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In American politics, it is diffucult to reach a consensus. Most issues and elections (I said most) rairly exceed 55/45%. We agree to disagree, and that's what makes this society great.

It's common for people to be human. I once was a nucular treknishun, but I deesided 2 bee ay pergekshunisst innstead.

On the pronunciation issue, it's NOO-CLI-LER which makes me hit the roof. And W, a Simpsons fan? I suppose his daughter's adolescent, err... shall we say 'assertion of independence' might have led him to sympathise.

Economics:
- In August, Bush blocked $5.1 billion for homeland security, which included improved healthcare and fire fighters communication equipment.
- He cut funds for mine safety.
- To offset revenue losses from Bush's tax cut (which almost everyone agrees had absolutely no positive impact on the economy), he will have to veto $5 billion per business day for the next year.

Taxes:
- Who is getting the tax breaks? Mainly the rich: Bush is reducing the top bracket (over $297,000 maried) and wants to eliminate the estate tax. People make a big deal out of this, but did you know that only estates larger than $2 million pay the estate tax?

- Summer 2000: Bush claims the tax cut is affordable.
- Spring 2001: Bush pushes tax cut through Congress. Claims a $trillion reserve.
- Summer 2001: Just weeks after tax cut passes, officials reveal that tax revenues are way down, but still claim that the overall surplus is greater than the social security surplus.
- October 2001: Bush says, "lucky me, I hit the trifecta," and claims that the recession, national emergency and the war let him off the hook in terms of keeping the budget balanced. He claims to have made this exception to his promises known during the 2000 campaign, but there is no record of him having done so.
- November 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daneils admits the overall budget, not just Social Security will be in deficit for fiscal 2002.
- July 2002: White House admits fiscal 2002 deficit will be $165 billion with a non-Social Security deficit of $322 billion. Claims budget will be back in surplus by 2004.
- Aug 2002: Congressional budget office says that the 2003 deficit will be twice that the Administration claims and will be until 2006.
Goldman-Sachs predicts $100 billion deficits each year until 2010.

IRAQ:
Halliburton (Cheney's company) sold more equipment to Iraq than anyone, $23.8 million (or was it $billion?) , although they did not seek new contracts when these first contracts expired.
1980's: US gave his army satellite intelligence to Iraq so that it could use chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers.
1988: Hussein used nerve & mustard gas aginst Kurds, Reagan blamed Iran.
1978-1988: we shipped seven strains of Anthrax to Iraq.

Also: A 1994 study by the Pentagon said that war with North Korea (which was proposed at the time) would have caused 100,000 US military casualties.

But listen up. My grandmothers estate was valued at 1.6 million dollars. Why then did taxes and probate costs eat up all but 0.3 million dollars? Her husband worked hard building ships for our military. He saved every penny and invested wisely. That money was for his family, not the government.

He paid his taxes on all of it. She paid all the taxes on it after he died. The taxes were paid, and not a penny of it was held in any trust to avoid taxes. The taxes were paid, then the remains invested. The earnings were taxed, and the remains invested.

That money was taxed. Left to the family. And then taxed upon her death, then taxed upon the transfer.

But then that's fair right?

What of my uncle? He owns a ranch in Nevada. He has a bad heart. When he dies, the government will swoop in and claim an amount, and once again, assets will have to be sold to pay the tax debts. Just as it was with my grandmother's estate. There was not enough money to cover the tax debt, and all assets had to be sold for much less than market value to cover the tax bill.

Each of the five surviving children each recieved a total of eleven thousand dollars after is was all over. This from what the goverment valued at a 1.6 million dollar estate.

This comes from years of doing it fairly and paying the taxes.

So why is this fair?

So you understand, most teachers make more than my uncle does. But I know his land, albiet in the middle of nowhere, will probably be valued at such a high price that the family will have no way of paying the tax bill. I hope they already learned thier lesson to not trust the goverment on this issue, and leave it in trust to his children.

Dave

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Back to Martin, I decided I don't need to look for countering facts to what you have, because you have actually yet to prove that what you have is even true. If you are going to infer reference to the NY TIMES like you have, then you need to make direct qoutes and post links to the articles in question. All I could get from what you wrote was that this was your own personal interpretation of what you read. Trouble is, what is interpretation and what is fact?

If you want to post the links to the articles you read, then the rest of us can go read it as well, and gain this same knowledge for ourselves.

Dave

quote:

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Also: A 1994 study by the Pentagon said that war with North Korea (which was proposed at the time) would have caused 100,000 US military casualties.

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This is the only thing I really want to respond to, and the reason why is WHY this is here in your post? Your post is an obvious diatribe against Bush, but in 1994 Clinton was president? And at this time no one is talking about war with North Korea?

Just confused how that little snippet got in there?

Dave

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I agree that if we leave it unchecked, and allow only diplomatic means against a dictatorship, that we would be very well to just run and hide and hope we all don't get run over.

Peace, is only found by wielding force. Myriad examples exist throughout history. The cuban missle crisis is a prime one. We wanted a dimplomatic solution, not war, but we were ready to launch attacks and invasions and prepared to fight a war, IF the other party failed to see how resiliant we were in wanting a diplomatic solution.

What exactly is there to negotiate over with Saddam Hussein? We already know he will say one thing and do the opposite. Same for NK. Same with all the middle east peace accords. Do we have peace in the middle east? Aw come on, let's try negotiating a peaceful settlement one more time. It's bound to work this time.

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