alfadriver wrote:tuna55 wrote:Not only can you not vote out everyone corrupt in the government, but the incidence of a small, out-of-nowhere company taking on the big dogs is much higher than the same thing in politics.
I am starting to see why you and I don't agree in other posts now. Greed over money is easy to understand, to fight, and to fix. Politicians don't care too much about money, they care about power. Power is hugely different. You can't wrestle it out of their hands when they have it, and power enables them to brainwash people into thinking that they are the good guys, and they're "here to help" against those nasty (insert popular big business here).
??? We have periodic elections. If the news does its job, we find out who is corrupt, and they are voted out. That's the point of the voting.
Your problem is that you think the other reps are corrupt, and not the ones you vote for, which is flawed.
Money = power. Simple as that.
Not all politicians or govenment workers are so dedicated toward power- many are actually trying to look out for the common person, the environment, etc- I know a lot of govenment workers personally, they are all in it to help the country, not in the intrest of making power and scewing the general public.
You see the small part of corruption, and assume that it represents the entire govenment. Just like you see the small amount of people on welfare and govenment assistance who are taking advantage of it and ignoring the ones who have no short term alterntative.
I'm so sick of hearing the "govenment is useless" mantra, it makes me sick. Especially since the most recent movement started under Regan/Bush, which was also the largest expanse of govenment in most of history. What I'm starting to see is that there's bills passed to start a program, and then there's an effort to underfund that exact progam so that it looks usless, and then it can be labled as ineffective government.
Look at the roads, great system of large highways that stretch all over the country. And then funding has been slowly bleed dry so that roads and bridges are not properly maintained. Then bridges have to be closed, sometimes too late, and "government" gets blamed for not doing their job, when, in fact, the legislature didn't fund it. There's this endless fascination with lower lower taxes which totally ignores the maintenece that it takes to keep a country running- schools, roads, bridges, sewers, air, water, etc.
BTW, you still have not cited where welfare is unconistutional, whereas I posted where it is.
Eric
Eric, you make some very valid points here.
However, I would suggest that reduced funding (for projects above and beyond infrastructure maintenance) is based on the expansion and addition of more and more government programs. Even when tax revenues were at their highest historical levels (under W's tenure and attributed to his tax cuts), the money couldn't cover the budget.
Yes, the "great" expansion started with Reagan, but it has continued unabated regardless of what party has been power. Now we have an unprecedented level in government expansion. Even with large tax increases (that necessarily) will be forced on ALL taxpayers, the country cannot pay for federal excess.
Like you said, if the news media does its' job we find out who is corrupt and they are voted out.
Too bad it didn't do that before someone was elected in.
