozens of programs that are ripe for the budget ax. The government could move the budget solidly back into surplus territory, notes Cato, by moving Social Security toward a system of individual savings accounts; by privatizing all government-operated businesses, such as Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service; and by selling excess federal land and buildings. Then, to keep the pressure on, the government should "establish a 'sunset' commission to automatically review all federal programs on a rotating basis and propose major reforms and terminations," recommends the Cato Handbook. 2) Don't raise taxes. As the Cato Institute's Veronique de Rugy wrote (March 24, 2003), raising taxes was tried as a method of combatting deficits during the Great Depression, and it failed. Faced with a growing deficit, presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt boosted the top income tax rate from 25% to 79%, and corporate taxes from 12% to 25%. They also imposed a new dividends tax, a liquor tax, and a Social Security payroll tax. The result: The deficit jumped from $2.2 billion in 1932 to $2.9 billion in 1940, wrote de Rugy. "A key problem in trying to balance the budget with tax increases is that higher taxes fuel more [government] spending," she wrote. "[Also], the hikes contract the tax base by reducing economic growth and spurring greater tax avoidance. As a result, the government gains only a fraction of the revenues it hopes to receive." For those reasons, de Rugy piquantly noted, "raising taxes to balance a budget is like drinking a six-pack to cure a hangover." 3) Pass a strict balanced-budget Constitutional amendment. Congress should take a cue from the LP Platform, which gives a prescription for such an amendment. The LP Platform supports "the drive for a constitutional amendment requiring the national government to balance its budget." To be effective, the Platform says, the amendment should provide: * That neither Congress nor the president be permitted to override this requirement. * That all off-budget items are included in the budget. * That the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes. * That no exception be made for periods of national emergency. Of course, the drawback of a Constitutional amendment is that politicians may simply find ways to evade it, no matter what restrictions are written into it. Cheating is something politicians are good at. Over the past decade, to evade self-imposed spending caps, Washington, DC politicians pioneered a number of innovative bookkeeping techniques that would have landed them in jail had they worked for a private company. For example, they slipped the cost of the 2000 Census into an off-budget "emergency spending" bill. (The Census was hardly an emergency or a surprise: It's been conducted once a decade since 1790.) Politicians also moved spending to the first day of a new fiscal year (rather than the last day of the old year), and lowered estimated expenditures by predicting cost savings through Al Gore-style "Reinventing Government" initiatives. (Not surprisingly, most such cost savings never materialized.) So, yes, politicians will cheat. But if a balanced budget amendment makes it more difficult for them to spend this nation into bankruptcy, it's worth doing. Conclusion In a way, the deficit is the byproduct of a politically schizophrenic American public that is anti-tax but pro-spending. In other words, most Americans don't want their federal taxes to go up, but they do want to keep receiving federal checks for Medicare, Social Security, college loans, farm subsidies, and so on. Politicians, eager to please, promise more government programs and benefits, while vowing not to raise taxes. They plunge the government into debt so they can keep handing out goodies. One example: The $400 billion prescription drug benefit President Bush has promised seniors will be paid for with deficit spending. Although Grandma and Grandpa may not admit it (even to themselves), this means their children and grandchildren will be forced to pick up the tab for their high blood-pressure medication. That almost irresistible temptation to spend today -- and let someone else pay tomorrow -- may be why Thomas Jefferson once wrote that public debt is "the greatest of dangers to be feared." Of course, it's not the only danger big government poses. That's why Libertarians want a federal government that is much, much smaller than it is today. Merely balancing the budget won't accomplish that; a budget balanced at $2.2 trillion would be no victory. However, it would be better than what we have now. A balanced budget would, at the very least, herald a return to fiscal honesty, would stop boosting the cost of government with exorbitant interest payments, and would stop shifting the cost of today's spending onto tomorrow's taxpayers. For all those reasons, a balanced budget could be the beginning -- but not the end -- of more fundamental Libertarian efforts to genuinely reduce the cost of government. BTW: According to the LP website, the Libertarian Party is the third largest in America. It boasts that they hold 595 offices -more than twice as many as all other third parties combined. |
WHERE WHERE!!!!??? I DON'T SEE IT! :(
Tell me OAO, does the Libertarian Party have a good dental plan??? I need a visit. :( |
Only idiots post links to articles. I am glad that you are fighting that trend. :(
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Tell me, why don't you like the article? It's a good bit above what I normally see on party websites. This one actually makes points. <------------BOW DOWN BEFORE MURRAY ROTHBARD AVATAR!!!!11!!!111!!1111!!1 |
OAO, your article goes against the ideals of Socialism and Communism. It, by default, would upset Kevin.
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Jesus, should I even respond....? Nah.
OAO, I shall speak after work today. I have to go maintain a room of kindergarteners who are all smarter than VinceZeb. |
"your article goes against the ideals of Socialism and Communism. It, by default, would upset Kevin."
-Vinth Do you suppose he noticed that it goes against the policies of W. as well, and in fact points out that we'll be paying for his mistakes for years to come? C'mon, now, Vinth, now. Instead of denouncing people who hve no real power and aren't currently making decisions, why not rip our Prez a new one for being so vehemently anti-Liberatarian? |
Yeah. The article really does jab at Bush for spending so much money WHEN CONGRESS IS FREAKING DOMINATED BY REPUBLICANS!!! It's really pissing me off. Now is the time for conservatives to work their magic, but it's just not happening.
The sad thing is, I don't think the Republicans will ever go back to a traditionally conservative platform. :( Of course, this is probably because Bush wants to get re-elected. Cut some programs, and people benefiting from them won't like you (as well as some other concerned people). In any case, the end of days may be coming. I get the strange feeling that if we had a Democrat in the White House he would be spending less. :( Anyway, I'm sure that Kevin doesn't like the idea of a Constitutional amendment that forces the government to balance it's budget. |
I think W. popularity, though waning, shows that large number of people who think they actually have political convictions and ideology are actually commited to there party the way sports fans are to their teams.
Any real republican of the Goldwater or even Ginrich stripe (though I don't think Ginrich believes in his twaddle as anything more than a political lever) should be appalled by W. Any serious Liberatarian should find this administration WAY more threatening than the last. |
Re: Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
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But all whacky Libertarian tax schemes aside, I agree about the part that the government wastes at a high level. I think it's noticeable even in very small, micro levels. I think Congressional representatives need to have certain job entitlements cut, and I do believe our public servants need to regain a little bit of the humility once posessed by those who served in the past. Even at work, I watch lots of wasted food get thrown out in a Federal government after school snack program at elementary schools. This program exists across the nation, and it wastes a lot every day. This I'm sure is just one example of many. Quote:
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Wouldn't this kind of be like your left hand cutting off your right hand, and then telling the right hand "sorry bud! You GOT your $10!!" I realize that to looney tune Ayn Rand worshipers, the Great Depression gave that rotten Commie FDR the chance the put his socialist agenda in place. THAT is who this clause is directed at, but what about events such as 9/11....? Heck, what about the money Bush wants for Iraq right now...? Should another terrorist attack go down, should our leaders have no grounds to use extra cash to fight or mend the problem...? Quote:
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And GOD FORBID politicians be eager to please their voters. :rolleyes Quote:
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Re: Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
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1. I think you are reading into the comment too much. The point was that the federal deficit is not only there because of Bush's tax cuts. 2. Not a supporter of supply side economics, are we? I do agree that tax cuts for the middle class are warranted, but I'm the type of guy who sees any tax cut as a victory. It's just pissing me off that Bush seems to be more interested in creating new government programs rather than cutting them... Quote:
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2. I don't think that is what one could call a top priority, but I would challenge your comment that privatized shipping companies are unreliable. 3. Quite the unfair comment. What would be the point of preserving land that we don't need? Think: this is a libertarian article. Keeping land "just in case" is like having a surplus - it's just means more tempation to expand government. No libertarian wants to see that, so obviously a balanced budget is better from the writer's PoV. Quote:
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What exactly do you mean by economic stability? That the earning gap between classes was smaller? That's hardly a way to gauge the economy. It's time we cut government spending enough that tax's could be relatively low for everyone. On the Constitutional Amendment: I would like to forward this by saying that just because the article isn't complete drivel doesn't mean that it can't have some bad points. I think that this amendment is not even worth debating over, since it will never happen. At least, it would not happen in our lifetime. However, I will throw out my opinion on the matter. In my ideal libertarian budget, I do think that some unspecified money for futher allocations would exist, just in it's own catagory. This could be applied anywhere it would needed. Futhermore, emergency money would exist which could only be tapped into when certain situations arose e.x. war, etc. (NOT economic crisis, btw). These two parts of the budget would be put at set amounts so as to eliminate corruption: for example, the emergency fund might have it's own 0.5% tax. Since this budget is inherently flexible, a balanced-budget amendment that forced all off-budget items to be on the budget and did not permit taxes to be raised for the purpose of balancing the budget could work. At least, I think it could. Quote:
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All this, for something that you admitted doesn't even do much good. Quote:
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It's just that the LP has never had a strong presidential campaign. |
Re: Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
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Granted, maybe this is an exception. But have you ever heard the old saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it....? This again brings the psyche of a Libertarian into question. Why shut down a system everyone knows and trusts...? Quote:
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I agree, nothing but my own ass is my responsibility. Fuck everybody. Quote:
I'm currently a national AmeriCorps member. I tutor Kindergarteners in Austin, because illiteracy is rampant. This is just ONE function that this national service project provides. Why are they there? Are they there just for the heck of it? NO. There was a void there, and charities can only do so much, and the private market will do little, if anything. Charities are NOT more efficient than the government, that's why charities apply to the government for grant funding.....!!!!!!! Quote:
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reliable mail: What in gods name are you smoking? Private companies are FAR more reliable that government agencies. Why do you think top companies and businesses use Fedex? And why shut it down? BECAUSE WE'RE PAYING FOR IT. WE OWN IT. libraries: Why would we want libraries to be illegal? security services: see police anything governmental: ONLY enough to secure the liberty and property of each citizen and no more. Quote:
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Re: Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
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Minarchists beleive that the government should exist for the sole purpose of providing a court system, national defence, police, common sense laws (no murder, etc.), and a few other necessary functions (such as producing currency). Anarcho-capitalists, or Individualist Anarchists believe that the market could privide all of these functions more efficiently, thus making government unnecessary. Exactly how they expect currency to be produce, I'll never know... I tend to land somewhere inbetween the two. In addition, many libertarians believe that anyone has the right to leave the union. Quote:
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Personally, I would like to see it carried out when the art of speedy on-computer (though not necessarily online) voting has been perfected. Quote:
I'll address the rest later, but right now I don't have time. |
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Even the article above raised the point, and it's a solid one. People hate taxes, but LOVE safety nets and public utilities. This shows a public disconnect between where are tax dollars go, and a general ignorance about taxes that goes all the way back to our founding. CB, you said it. Only the preservation of property and liberty. But see, that's Lockean, not American. American values include the persute of happiness, and the preamble to our Constitution states "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare..." We are not a nation merely built upon militias and stuff. We have a higher purpose than that, one that ultimately requires more civic engagement than any Libertarian seems able to stomach. |
Its strange to me how all of the responses to arguments I make eventually revert to telling me that thats just not the way things are, so I should accept it. I'm aware of the state our country is in. I'm aware of the motives and intentions of the framers of this country. That is all irrelevant. Ideas and principles have nothing to do with any of that.
Our country is not fully Lockean in principle, that is for sure. However its not fully liberal, or conservative, or republican, or democratic. Thats our jobs. We are supposed to take stands as citizens of our country. Its my duty to uphold what I believe in because I believe in it. More on the topic: The government operates by forceable coercion. Businesses operate by competition and greed. You'll find no virtue where power is sought, but mark my words the method makes all the difference. I turst the man working to persuade me into letting him serve me more than the man working to persuade me into serving him. You seem to think that public services can't possibly exist without the involvement of government. I can't even begin to fathom where this came from. There are numerous reasons why private institutions or communities could start libraries or transportation. Education in my opinion should most definitely have no ties to the government. You misunderstood me concerning police force. I think thats one of the few institutions that should not be privatized. I thought I made that clear. Quote:
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Which thing would that be, Sandy?
This from a man who thinks we are in the middle of world war IV. Hey, Vinth, has the Canadian Border paid his rent? |
Vince has a point. Social Security is falling off of a cliff, one that can only be fixed by a) providing an alternative and slowly weaning the amercian public off of it or b) raising taxes and waiting for it to fail again.
The good ole' CATO institute has some info on this HERE. I also like how Kevin is attacking Bubba even though he hasn't addressed my previous points. |
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1. MASSIVE taxing. 2.MASSIVE reductions in benifits. Both of these mean I will not see the same amount of money that I put into it. Taxpayer money would better be left in their own hands to invest as they please. Quote:
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I'll wait until you adress OAO's comments before I make another post here. |
You guys should be in politics yourselves. Seriously. It's obvious that you all know a great deal about how the system works (this is not sarcasm), why aren't you (those of you who are old enough) running for office? For city council or school board at least?
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And please, go find someone who knows something about economics, since you clearly aren't capable of being that person.... Quote:
I figured I'd allow you to complete your thoughts like you said you would, and then respond. However, since you're acting like a sniveling little brat, I guess I'll respond to your incomplete post later. And while you're at it, you should respond to some of my passed-over points, too.... And as for "attacking" CB, please, display an example of this. See, when two people who are in agreement make jabs at someone else, it's called "making points." When someone you disagree with pokes holes in candy land/shoots and ladders ideas, such as cutting programs just for the sake of cutting them, it's called "attacking." Quote:
Lets go back and examine what you said CB, since you seem to feel like you've been libeled: "Our country is not fully Lockean in principle, that is for sure. However its not fully liberal, or conservative, or republican, or democratic. Thats our jobs. We are supposed to take stands as citizens of our country. Its my duty to uphold what I believe in because I believe in it." And the point I thought I made fairly clear, was that even from that varied spectrum of choices you provided, there is STILL a permeating presence of liberalism throughout the country. Even the free market, classical liberals (who were more like today's Libertarians) believed in the prominent role of government, not merely to serve as a lame duck entity, but rather to serve as an active entity in society. Passive and/or weak government doesn't work any better than government that is too interventionist. Your point was that government should defend property and liberty. That's it. I disagree with this, and as I've already stated, I feel it's contrary to every notion of civic responsibility. Quote:
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And your point about illegality is moot. You said government's role should be defense of liberty and property. Nothing in there about paying for book warehouses.... Quote:
And whether or not libraries are "antiquated" or not is also moot. Point is, they generally get their money. Nobody wants to run on an "anti-library" platform. Well, with perhaps Libertarians as the exception. Quote:
"Individualized learning," eh? Well I'm all for that. I just hope the average American, with their work week getting longer and their pay check getting smaller, has the time to teach themselves Spanish, calculus, biology, comparative politics, and engineering on their days off. And privatized schooling exists, and I'm all for it, providing it doesn't take away tax dollars from public schools through voucher programs. Depending upon a completely privatized system to educate our children, IMO, is crazy. |
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Re: Wow. An article from a party website that isn't drivel.
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You see, when technologies advance, everyone advances. Eventually those technologies become so commonplace that even the lower working classes benefit. These technologies typical arise at a faster rate in a capitalist society; I'm sure you know that. In short, I believe that not only is economic equality inevitable, but also desirable. Quote:
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Aside from all that, you need to get rid of this mentality that every libertarian wants to destroy the government and every law ever formed. Quote:
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Charities apply to the government for grants because they can use the money. That doesn't prove that they are less efficient: after all, very few organizations would pass up on the opportunity for some free funding. Quote:
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