#16
"This actually annoys the crap out of me."
I'll alert the media. You seem like such a happy lad usually.
"Tax breaks for corporations has nothing to do with fiscal conservatism. In fact, the fact that corporations pay taxes, and people take offense that they get tax cuts should be an affront to people who believe in a free society."
Sorry, I'm not clear as to your meaning here; are you saying that all corporate taxes and regulations are bad? And by extension, NAFTA, for example, has been a net win for most Americans and our national best interests? These are the kinds of things I was hoping to see discussed reasonably. Have free trade policies, financial market deregulation, and an economy based on manipulating monetary policy in lieu of having a manufacturing infrastructure --views now espoused in the name of fiscal conservatism-- been good for us? Do these policies define your concept of fiscal conservatism, or do you, like me (as outlined in my OP), find these policies an unwelcome diversion from your own concept of fiscal conservatism?
"Unless you want to go back to subsistence living, my suggestion is that you focus less on "evil, greedy corporations," and the fears of "deregulation," and more on curtailing government."
You are trying to reframe the question by falsifying my opinion. I never said corporations are evil or greedy. I work for corporations, have done quite well by and for them, and have my retirement funds invested in them. Businesses are the engine of the economy. And I also believe that to maintain and increase quality of life, our institutions, including (but not limited to) both government AND corporations, need periodic tweaking by common sense rules. I don't know how anyone could argue that point, and if so, I'd love to hear it, but it is not to the point of my OP.
Also, It's not clear what your point is in the sentence above. Are you claiming, as proof of some sort of inherent moral superiority of corporations over government, that government will send us "back to subsistence living?" Substantiate and clarify please.
"It has been regulations on cars - CAFE, Emissions, safety - that have just about destroyed the auto industry in this country."
This statement accepts as a given that which has not been proven. Government regulations alone have destroyed the US auto industry? Regulations requiring cars be collision-worthy, reasonable with fuel economy, and restricting the amount of petroleum byproducts we breathe? Bad management decisions had nothing to do with it? Please substantiate. Or better yet, answer the question.
"Corporations these days are cozying up to government merely for survival. If they can control legislation before it gets passed, they can mitigate some of the damage that the legislation inflicts. Pure and simple. If you want to minimize corporation "intrusion" into government, get the government off the back of industry."
"I always shake my head at the people who... look to the government as if they have the best interests of the citizenry in mind."
It looks to me that you look to corporations as if THEY have the best interests of the citizenry in mind. You distrust government, but trust corporations? I think most of us have a healthy suspicion of both. And are you advocating that corporations should be excluded from following any rules at all? If so, please clarify; that's why I opened this thread.
Everything in life has rules. Football, traffic, accounting--everything. Without a framework within which to function, society collapses into anarchy-- a free society, but at the cost of stability, productivity, and safety. Without speed limits, for example, anyone can drive 180 mph through a school zone all day every day, and will eventually kill someone. Are our rights being limited by being required to slow down? Absolutely. And we do so to prevent harming ourselves and others, for both moral and fiscal reasons. It's only common sense, and does not offend most Americans' love of a free society.
"Government produces nothing."
It isn't supposed to. That's like criticizing a credit union for not being profitable--CUs are meant to provide, via pooling of resources and removal of the profit motive, improved and lower cost services for its members. Government is intended to do the same. We pay taxes so that we can have public roads, for example. Private industry could do that for us, but would it be cheaper, more efficient, better? Maybe, but it might mean paying $5 tolls every couple of miles for every road in the country, including the street on which you live. Do we want that? It's a worthy topic of discussion. But to claim that government is bad because it doesn't fulfill a role, for which it is not intended, is sophistry, and therefore subverts the credibility of your claim.
"And, as we’ve seen - aside from maintaining a top-rate military - the federal government can’t police the borders, remove illegal aliens, stop terrorists from blowing up planes, or even move quickly in the event of a natural disaster. Hell, they even suck at delivering the mail."
Actually, the government does a hell of a lot of things much better than the private sector, including delivering the mail. None of the USPS's competitors even come close to handling the volume of the USPS, even at many times the cost--and that includes the USPS's budget overages. Is the USPS perfect? Is UPS? Personally, I like having meat inspectors, national parks, highways, and food labels. Sure, bureaucracy is tedious, inefficient, imperfect, at times corrupt, and in need of modification. Hence, my starting this thread.
The meme that all government is incompetent cannot be considered proof of itself; it is a circular argument. If your boss assigned you to write a plug-in for a certain software "X," but prohibited your access to and any & all knowledge of software X, you would not be able to do your job. But that doesn't define you as incompetent.
"Corporations aren’t the problem. Unrestrained government is."
Just as unrestrained government is problematic, so are unrestrained corporations. It is simply not reasonable to expect self-policing when profit is at stake. That should be obvious to any adult. But again, you're responding to an imaginary, anti-corporate claim, which I did not make, and do not support.
I asked where each of us feels the lines should be drawn; what policies we support, and which policies ascribed to fiscal conservatism we feel do and do not represent our own version of it.
Continue.
