I highly doubt it, but wouldn't want to take a chance on it. One interesting aspect will be how Karl Rove acts if he gets term 2. Without his standing for another election in 4 years, will Rove back down on the incessant vote buying? Will he feel he owes any particular backers? Hard to say, Bush has said almost nothing about the next four years other than his pure fantasy about half the budget deficit that not one single intelligent person believes. Beyond that the guy really hasn't said a thing about what he expects to accomplish. If he comes up with something of a full agenda then offshores are probably safe. If he and his team come up with a "I'm not Kerry", then look out because that would make me think he will go on a spree to please all the core constituents. Between the bible beaters and the operating casinos that pour tons of cash towards all stripes of Republicans it could indeed be a bad 4 years.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FISHHEAD:
For strictly offshore sportsbetting, it is my opinion that the industry would be better off without a Republican President.
Please note, I have no party affiliation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
WHAT!!
what is the "FISH FOR PRESIDENT" website you made me go to to contribute dollars to your election fund ??
For strictly offshore sportsbetting, it is my opinion that the industry would be better off without a Republican President.
Please note, I have no party affiliation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
WHAT!!
Fish you are not realistic. You need to run for Governor of Florida first. After you win you will be able to help my vote count tremendously.
You see I am going to run as an independent for the U.S. House of Representatives seat in Florida's Fifth District. I need to prevent The Honorable Ginny Brown-Waite [R-FL] from being re-elected.
Ginny rubber stamps the President 100% on every issue and is VERY MUCH anti-gambling. She involves herself in very important legislation such as her proposal after being offended by the French stance on Iraq last year. It was to have the bones of your relatives who died there in WW11 returned to the US. I would like to have seen just who would have gotten that excavation contract. But I'll go this at least one better and I got a local.
Well my strategy will be the Nader strategy. I will run as an independent further to the right of Ginny to syphon off a few votes to whichever Democrat runs.
Initial phase of campaign strategy:
1. Nuke North Korea and get it over with. Though the bones over in those parts will be lost.
2. That's OK. Get the bones from the Germans in addition to the French. The bone digging contract will go to Bubba's Tractor Service, a local excavating company. Bubba will need to hire a massive workforce and can do so by hiring gravediggers from the huge unemployed segment of population in this Congressional district. Thus we will export jobs and cause a local economic boom.
4. Get bones out of the hands of certain Afro-American members of the community who can be seen rolling them on a certain street corner around here most every Saturday night. Man I can dig those bones [pun intended] and hate to take them away, but we must protect these folks from themselves. That is the key civil rights issue I will propose. Equal protection from the pitfalls of gambling for all regardless of their social economic standing.
3. Allow the local Assembly of God congregations to have more input on issues regarding the Patriot Act, separation of church and state, and of morality such as gambling. A clever move here and a long shot chance for an Ashcroft endorsement.
Also let them lay hands on all sick people. That is my solution to all of this medical insurance controversy. Its a faith based initiative solution. "God's health insurance is the best health insirance." Possible campaign slogan here.
4. Allow residents in these here parts who earn more than $200,000 to pay no taxes at all. This should insure the vote of at least a few of the ranch folks 'round here.
5. Bring a Nextel Cup race to Citrus County Speedway. Maybe let's make this #1 on the platform. Naw #2--I like the bones issue best.
"Elect Jones He'll Dig For More Bones."
Catchy campaign slogan and official campaign song "Diggin' Up Bones."
Now Ginny is very strong here and I can't be sure there will even be Democratic opposition.
In that case, I make a real run but as a Democrat with a 180 degree shift on the issues, unless of course the early polls show me within striking distance. In that case I continue running on my platform then make the 180 degree shift after being elected. Nothing new there and should get me respect as a savy lying politician.
I need campaign contributions and those can be sent to my campaign account at The Greek.com. Details on how this can be done will be forthcoming. This should get me some ethnic votes too from a few folks who have moved a bit north from the Tarpon Springs, FL area.
Fishhead I can use your endorsement.
You see I am going to run as an independent for the U.S. House of Representatives seat in Florida's Fifth District. I need to prevent The Honorable Ginny Brown-Waite [R-FL] from being re-elected.
Ginny rubber stamps the President 100% on every issue and is VERY MUCH anti-gambling. She involves herself in very important legislation such as her proposal after being offended by the French stance on Iraq last year. It was to have the bones of your relatives who died there in WW11 returned to the US. I would like to have seen just who would have gotten that excavation contract. But I'll go this at least one better and I got a local.
Well my strategy will be the Nader strategy. I will run as an independent further to the right of Ginny to syphon off a few votes to whichever Democrat runs.
Initial phase of campaign strategy:
1. Nuke North Korea and get it over with. Though the bones over in those parts will be lost.
2. That's OK. Get the bones from the Germans in addition to the French. The bone digging contract will go to Bubba's Tractor Service, a local excavating company. Bubba will need to hire a massive workforce and can do so by hiring gravediggers from the huge unemployed segment of population in this Congressional district. Thus we will export jobs and cause a local economic boom.
4. Get bones out of the hands of certain Afro-American members of the community who can be seen rolling them on a certain street corner around here most every Saturday night. Man I can dig those bones [pun intended] and hate to take them away, but we must protect these folks from themselves. That is the key civil rights issue I will propose. Equal protection from the pitfalls of gambling for all regardless of their social economic standing.
3. Allow the local Assembly of God congregations to have more input on issues regarding the Patriot Act, separation of church and state, and of morality such as gambling. A clever move here and a long shot chance for an Ashcroft endorsement.
Also let them lay hands on all sick people. That is my solution to all of this medical insurance controversy. Its a faith based initiative solution. "God's health insurance is the best health insirance." Possible campaign slogan here.
4. Allow residents in these here parts who earn more than $200,000 to pay no taxes at all. This should insure the vote of at least a few of the ranch folks 'round here.
5. Bring a Nextel Cup race to Citrus County Speedway. Maybe let's make this #1 on the platform. Naw #2--I like the bones issue best.
"Elect Jones He'll Dig For More Bones."
Catchy campaign slogan and official campaign song "Diggin' Up Bones."
Now Ginny is very strong here and I can't be sure there will even be Democratic opposition.
In that case, I make a real run but as a Democrat with a 180 degree shift on the issues, unless of course the early polls show me within striking distance. In that case I continue running on my platform then make the 180 degree shift after being elected. Nothing new there and should get me respect as a savy lying politician.
I need campaign contributions and those can be sent to my campaign account at The Greek.com. Details on how this can be done will be forthcoming. This should get me some ethnic votes too from a few folks who have moved a bit north from the Tarpon Springs, FL area.
Fishhead I can use your endorsement.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JohnnyDeMarco:
everyone here would save money if there was no gambling? True or false?
Everyone here would be taxed to death if a dem gets in the white house? true or false<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
False and False.
everyone here would save money if there was no gambling? True or false?
Everyone here would be taxed to death if a dem gets in the white house? true or false<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
False and False.
False and false.
As for the second falsie, we're already being taxed to death, it's simply incremental death over the past years. You earn a salary, then you pay federal taxes and FICA on it, as well as state and perhaps local taxes. So you take what's left home, and you go buy groceries and get hit with another tax. If you've got a house, you're paying property taxes. Want to fish a county lake in Johnson County, Kansas? A state license isn't sufficient - you must buy a county license and a trout stamp if you want to go for those. Got a phone? Check out the insane taxes you're paying - and there is actually a tax on the tax on a portion of the long distance bill which, believe it or not, came in during the Spanish-American War of 1898:
"A good example is the federal 3 percent excise tax on telecommunications put in place during the Spanish-American War of 1898."
1898 tax link
Anyhow, so whatever goods you manage to bring home from the remainder (car, boats, etc) are quite often taxed annually by the state - or more accurately, they're supposed to be - but hardly anyone pays this bullshit tax. However, in Kansas you have to pay a yearly car tax which diminishes each year and is determined by the blue book value of the car. If you can stand to look through the KS law, it's pretty all-encompassing of personal property:
Bend over in Kansas
Educators and their unions constantly whine about getting more and more money, and yet the quality of education is getting worse. A lot of good-paying jobs are now being outsourced overseas, jobs which are not being replaced by similar well-paying jobs in this economy, and one of the affects is that the new job holders in India and other countries don't live in American communities and pay taxes there (property, sales, income, etc), which invisibily helps incrementally increase the tax burden on people living in the communities thus affected by the loss of those jobs.
I could go on and on but this is enough - my point is that we're already getting ass-burgled but since it's been relatively gradual, a lot of people don't seem to understand how pervasive government and government spending has become in our lives, and the personal control of our lives that has been encroached upon by the government by every administration for their own political purposes.
p.s. I don't want to hear about how we've got it good here compared to other countries - that only drives home the point that there's even more room for the government to become our super-nanny from cradle to grave. Soon babies will be implanted with microchips for identification, tracking and evaluation purposes, all we'll all pass by micro-scanners to enter or exit any structure, so the government can know what we're doing at all times, and of course for use against us if we commit a crime, like laughing at the current budget projections.
As for the second falsie, we're already being taxed to death, it's simply incremental death over the past years. You earn a salary, then you pay federal taxes and FICA on it, as well as state and perhaps local taxes. So you take what's left home, and you go buy groceries and get hit with another tax. If you've got a house, you're paying property taxes. Want to fish a county lake in Johnson County, Kansas? A state license isn't sufficient - you must buy a county license and a trout stamp if you want to go for those. Got a phone? Check out the insane taxes you're paying - and there is actually a tax on the tax on a portion of the long distance bill which, believe it or not, came in during the Spanish-American War of 1898:
"A good example is the federal 3 percent excise tax on telecommunications put in place during the Spanish-American War of 1898."
1898 tax link
Anyhow, so whatever goods you manage to bring home from the remainder (car, boats, etc) are quite often taxed annually by the state - or more accurately, they're supposed to be - but hardly anyone pays this bullshit tax. However, in Kansas you have to pay a yearly car tax which diminishes each year and is determined by the blue book value of the car. If you can stand to look through the KS law, it's pretty all-encompassing of personal property:
Bend over in Kansas
Educators and their unions constantly whine about getting more and more money, and yet the quality of education is getting worse. A lot of good-paying jobs are now being outsourced overseas, jobs which are not being replaced by similar well-paying jobs in this economy, and one of the affects is that the new job holders in India and other countries don't live in American communities and pay taxes there (property, sales, income, etc), which invisibily helps incrementally increase the tax burden on people living in the communities thus affected by the loss of those jobs.
I could go on and on but this is enough - my point is that we're already getting ass-burgled but since it's been relatively gradual, a lot of people don't seem to understand how pervasive government and government spending has become in our lives, and the personal control of our lives that has been encroached upon by the government by every administration for their own political purposes.
p.s. I don't want to hear about how we've got it good here compared to other countries - that only drives home the point that there's even more room for the government to become our super-nanny from cradle to grave. Soon babies will be implanted with microchips for identification, tracking and evaluation purposes, all we'll all pass by micro-scanners to enter or exit any structure, so the government can know what we're doing at all times, and of course for use against us if we commit a crime, like laughing at the current budget projections.
Jazz, you make good points and yet both the Fed Gov't and most State (and maybe local) governments don't seem to be able to even balance their budgets. Taxes need to be made more simple and more fair but I think they are a necessary evil and people still seem to be able to get along pretty well with them. I don't think we're being taxed "to death".
I disagree.
The reason they can't balance their budgets is simple: they don't have to, and it's completely undesirable (and usually undoable) for them to do so. Why? Because they have to assuage the various interests that got them into power, or they have to bring home the pork to keep the local folk happy with them. It's insane - only a few years back all levels of government were flush with money, and now they're having to raise taxes and/or cut services. Why? Because they spent the surpluses for the reasons above, and didn't save for rainy days because it does them no good politically to do so. Every time good times come along, the governments at all levels create new programs, enhance existing ones, and generally spend what they've got while they've got it, and when the bad times come around, we hear the same tired BULLSHIT that they have to raise taxes at a time when citizens are already reeling. And they justify their additional spending by painting rosy pictures with out-of-their-ass revenue projections which will rise at a level sufficient not to have to raise taxes later.
There is essentially no limit to how far government will raise taxes, except that limit which keeps them from getting reelected, and the more people get conned into thinking that we need to raise taxes instead of CUTTING THE DAMN SERVICES and saving for rainy days instead of empire-building and slopping at the pig trough, the longer we'll be locked in this death-spiral.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 24, 2004 at 04:29 PM.]
The reason they can't balance their budgets is simple: they don't have to, and it's completely undesirable (and usually undoable) for them to do so. Why? Because they have to assuage the various interests that got them into power, or they have to bring home the pork to keep the local folk happy with them. It's insane - only a few years back all levels of government were flush with money, and now they're having to raise taxes and/or cut services. Why? Because they spent the surpluses for the reasons above, and didn't save for rainy days because it does them no good politically to do so. Every time good times come along, the governments at all levels create new programs, enhance existing ones, and generally spend what they've got while they've got it, and when the bad times come around, we hear the same tired BULLSHIT that they have to raise taxes at a time when citizens are already reeling. And they justify their additional spending by painting rosy pictures with out-of-their-ass revenue projections which will rise at a level sufficient not to have to raise taxes later.
There is essentially no limit to how far government will raise taxes, except that limit which keeps them from getting reelected, and the more people get conned into thinking that we need to raise taxes instead of CUTTING THE DAMN SERVICES and saving for rainy days instead of empire-building and slopping at the pig trough, the longer we'll be locked in this death-spiral.
[This message was edited by Jazz on February 24, 2004 at 04:29 PM.]
Very true Jazz. But it can't be undoable for them to balance the damn budget. If they HAD to, like other entities do, then they would. We actually didn't spend all of the extra revenue in 2000, the Fed Govt actually had a 150 billion (or so) dollar surplus. Didn't last too long though.
I agree that government spending is bloated though. I just think that the best, and maybe only, way to keep them honest is to have some kind of balanced budget amendment to FORCE them to work within a budget. Make choices. Cut spending. Raise taxes. Do something that is politically undesirable and then we'll see where the rubber hits the road. But as long as they can choose between spending, taxes and deficits they will all continue to choose the politically expedient answer of running up deficits until we and our descendants for 4 generations are literally choked to death.
A balanced budget amendment used to be a Republican idea. I was in favor of it then and I'm in favor of it now. Where are the Republicans on this issue these days anyway? If it was such a great idea in the 80's, why isn't it anymore? Where's Phil Gramm when ya need him?
I agree that government spending is bloated though. I just think that the best, and maybe only, way to keep them honest is to have some kind of balanced budget amendment to FORCE them to work within a budget. Make choices. Cut spending. Raise taxes. Do something that is politically undesirable and then we'll see where the rubber hits the road. But as long as they can choose between spending, taxes and deficits they will all continue to choose the politically expedient answer of running up deficits until we and our descendants for 4 generations are literally choked to death.
A balanced budget amendment used to be a Republican idea. I was in favor of it then and I'm in favor of it now. Where are the Republicans on this issue these days anyway? If it was such a great idea in the 80's, why isn't it anymore? Where's Phil Gramm when ya need him?
D2, I don't know where the damn Republicans are - looking at his domestic policies and spending habits you'd think Bush was a Democrat! I agree, something needs to be done, not sure that a 'balanced budget' amendment drafted by lawyers wouldn't have holes you could fit a 747 through. But those 'surpluses' supposedly at the national level were nothing but unadulterated bullshit - they simply were playing games with the Social Security Trust Fund. For crying out loud, these people won't address the Social Security problem now when they need to because it requires them to take a stand one way or the other, and they hate to do that for the most part. And that Medicare drug prescription bill that Bush approved - to his surprise, it turned out it would cost something like $540 billion when he thought it would be $400 billion.
HOW IN BLOODY HELL DO YOU OVERLOOK $140 BILLION ON A BILL AFFECTING ALL AMERICANS???
And people wonder why I am considering voting for Ralph Nader
HOW IN BLOODY HELL DO YOU OVERLOOK $140 BILLION ON A BILL AFFECTING ALL AMERICANS???
And people wonder why I am considering voting for Ralph Nader
