Maybe he should have talked about Social Security and Medicare as well. Most people are completely clueless about how many cookies those two programs take, and how congress eats the extra cookies every year in order to buy votes through pork spending.

good stuff, Josh. I had seen that video before and had forgotten about it…simple reminder

And good suggestions for additions, Derek.

watched video.

plz ship oreos.

thx.

I’ll take the oreos in person. Seems simple, but money doesn’t solve things that are broken. Is the Pentagon over budgeted, perhaps; but throwing that money at other programs won’t “fix” them either. Take Education for instance. How about opening up education to true choice, whereby I could take that $9,500 each year that the government gives to my local school (whether my kid goes there or not) and let me pick a school. Competition has worked in most other aspects of our society, so why not there. Or, as Derek mentions tackling SS or Medicare. I think that illustrations like these are a nice starting point for the discussion, BUT taking an Oreo from one stack and magically putting it on another doesn’t fix either one. I personally think that we could probably take about 10% of the Oreos off of most government stacks (another reference to Derek’s Pork) and we’d be much better off. Give me back my 10% of my oreo portion off the top, and I buy more stuff, create more jobs, give more to charity, etc. Can you tell I am a small government kinda guy? Just my 2 cents.

That site is very informative. Thanks for the link.

I did browse it a bit and found an interesting tool they have on the site which allows you to find out what your state reps. said when the Iraq resolution was on the floor a few weeks ago.

I checked out what some of my state (Washington) reps. said and then typed in my parents zip code (in Georgia) to see what those reps. had to say.

Needless to say i wasnt surprised to read what a Mr. Linder had to say. Here is an excerpt that made me scoff:

“After World War II, we spent 50 years in a war against an idea. It was a battle of the two great religions, communism and freedom.”

The interesting thing about what Mr. Linder is failing to mention is that the cold war wasnt a war between “communism and freedom [interesting how Americans tend to think of America and freedom meaning the same thing.] “. It was about two economics systems, American capitalism and not American capitalism. If America can’t control you economically than you are automatically deemed as any number of things ranging from a “communist” to a “terrorist”.

Linder spoke of war like it was something out of a John Wayne film. War is not a movie Linder, people really die.

Strange how the current administration wants to “rebuild” military might with new nuclear (or knuclar) subs and missiles. Having been in the military I can say with certainty that these hefty price tags are not necessary. Beefing up special operations units for recon/surveillance/strike ops will pay off bigger dividends in security than building more subs and missiles which do not have a practical use. And while it sounds good to give people the money to use for education that is really not a good idea either. For one, those in poverty will not be able to get their child to the schools the wealthy get their kids too. Transportation, jobs, childcare, and such figure into that. Teachers in wealthier school districts make more money, it doesn’t mean they are better teachers. The kids in those schools may or may not apply themselves. Bush came up with this “No Child Left Behind” crap, and now he doesn’t want to fund it. This Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand thing sounds good on paper, but it doesn’t work out in the real world. I think economic philosophies can be reduced to two very different camps: Human centered or Kingdom of God centered. Capitalism is humanist philosophy in operation. The only thing that Linder has proposed that sounded remotely intelligent is the Fair Tax Plan, but isn’t that what they do in Scandinavian countries that embrace socialism, and the kids get a great government education/health care package there.

watched video.

signed up.

blogged about it.

please send oreos.

I actually enjoyed that. Thanks!

205 Burton
Clinton, MI 49236

(I’ll supply my own milk—actually, you’re into the organics now right? How about we do a swap. I happen to work for Eden Foods. I’ll send you the equivalent of a bag of O’s in whatever suits your fancy.)