You mean like the GOP blocking the small-business loan guarantee program?
No argument there. Calling that bill "reforn" is like calling a pedophile an upstanding citizen.
repeal the FinReg monstrosity
So you believe (in the face of all contrary evidence) that REGULATION is to blame for what happened to the economy? You don't think that completely dismantling the safeguards (via Gramm-Leach-Bliley) that kept this sort of thing from happening for 80 years (since the GD and Glass-Steagall) MIGHT have had just a wee bit to do with it? The FIRE sector has proved time and again that when the vast sums of money involved are in play, that regulation is an absolute necessity. Your eutopian capitalist model relies on people being completely honest and rational, and markets being completely rational. Neither are either. You don't expect a fire in your house, but you still change the battery in the smoke detector every 6 months. You don't expect your kid to smoke pot and be an idiot, but it still matters that you spell out that it's against the rules of the house.
pull "cap and trade" from even being considered, tell the EPA to take the CO2 regulations and burn them,
Yes. Because the latest studies (the ones done AFTER climate-gate) are obviously biased too. :roll:
cut Gov't spending by 30%
HAS to be done
and taxes across the board
So we can go further into debt? Uh-uh. Let the Bush tax cuts expire, then re-visit them AFTER we stop digging a financial hole and quit selling our legacy to China. And before you waste your time typing the typical "tax-cut = more-revenue" saw, I have already shown in
this post that it is a fallacy, using
OMB's numbers. Revenues DID decline after the Bush tax cuts, and deficits ballooned. In fact,
2003 saw the lowest level of tax collections as a % of GDP since 1942.
(or better move to the fairtax national sales tax)
THAT is an absolute laugher! In the face of this economic downturn, you can throw out a punchline like that! You live in Texas, which has no income tax (just as my state of Tennessee). Texas' revenue stream is based heavily on property taxes, which aren't going to go down no matter how much value your home loses. Sure, there's some sales taxes, but the lion's share comes from property taxes. As of January 9th, Texas
was already down $1 BILLION dollars in sales tax revenue from 2009. Tennessee is primarily reliant on sales tax revenue for state funding. This economic downturn has decimated state and municipal coffers, and it's getting worse. Do you REALLY want to tie the ability to provide for the common defense and do all of the things that the government is going to be expected to do (close the Mexican border, keep roads in passable condition, continue 2 wars, expand anti-terrorist programs, etc.) to a tax that is entirely at the mercy of economic whims? When people don't have a job, or are worried that they might lose the one they have, they don't spend money. When they don't spend money the government doesn't collect sales tax. The equation really is that simple.
And within 18 months you'll see the economy explode to life.
Not until the housing problem gets sorted out. That's the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
OR you can keep dreaming this fallacious fantasy that Business can thrive under heavy regulation, taxation and Gov't demands and future uncertainty in just how much meddling the Gov't will do in the day-to-day operation of business.
I never said business can thrive under those conditions. But apparently common-sense regulations put in place to keep unscrupulous financiers from driving the economy over a cliff are "heavy regulation and demands" in your lexicon, and holding business accountable for their actions is inappropriate meddling.
And taxes? They're going to go up. It doesn't matter who is running things. The tax-cut boat has long-since set sail on a sea of deficits and borrow-and-spend philosophies of the current and immediate past administrations. I'm not real happy about it, but I'm also enough of a realist to know that, tea-party propaganda aside, the government has to increase revenue and slash expenses.