Lazs, you seem to see a difference between the parties -- I don't. You do live in California though, which I would hardly call a normal state by any standard. Did the Democrats make the state like it is today, or did they just adapt to the demands of the people who voted for them? None of the current problems seem to have been created in secret. Did the Democrats drive businesses out of the state, or did the people?
About 39 percent of Americans own a gun. That, along with the Second Amendment, is likely enough to prevent any national ban. But, at the local level as soon as the soccer mom and middle class white-collar soccer dad become more important to getting elected than gun owners, you see a shift in Republican priorities. Politicians don’t care about guns, abortion, welfare, gas prices – they care about power and winning elections. It will not be a big bad government that makes it almost impossible to own a gun, but your neighbor who may very well be an upper middle class dentist who thinks that the Republican tax breaks are great but that it wouldn’t hurt to do something about all these guns.
When you look at most nanny laws, seatbelts and smoking for example, the biggest “Nanny” is the insurance industry. Fortunately, Republicans (just like Democrats) are immune to the pressures of big business writing big checks.
As for welfare, given the vastly greater amount spent on corporations, and the fact that they won’t add a new job or keep jobs in the US unless they are going to anyway, just exactly what do you get for your dollar as a working tax payer? Waste is waste, and if I’m wasting a dollar on one program but $10 on another I’m going to be more concerned about the $10, at least until that’s squared away. You mentioned farms.
"Large farms are sitting on wealth created by government programs," John Beghin of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University told the HPR. According to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics, in 1999, 47 percent of subsidy payments went to large commercial farms, or agribusinesses, that had an average household income of $135,000. In contrast, limited-resource farmers, who had an average household income of $9,500, received less than one percent of direct government payments.
…large commercial farmers enjoy a luxury that small farmers do not: they can afford to lobby members of Congress. Eight of the top 20 recipients of agribusiness political contributions served as members of either the House or Senate Agricultural Committees when the 2002 Farm Act, which provides commodity-based subsidies, was passed.
http://www.hpronline.org/news/2003/01/25/Cover/No.Business.Like.Agribusiness-356771.shtml
or,
Despite strong international rhetoric against agricultural subsidies, and equally vocal domestic rhetoric for a “level playing field”, the U.S.’s direct payments to agriculture are at record levels. The findings of this report suggest that these payments are not being directed to those farming operations most in need of support, but have instead gone to already affluent agricultural concerns and banks.
Farm subsidies have been and continue to be inequitably and inefficiently distributed. The report examines a range of subsidy mechanisms. The top 1 percent of beneficiaries from one program collect an average $83,000 per year and those in the top ten percent average $32,000; the typical program participant, however, receive just $1,200 annually. Recipients include fifteen Fortune 500 Companies.
http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/policy/pb6.html
The good news is that not only will one subsidy help small American farmers like ADM, but it will lead to lower quality highways and higher gas prices to boot.
An ethanol mandate will lead to higher prices at the pump for consumers.
Because an ethanol mandate will require that ethanol be blended in markets far from current production facilities, consumers will have to pay for the significantly higher costs associated with distribution.
The special blendstock for ethanol is more difficult and expensive to produce, thereby adding costs to the retail gallon of gasoline.
While ethanol has some desirable blending properties, it is currently twice as expensive as the gasoline it is intended to replace. This base cost, combined with extra transportation and blendstock production costs, will increase gasoline prices across the nation.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently estimated in their white paper on boutique fuels that an ethanol mandate could increase the cost of ethanol production by up to 15 cents per gallon.
Another study of a proposed ethanol mandate estimated the direct increased cost to consumers at $6.7 billion.
Because ethanol-blended motor fuel is taxed at a substantially lower rate than regular gasoline, a mandatory increase in ethanol use literally will cost billions in lost revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, money which would otherwise be used for road and bridge maintenance.
An ethanol mandate would create a massive income transfer from consumers and highway users across the nation to the very few companies that control almost all of ethanol's productive capacity.
An ethanol mandate, disguised as energy policy, is simply an agricultural subsidy and will not enhance America's energy independence.
http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/Resource/Government/ethanol.htm
Now, agriculture subsidies tend to be non-partisan (if you live in a farm state you support them), but it is actually more of a Democratic issue nationally (at least today). However, ethanol has been readily accepted as part of the Republican sponsored energy legislation that is in the news so much because of Cheney’s closed door dealings. Why is that? Even the leading industry trade group for the oil industry went along with it. Well, to oppose it would endanger the huge package of welfare for the oil industry that is included in the same legislation. It’s even been rumored that the Alaska drilling proposals were included just to distract attention for the boring pages of subsidies.
Almost every one of the 1,000-plus pages of the bill is dedicated to throwing taxpayer subsidies at politically favored energy industries. Now, it's no surprise that the companies which will receive this kind of gift are all for it -- or that the employees of those companies and the businesses dependent upon them are likewise charmed by the proposal. But with the federal government already a half trillion dollars in the red, can we really afford such generosity, particularly when the recipients of this tax-funded largesse are among the largest and healthiest corporations in the world?
This is not ivory tower theory -- it's hard historical fact. If throwing tax money at "neat-o" technologies that couldn't pull their weight in the marketplace were a worthwhile endeavor, we'd all be driving cars powered by "synfuels," or, alternatively, tooling around in roomy, conventional automobiles getting 75-plus miles per gallon. Meanwhile, we'd be lighting our homes with electricity generated by the neighborhood fusion power plant (or, alternatively, from nuclear power plants delivering electricity that was literally "too cheap to meter"), or would even have unplugged from the power lines completely thanks to ubiquitous, low-cost residential solar energy panels.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/04-16-04.html
The above issues I have direct knowledge of and it's not just some Internet cut and paste. I have spoken to the major industry representative (oil and ethanol), lobbyists, Congressional staffers, etc – the same people you would see on CNN or Fox news. I’ve read through hundreds of pages of the policy proposal and the various bills. Only two items are useful to us as citizens. One will decrease the number of specialty reformulated gasolines mandated in the US (no subsidy required) leading to potentially lower price hikes and maybe lower base gasoline prices (likely not though). The other will fund existing gasoline leaking underground storage tank regulations (money already there but not being spent as an accounting ploy to show a lower federal deficit). The others, as best I could tell, just help shareholders at the oil companies and ADM. They aren’t going to build new refineries or expand existing refineries because they make less money. New jobs aren’t going to be created unless they are needed, subsidy or no subsidy.
I’ll likely vote Democrat this election (at least for President) because I personally don’t appreciate the job Bush has done. I have little faith in him as a leader, and much less in his advisors, but that doesn’t mean I think Democrats are any better in the long run. I’m starting to be concerned that with business as usual in Washington we might be heading down the road of doing to ourselves what we did to the Soviets at the end of the Cold war and not through spending on social programs (unless you count Social Secuity, Medicare and Medicaid which are starting to get real scary, IMO).
And Lazs, I really am touched by your concern over my love life. My wife takes care of that now, but I do appreciate the genuine concern. By the same token, if voting Republican helps you stave off viagra for another year, then I wish you well. But be sure to demand a reach around -- they owe you that much.
Charon
[edit: I left out the voucher issue beacuse I haven't looked at it with any depth. It wouldn't prove anything to me either way other than, "Yep, Democrats just as scrwed up as the Republicans or yep, more Republican self interest at work. As for judges, Is it really worth the time for me to dig up the opposing list of nutbag right wingers who shouldn't be sitting on the bench?]
