Posted on 09/22/2007 4:52:03 PM PDT by reaganaut1
That’s a problem for the states to figure out. If their citizens wish to have higher taxes, so be it. But not all states will go that route. And the ones that do will lose jobs because the jobs will move to the lower taxed states.
In addition, outside of national security issues, no more closed door meetings or hearings. That goes for Congress and the Senate too.
Cut, slash and eliminate all government programs, the number of government employees, at all levels outside the military.
This needs to be demanded by all.
We’re closer to be in agreement than might be suspected. I believe that everything should be looked at all the time. If there’s a new way of doing things (such as with technology) or an outdated program, then it should be changed or eliminated. Burdens that can reasonably be shifted to the state or local gubmints, should be shifted.
Keep in mind though, the states receiving the most Federal aid are the poor states, such as Alabama, and states with low population densities, such as Wyoming. They receive more money back from the fed than they put in. Rich states, such as NY, CT and CA typically receive less money back from the Fed than they put in. CT gets back something like 70 cents on the dollar.
No!
Government needs to be reduced at all levels outside the military. Every single department and program needs to be cut, or reduced dramatically.
Government has become way too intrusive, way too punitive, way too big, and all encompassing.
The parallels of this current government and the reasons why we parted company with the British are remarkable and disturbing.
Can anyone link to the chart? I can’t find it at the sites mentioned.
I’m always suspicious of blanket statements. Maybe you feel gubmint needs to be shrunk now. A decade from now you may feel differently.
“Those pensions are connected directly to the tax-payer teat and are NEVER in trouble.”
That is exactly my point.
Government has become way too intrusive, way too punitive, way too big, and all encompassing.
The parallels of this current government and the reasons why we parted company with the British are remarkable and disturbing.
I’m always suspicious of blanket statements.
You're suspicious of the above? Hmmm.
You sound like a government loyalist.
Were on a conservative forum, and you disagree with the above?
I find that not only odd, but down right suspect.
Sorry, but I do my best to think things through. I’m not for blanket statements or “bumper sticker policy.” I’m for efficiency.
I say put everything on the table and ask two questions:
A)Is this program or agency really needed?
B)If it is needed, then is it performing efficiently?
You sound like a government loyalist.
I have no idea what “government loyalist” means, but I am proud and loyal of our government and our country. If you see a better government or country out there, then by all means feel free to go and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Efficiency and government are complete opposites. We have known for decades most government programs are nothing short of robbery. We already know that government is not efficient or streamlined. Where have you been? Government has become so large and intrusive, so all encompassing, it's become down right disturbing.
You think government taking anywhere from 30 to almost 50 percent of citizens income is right? You do understand that government is now involved in almost every aspect of our lives right? From what we consume to how we travel, all the way into our health care. They are now regulating just about everything we do. It's becoming all controlling.
Is this not why we parted company with the British?
Well, that about sums up your position and loyalties here.
You're from the government and you're here to help?
I just don’t feel any particular hostility toward the U.S. gubmint and/or its elected representatives. Could it be better? Yeah. Could it be more efficient? Hell yeah! Do I hate it? Nope.
And guess what else?
People can actually move out of their individual States to the State next door, or further.
Unfortunately, people only get to do that 48 times max before they are compelled to surrender to the Beast that surrounds us all.
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
bttt
Everywhere not constitutionally permitted. Let's see, we can start by eliminating:
-Department of Agriculture
-Department of Health and Human Services
-Department of Energy
-Department of Education
-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
-Environmental Protection Agency
-Occupational Safety and Health Administration
-Public Broadcasting
-National Endowment for the Arts
-Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure I've missed a bunch, but like a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.....that's a good start.
Hank
A large expense for the government agencies is to continually show why they are needed and why they need to grow.... always. By growing and staying “necessary” they perpetuate government employees and the corresponding unions.
Right now there are two classes in society. The entitled and coddled government workers and the private sector. They are another class of haves and are compensated and get long term gains beyond what their private sector counterpart does.
Well, at least you have a list.
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