Okay, now you're sounding frantic again. Doesn't matter if government is good at doing stuff, and you want them to stop anyway? Results just aren't relevant?

And yes, I heard your challenge regarding the founding fathers and no, I'm not interested in finding their pro-government remarks so we can set aside the rules of Logic in favor of inconclusive ad hominem observations. Your quotes are interesting, but the fact remains that those same men CREATED the government. And they did this for what they considered to be very good reasons. Knowing that things would spin out of control, they established the government anyway. I guess they just weren't as smart as some of your chums here, Len. At least, they were smart enough when they talked. Brilliant. But when they actually made decisions.....that's where they showed their ignorance?

If you close the libraries they'll be rioting in the streets! STOP THE INSANITY!

I'm sorry, POP, and I don't mean to be simply abrasive with this next remark, but that statement has to be one of the all time most ignorant I have seen.

You think that if 90% of gubmit was cut for a month, nobody would notice. Really? I'd bet my entire estate on that, plus all the money I could borrow. For example, at the end of the month, my average speed on the freeway would be in triple digits. And.....I'd spend a LOT of money buying survival gear. Lots of water barrels. If I could find them.

You're one o' them gubmint "workers" aintcha? :)

No. But I am working on a project to modernize an international airport. Another waste of money? Maybe planes should just learn to land on freeways. I'm fairly sure the airlines would prefer to avoid government regulation. Another opportunity for more efficiency and less cost.

I keep reading articles saying how brave the Gov and Dem's are by raising taxes, and that it's the tougher decision than to cut, cut cut.

I think it would of been braver to do it all with cuts even if that meant underminding your own political/voting base.

It's not brave to make others pay, it's brave to pay the price yourself.

I voted for her, still the better choice than what the republicans put up, but I am having second thoughts. She has had to do a lot of tough things since first elected, and she's managed to do it better than most could of expected.

This time I don't agree at all, not at all.

I spoke with several fellow business owners today and none of us have a clue what this service tax will mean for our businesses. There have been no details provided other than it is apparently going to be implemented on December 1 of this year, ready or not! :eek:

I wonder if I can bill the government for collecting their taxes for them? They want me to do it for free. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if they send a bill to each citizen directly? Why make everyone jump thru these hoops when ultimately, it is you and I paying the service taxes anyway? If they can't afford the government programs they're running and think that we're not paying enough now, just send every voter a friggin' bill for $5000, give each of us 90 days to pay (or you go to jail at gunpoint) and be done with it. Why do they need to mask this as something it's not? Oh that's right ... there'd be some political outfall if they were actually honest about what they're doing :rolleyes:

Perhaps. I don't know anything about Michigan. Government does have a tendency to get FAT.

OTOH, cuts sometimes sting. It might be interesting to get an ultra-conservative gubmit-hater into a position of real power, like a state governor, for one sacrificial term. I'd use the White House as my example, except that what I'm about to suggest would take a LONG time for the nation to recover from. I'd like to see a gubmit-hater move into a legislature of a substantial and visible state, like.......Texas for example. And show the audience just what it would look like to cut a budget seriously. Like in half. Fire Fighters and State Troopers in the unemployment lines by the thousands. fire and police response time in the dozens of hours. Class sizes over 100 routinely. Many billions of dollars of backlogged road maintenance. It would be tragic.

And it would shut a few people up. For a while. Then.....the temptation would become too great again. And they'd resume the fantasy.

This should do wonders for Michigan's redhot real estate market too. Let's take a General Contractor building a house. He hires subcontractors who each charge him 6% tax. As an example:

plumbing $10,000 + $600
electrical $10,000 + $600
heating $10,000 + $600
foundation $15,000 + $900
roofing/siding $15,000 + $900
finish carpentry $20,000 + $1200
rough carpentry $20,000 + $1200

total = 100,000 + 6,000 tax = $106,000

General Contractor overhead & profit @ 20% $33,200

Total $106,000 + 33,200 + general contractor 6% service tax = $147,552

Add real estate agent taxes, mortgage company taxes, title insurance taxes, etc., etc. Of course the income tax was raised also, so people have less net income to spend in the first place.

Yup, this is sheer brilliance .......

Tell me how bigger government is better again?

And this could have EASILY been done with spending cuts only. The plan has been laid out for these imbeciles for over 5 years now. All the answers have been right here for anyone who wants to see them:

http://www.mackinac.org/

The BIG stumbling block is MESSA - the bloated double-dipping teacher's union health care fund. That's a sacred cow since the teacher's single-handedly got Granholm elected.

Here's a quick $1.9 BILLION in savings that few would ever notice a difference:

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=8798

The ugly details of the Granhom tax are beginning to come to light. Lobbying played a major role in what will and won't be taxed. Guess who won't be taxed? Lawyers, of course.

"Rep. Steve Bieda, D-Warren, chairman of the House tax policy committee, acknowledged lobbying was intense over what services would be subject to the sales tax and what services would not. He did not deny that lobbying played a role in keeping entertainment and tickets to sporting events exempt from the tax. "

I'll bet Steveo will have some prime seats for the Red Wings and Pistons this season.

Sup, they SPECIFICALLY warned against what you promote. They did it repeatedly and with vigor. As you state, these are the men that designed our system...yet you feel you know better? You feel they were flawed in their criticisms of their own creation? Lose the straw-man argument about no government as no one says that's possible and to attach it to our argument is dishonest.

This is not a situation where I am finding nuanced half quotes and twisting them, they stand on their own. How you can label them "inconclusive ad hominem observations" is beyond me. They told us exactly where we would fail and how...and we are religiously taking those steps. There is no mystery where this trail ends as they already told us and we have no reason not to trust their predictions.

But remember there was already a government here, for 169 years.
Q: Why change?
A: Teabags

If we aren't heard speaking against this latest tyranny, then it's time this government ends. Where's the next George Washington? The government needs to fear "the people" not the other way round.

Thank you for the new bookmark, I'll be using it a lot in the next few months.

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=8798

This tax is going to start a Recall for sure, WTF were they thinking?

EDIT: That site just loves to rewrite history when it comes to the bio of former gov John Engler. I'll be wary of anything they say now. The man redefined the meaning corruption and cronyism - and not in a good way.

I'm going to sue the bastards, oh wait.:D

First, Len, Appeal to Authority is a useless and empty argument. The production of a quote that supports your beliefs has about the same weight, no....it has EXACTLY the same weight as you saying your belief. I can probably produce quotes that "prove" there are diamonds in your ass. Many of the politicians who decried President Clinton's Oval Office indistretion have since been found to be unfaithful to their wives. So on the one hand, we have what they SAID. And on the other hand, we have what they DID. The founding fathers created our government.

Still, I understand their concern. And yours, to some degree. Government is, indeed, without a doubt, wacky. And out of control. The straw man argument is in pretending that liberals, including and especially Superman, prefer government to be as big and expensive as possible, with as much waste as possible. Sure, it gives you some people to blame and hate. Fun stuff. And pretending that the lion's share of government budgets go to buying flat screen TV's for child molesters. But that's not honest. And it's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to lead to a repair of what's wrong. I've seen many many instances of government offices' budgets being attacked, and those offices struggling to achieve what society needs in spite of the absence of funding. Child molesters being released from prison because there is no room, and no budget, and the voters in their hatred have passed a "Two Strikes and You're Out" law. So.....we've got guys who were busted selling weed twice, spending the rest of their lives in prison while a child molester with one conviction is released early to make room. Brilliant. And afterwards, those voters who tied the system's hands and forced this policy because of their blind and ignorant hatred of gubmit..........go on to blame gubmit for the decision. Very difficult to believe, but that's exactly what has happened.

I would be willing to bet that the most avid cost cutting prospective politician is surprised at the reality of the fiscal situation once they are in the position to make the decisions.

Reality bites. The public wants....nay demands.. specific levels of service, from those at the local level (clean water, polce, fire, refuse collection, snow removal, road building and repair, sewers) to the federal level (management of the money supply, national defense, etc). Given all this, the elected officials are confronted with the opposing desires of the voting public.....service levels vs. tax rates. One way to solve the problem, albeit only for the short run is to run deficits. But, these deficts can only be run at the federal level. Legally, states and municipalities cannot run in the deficit mode.

Granted, there are programs that have been added in the name of "humanity", such as Social Security, Welfare and such, but these are necessary to a certain degree in a republic. There are those who cannot take care of themselves completely; the old and the very young. Abuses, yes. However, removing the abuses will not place much of a dent in the overall federal budget. Add to the mix (remembering that states and countes/municipalities cannot run in the defcit mode) federally mandated but unfunded programs and the problem at the state/local level becomes worse.

So, do not always blame the locals. Blame the situation at least in part on the federal government for its indecision, willingness to pass the buck and its desire to pander for votes. It is not always one party that is at fault. All the politicos at the federal level are cut out of the same bolt of cloth.

Yeah, the iPod giveaway was really something people demanded and couldn't live without.

Bob has a grip on reality. I know it would be inconvenient, but how 'bout you guys giving reality a try?