My Evolving Political Beliefs and The Republican Party

[jackstar7]

Originally Posted by child of wonder

No, merely wondering about the "bills" part.

Transportation for those with lower income is a great thing. However, I'm not sure a tax credit they can spend carte blanche is the answer for that specific problem. I'd think better public transportation would be of a greater help.

So despite a study telling you that it works for something you think is a great thing, you still want to abolish it? Am I getting that right?

[RampantAndroid]

Originally Posted by jackstar7

So despite a study telling you that it works for something you think is a great thing, you still want to abolish it? Am I getting that right?

I think he actually said "It's great some people use it for that, but disgusts me other people use it to pay of their own dumb mistakes (CC debt) - let's eliminate the negative, and give the positive still."

[jackstar7]

Originally Posted by RampantAndroid

I think he actually said "It's great some people use it for that, but disgusts me other people use it to pay of their own dumb mistakes (CC debt) - let's eliminate the negative, and give the positive still."

I'm curious as to how that would be legislated. Transportation stamps? Redeemable at your local Ford dealership?

[OBLAMA2009]

your views are mainstream democratic

[Siddhartha]

Originally Posted by Jadow

Ok, this last election caused me to do some introspection and I've re-evaluated some positions I've held for a long time. Hopefully my fellow republicans can do the same.

Taxes - I used to be against any tax increases, I've thrown in the towel on that one, and don't think these changes will kill anyone. Go ahead and expire the Bush tax cuts for households over 250k, and let cap gains go up. Leave dividend rate alone. Eliminate EITC so people can't get a bigger refund than what they paid in.

Healthcare - repealing Obamacare ain't going to happen, let it go. Try to make tweaks, and common sense changes when we can. Still need tort reform.

Gay Marriage - let the states do what they want to do, it's not a federal issue. If it becomes a federal issue, just let the gays marry. I haven't really changed on this point.

Abortion - I'm pro life and will always be, but am ok with it for rape, incest, or LIFE of the mother (not "health" of the mother since that is too vague and they could say anything is for the "health").

Contraception, this was a ridiculous argument all along. people can do whatever they want, I just don't think the tax payer needs to subsidize it. The Repubs did not articulate this position well at all.

Immigration, Secure borders, create a path to citizenship for illegals, but put them in the back of the line. The first step on the path is getting them SSNs and into the tax system so they aren't part of a cash based labor black market. Don't make them leave the country like Romney said.

Defense - cut spending, reduce the number of flag officers.

Medicare and Social Security - phase in age increases, do not increase payroll tax

Deficit - cutting spending should be the primary method of reducing it, with some tax increases (as mentioned above). All for a balanced budget amendment with a cap on what % of GDP government spending is.

PBS, NPR, and the NEA - eliminate federal funding for them, they are not valuable enough that we need to borrow money to pay for them.

Are any of these radical right wing ideas? I think this would be a winning platform for repubs, and most of them are not to far off from what most repubs believe, they just need to do some tweaking IMO.

Before Nov 6, most of your positions would probably get you branded as a RINO and pushed out of the party.

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by Jadow

Ok, this last election caused me to do some introspection and I've re-evaluated some positions I've held for a long time. Hopefully my fellow republicans can do the same.

Taxes - I used to be against any tax increases, I've thrown in the towel on that one, and don't think these changes will kill anyone. Go ahead and expire the Bush tax cuts for households over 250k, and let cap gains go up. Leave dividend rate alone. Eliminate EITC so people can't get a bigger refund than what they paid in.

Healthcare - repealing Obamacare ain't going to happen, let it go. Try to make tweaks, and common sense changes when we can. Still need tort reform.

Gay Marriage - let the states do what they want to do, it's not a federal issue. If it becomes a federal issue, just let the gays marry. I haven't really changed on this point.

Abortion - I'm pro life and will always be, but am ok with it for rape, incest, or LIFE of the mother (not "health" of the mother since that is too vague and they could say anything is for the "health").

Contraception, this was a ridiculous argument all along. people can do whatever they want, I just don't think the tax payer needs to subsidize it. The Repubs did not articulate this position well at all.

Immigration, Secure borders, create a path to citizenship for illegals, but put them in the back of the line. The first step on the path is getting them SSNs and into the tax system so they aren't part of a cash based labor black market. Don't make them leave the country like Romney said.

Defense - cut spending, reduce the number of flag officers.

Medicare and Social Security - phase in age increases, do not increase payroll tax

Deficit - cutting spending should be the primary method of reducing it, with some tax increases (as mentioned above). All for a balanced budget amendment with a cap on what % of GDP government spending is.

PBS, NPR, and the NEA - eliminate federal funding for them, they are not valuable enough that we need to borrow money to pay for them.

Are any of these radical right wing ideas? I think this would be a winning platform for repubs, and most of them are not to far off from what most repubs believe, they just need to do some tweaking IMO.

Very reasonable, even if I'm more liberal (more libertarian, actually) than you on social issues... but there's one big problem with it:

In this polarized political climate, the more reasonable something is the less chance there is of it coming true.

You'd be called a RINO by your party's leadership.. or called a Republican if you were a Democrat.

[Ausm]

Originally Posted by Jadow

Ok, this last election caused me to do some introspection and I've re-evaluated some positions I've held for a long time. Hopefully my fellow republicans can do the same.

Taxes - I used to be against any tax increases, I've thrown in the towel on that one, and don't think these changes will kill anyone. Go ahead and expire the Bush tax cuts for households over 250k, and let cap gains go up. Leave dividend rate alone. Eliminate EITC so people can't get a bigger refund than what they paid in.

Healthcare - repealing Obamacare ain't going to happen, let it go. Try to make tweaks, and common sense changes when we can. Still need tort reform.

Gay Marriage - let the states do what they want to do, it's not a federal issue. If it becomes a federal issue, just let the gays marry. I haven't really changed on this point.

Abortion - I'm pro life and will always be, but am ok with it for rape, incest, or LIFE of the mother (not "health" of the mother since that is too vague and they could say anything is for the "health").

Contraception, this was a ridiculous argument all along. people can do whatever they want, I just don't think the tax payer needs to subsidize it. The Repubs did not articulate this position well at all.

Immigration, Secure borders, create a path to citizenship for illegals, but put them in the back of the line. The first step on the path is getting them SSNs and into the tax system so they aren't part of a cash based labor black market. Don't make them leave the country like Romney said.

Defense - cut spending, reduce the number of flag officers.

Medicare and Social Security - phase in age increases, do not increase payroll tax

Deficit - cutting spending should be the primary method of reducing it, with some tax increases (as mentioned above). All for a balanced budget amendment with a cap on what % of GDP government spending is.

PBS, NPR, and the NEA - eliminate federal funding for them, they are not valuable enough that we need to borrow money to pay for them.

Are any of these radical right wing ideas? I think this would be a winning platform for repubs, and most of them are not to far off from what most repubs believe, they just need to do some tweaking IMO.

Fuck that raise the cap from 110K and that would solve any problem of future funding.

[quest55720]

Originally Posted by Jadow

Ok, this last election caused me to do some introspection and I've re-evaluated some positions I've held for a long time. Hopefully my fellow republicans can do the same.

Taxes - I used to be against any tax increases, I've thrown in the towel on that one, and don't think these changes will kill anyone. Go ahead and expire the Bush tax cuts for households over 250k, and let cap gains go up. Leave dividend rate alone. Eliminate EITC so people can't get a bigger refund than what they paid in.

Healthcare - repealing Obamacare ain't going to happen, let it go. Try to make tweaks, and common sense changes when we can. Still need tort reform.

Gay Marriage - let the states do what they want to do, it's not a federal issue. If it becomes a federal issue, just let the gays marry. I haven't really changed on this point.

Abortion - I'm pro life and will always be, but am ok with it for rape, incest, or LIFE of the mother (not "health" of the mother since that is too vague and they could say anything is for the "health").

Contraception, this was a ridiculous argument all along. people can do whatever they want, I just don't think the tax payer needs to subsidize it. The Repubs did not articulate this position well at all.

Immigration, Secure borders, create a path to citizenship for illegals, but put them in the back of the line. The first step on the path is getting them SSNs and into the tax system so they aren't part of a cash based labor black market. Don't make them leave the country like Romney said.

Defense - cut spending, reduce the number of flag officers.

Medicare and Social Security - phase in age increases, do not increase payroll tax

Deficit - cutting spending should be the primary method of reducing it, with some tax increases (as mentioned above). All for a balanced budget amendment with a cap on what % of GDP government spending is.

PBS, NPR, and the NEA - eliminate federal funding for them, they are not valuable enough that we need to borrow money to pay for them.

Are any of these radical right wing ideas? I think this would be a winning platform for repubs, and most of them are not to far off from what most repubs believe, they just need to do some tweaking IMO.

I basically agree with this completely except on contraception. I just see it much cheaper to give out birth control than to have tax payers pay for a kid for 18 years. Birth control is dirt cheap these days anyways. The problem is the GOP will go in the other direction and double down on the extreme wing of the party.

[buckshot24]

Originally Posted by quest55720

I basically agree with this completely except on contraception. I just see it much cheaper to give out birth control than to have tax payers pay for a kid for 18 years. Birth control is dirt cheap these days anyways. The problem is the GOP will go in the other direction and double down on the extreme wing of the party.

Are you going to force women to take the pills?

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by buckshot24

Are you going to force women to take the pills?

How's the job hunt going?

[nehalem256]

Originally Posted by JEDIYoda

your position is one that just keeps on giving to us Democrats.....

So one should support laws based on buying the votes of traitors and illegals rather than what is right?

[Pr0d1gy]

Taxes - dividend rate is one of the major issues with taxing the wealthy. %15 is close to what a lot of counties charge for retail sales tax....wtf

Healthcare - well, if the private sector would have shown any interest in insuring the workforce this would not have been necessary. As usual, they would rather pass the cost off to taxpayers via the government and then cry about it after the gov finally does something about it.

Gay marriage - welcome to the 20th century....btw, we're in the 21st now.

Abortion - the is already a settled matter and, honestly, is a womens' issue and your input really doesn't matter....at all.

Contraception - Once again, it is part of health insurance. Stop letting a 2000 year old religion copied directly from the Eqyptian religion determine your thought process. Please.

Immigration - how about we just find and punish employers who hire illegals and pay them under the table? Also, we should not offer public assistance to non-citizens (i.e. welfare et al). Our borders don't need securing, our private sector needs to get with the program. This is America, hire Americans or legals. East Germany secured their borders, that turned out well, huh?

Defense -gee, you think? Welcome to 1983. Look no further than our military for the largest corporate welfare system in the world.

Medicare and Social Security - leave them alone.

Deficit - who the hell is going to cut spending? The Republicans? ROTFLMFAO! Your personal saint Ronnie Reagan had one of the highest % of GDP administrations ever during his era. You see this is the problem with the party. They think they did some masterful job with the country in the 80's and 90's when they really just maxed out the credit cards, paid nothing on them (lowering taxes on the wealthy from 70-29% in Reagan's 8 years alone), and had the economy inflated by new technology (PC's, video games, cell phones, pagers, big screen TV's, etc) None of it had anything to do with what the GOP did right.

PBS, NPR, NEA - lmao You are still way off. You are trying to cut entire programs that benefit the entire country and reduce the number of flag officers in an increasingly useless military. War is a 20th century concept rendered obsolete by modern technology. If the world ever did go to war again it would kill 50+% of the population, thus military is pointless. What would they do? Shoot the radioactive gas from the fallout of nuclear winter? Get real dude.

Here is what should happen:

Taxes - dividends go up to at least 25%, taxes on the wealthy up to at least 30% & close ALL loopholes, deductions, etc outside of common sense ones like the child tax credit and such. Everyone does their part.

Healthcare - Tweak Obamacare to tax business owners half of what we are asking the people to pay for it. If it is $3000 then their employer should pay $1500 of it. Payback for decades of screwing over the working man in this country. Instant karma.

Gay Marriage - Legalized federally.

Marijuana - Legalized federally.

Abortion - Roe v Wade stands.

Contraception - provided upon request everywhere. Fuck the Catholic Church, bunch of altar boy raping douchebags. Go start another Crusade you jackasses.

Immigration - A nation of immigrants can surely find a solution to this. #1 make citizenship accessible, #2 make sure private businesses hire legals/citizens and that those people pay taxes, ALWAYS.

Defense - Cut it by at least 1/3rd to 1/2. Mostly do this by cutting all the useless jets, tanks, defense contractors, etc that have no use in a modern world where a single missile can level a city.

Medicare and SS - These aren't even on the table.

Deficit - Find some Republicans that actually will make the government smaller where it needs to be (NSA, DEA, CIA, etc etc etc...basically any federally funded Nazi sect used to dislodge the peoples' liberties and pursuit of happiness from them) and stop with the lowering taxes bullshit. Everyone could pitch in a little more, especially the wealthiest/top 2%.

PBS - Really? I mean, come on. You can't see him but Big Bird is flipping you off right now.

Your views are not radically right wing, just dated. You, and your party, are trying to hold on to the 19th century and you're going to get left behind. Many people on the right are realizing as their children come out to them, get arrested for victimless crimes, or lose their jobs that their old school view of the world is an epic failure. Hell, most of the Republican I know are atheists, yet the party continues to try to govern through God.

The right does not need to move to the left, it needs to move into the 21st century and the young Republicans in office and running lately seem all too happy to remain stuck in the party's 19th century ideology.

That is why I divorced the party I was with for 30 years and voted for Obama.

[nehalem256]

Originally Posted by quest55720

I basically agree with this completely except on contraception. I just see it much cheaper to give out birth control than to have tax payers pay for a kid for 18 years. Birth control is dirt cheap these days anyways. The problem is the GOP will go in the other direction and double down on the extreme wing of the party.

(1) 20% of births in America are to women who purposefully had a kid they cannot feed. Free BC is not going to do anything for that.

(2) The reason Democrats support free BC has nothing to do with saving taxpayers money. It is about forcing the government(ie men) to pay for the choices of women.

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by nehalem256

the government(ie men) to pay for the choices of women.

An unsurprisingly stupid thing to say. Women make up 47% of the overall workforce... and contribute a similar amount of tax revenue to fund government. Government doesn't mean "men" nor does it mean "women".

[Linux23]

This is a really interesting thread I must add.

[nehalem256]

Originally Posted by zsdersw

An unsurprisingly stupid thing to say. Women make up 47% of the overall workforce... and contribute a similar amount of tax revenue to fund government. Government doesn't mean "men" nor does it mean "women".

Proof that women pay a similar amount of taxes.

And the point is to make men pay for women's choices. That some women also contribute is not the point.

But an interesting idea. Maybe only women should pay for "women's issues".

[openwheel]

You sir, are now a moderate democrat.

The Republican party has moved much further away to the right.

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by nehalem256

Proof that women pay a similar amount of taxes.

And the point is to make men pay for women's choices. That some women also contribute is not the point.

You sure you want to bring pay equity into the discussion?

"Some women" is not accurate. Women earn approximately $0.78 to the dollar earned by men. Approximately $2.1 trillion in income taxes will be collected by federal, state, and local governments in 2013. At approximately 47% of the workforce:

$2.1 trillion X 0.47 X 0.78 = approximately $770 billion in income taxes that women pay.

[nehalem256]

Originally Posted by zsdersw

You sure you want to bring pay equity into the discussion?

So you are conceding that women pay less in taxes

Sure lets bring pay equity into this discussion. It is intellectually dishonest to believe that corporations only care about profits and then will pay men 133% of what women make for the same work.

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by nehalem256

So you are conceding that women pay less in taxes

Never said they didn't... they aren't a majority of the workforce (they're 47% of it), nor are they paid the same as men for the same work ($0.78 on the dollar).

Your claim, the connotation of which is that government is overwhelmingly funded by men, is patently false.

[Jadow]

ok on the whole NPR, PBS, NEA thing, I know that's not a big issue by itself, but imagine just how many stupid pork projects and things we're funding that we shouldn't be are out there. Individually they are small, taken as a whole, it's gigantic. Let's spend 7 million to study the mating habits of owls...

Also regarding R&D money, I agree with Romney that research money should go to scientists as universities or other non-profits, not private for profit companies.

Do you think the Solyndra money actually advanced solar cell technology 1 eyota? It's govt picking winners and losers based on graft and campaign contributions.

Govt needs to STFU out of the private sector and yes I do thing that:
GM
Chrysler
Citi
Wachovia
etc..


All should have went down instead of taxpayer money paying for them to get bought out.

In the case of GM, something better would have risen from the ashes and the taxpayer wouldn't be out 50 bil.

As for the banks, plenty of those to go around, we could use a few less mega banks that can't survive on their own merit.

[buckshot24]

Originally Posted by zsdersw

How's the job hunt going?

I don't need a job.

[zsdersw]

Originally Posted by buckshot24

I don't need a job.

I thought the election results would have landed you a pink slip. Good thing you avoided that, somehow.

[Ausm]

Originally Posted by nehalem256

(1) 20% of births in America are to women who purposefully had a kid they cannot feed. Free BC is not going to do anything for that.

(2) The reason Democrats support free BC has nothing to do with saving taxpayers money. It is about forcing the government(ie men) to pay for the choices of women.

Free Birth Control??? I wasn't aware someone was paying for my Healthcare premiums? Maybe someday when you get a job you could afford to cover mine?

[nehalem256]

Originally Posted by Ausm

Free Birth Control??? I wasn't aware someone was paying for my Healthcare premiums? Maybe someday when you get a job you could afford to cover mine?

If you are a woman then the ACA forces men to subsidize your healthcare premium.