JadeRose wrote:
I know the final popular vote was pretty close.....has anybody looked to see how many votes the Libertarians got? (My vote...btw). Gee...I wonder what kind of person the average Libertarian is? Could it be they are Non Religious Wingnut, moderate Republicans? Hmmmmmmmmm............
Pretty Close Jade. I was once a moderate Republican. But the pandering to the moral majority, a contradiction in terms if I ever saw one, and their total lack of fiscal conservatism. I am all for lower taxes, balanced with lowered spending. Part of the problem is that when Bush cut taxes, he expanded government spending at the same time. Also compounding the situation, was the outsourcing of middle class jobs. This totally undermined the benefit of lowering taxes. Yes, the job creators had more money to invest, but the jobs they created, were low paying jobs overseas, and redundant management jobs, to make themselves feel better about shipping the manufacturing jobs, to sweatshops in China and India. It will take the Libertarian protectionism, and higher taxes, to encourage those jobs, to be brought back to the US. Put high tariffs on import of foreign made goods. Have higher tax rates, on capital gains on those companies traded on US stock exchanges, that import goods into the US. Say one, publically traded corp, manufactures goods inside the US, for US consumption, but another corp manufactures goods, for US consumption, in China. Capital gains rates on the first companies stocks, and dividends, would be lowered to 10%, but the other companies capital gains rate would be bumped up to 30%.
All those folks that think that the rich folks would move, to other countries, I say BS. Name one country they could move to, with a lower income tax rate, and strong enough government to protect them from having their assets stolen from them? I am open to suggestions.
The national debt, which at one time could have been paid off, through just spending cuts, has gotten too big to be solved strictly through spending cuts. After we get the debt under control, the Libertarian model of small government, fiscal conservative, and socially moderate personal freedoms would work to keep the debt that way. Unfortunately, the Republican party, never met a spending bill, that they didn't like, as long as they were the party saying how the money was being spent. Deficit or no deficit.
Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)