There is only one thing McCarthy, and the other hardline Republicans, seem to believe in as policy, no taxes. Fair enough. Let us all just stop paying them if that is what he and his party want to see. 

Frankly, I'm tired of seeing my taxes go to a failed war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am tired of seeing my tax dollars build prisons while school budgets are wiped out. I am tired of seeing a failed war on drugs fill prisons and reward only gun manufacturers. I am tired of my tax money going to reward a handful of commodity traders and processors while food costs go through the roof. I am tired of seeing large corporations getting my tax money in redevelopment areas while local shopkeepers are closed out by controlled rental practices from giant real estate conglomerates. 

Yes, Kevin McCarthy, I agree that now is the time for all Americans to act and refuse to pay anymore taxes. Private property is private property and the land owner should feel free to do what he damn well feels like doing with his own property. If I want to pour toxic waste down my drain and into the sewer lines or onto the curb, why not? We allow huge corporate mining, chemical, oil and drug manufacturers to do the same without any major culpability. Let's have ourselves a tax free US. Teachers can become contract workers for citizens that can afford their services, and we taxpayers can demand our tax money plus interest back from those public pension funds.

Enough is enough.

Unless I'm mistaken, the hardline Republicans want more money to go towards infrastructure and small business promotion.  Infrastructure helped pull us from the depression and a bear market is a great time to do it, when prices are low and people need the work.  Instead, the complaint is that the money is being spent bailing out large real estate and investment firms to move their toxic mortgage securities that made them billions and spread the losses out to the general public.  The question isn't just do we spend money or do we not, it's where do we spend it?  Where is the value in capitalizing the gains and socializing the losses of the bad decisions these last few years, especially when it is the same big government policies that got us into this mess in the first place.  What do you expect when the government not only offers incentives to provide loans to unqualified borrowers, but begins to report institutions that do not, with many "smart" people including former democrat and republican presidents touting it as the miracle union of financial prosperity and equal opportunity?  Our esteemed government was the first source of this bleeding cash which got funnelled through countless middlemen and eventually pieced into derivatives and sold into megafunds like 401k accounts and government pensions (also tax supported by our wonderful govt giving us very little control over where the money goes or to what it is invested).

Everybody blames capitalism, but guess what, socialism is still capitalism, it's just who controls the capital.  I know many capitalists that have been grinding and gnashing their teeth the last decade as big government control of capital threw every other rule out the door.  CFO's were told to follow suit or get crushed by the competition.  Why risk your own money anymore?  If the rest of the world was doing dandy, that would be one thing, but the indexes have plummeted around the world.  In my humble opinion, it goes back to one thing.  We have to regain the sense that this is our money.  When liar loans are being funded by the treasury, that's our money.  When trillions get pumped into buying toxic loans and paying down principal, that's our money.  When we billions every  year get lost to red tape and line the pockets of the friends and finaciers of our politicians, that is our money.  When big finance gets back into the business of making billions off of our lifetime of debt, that is our money.

It's all about 'da benjamins, and the government is in control of the money at point A and B.  Along the way, individuals are losing the sense of what their dollar means and just signing their lives away to these mega finance corporations.  These policies leave us none the better, and the middle men make unbelievable amounts of money aong the way.  Now that our government has failed us, we are holding hands to the tune of marching bands and songs of hope, giving them further control of the capital.  What makes this time around any better?  Obama?  He was as intertwined with all this crap as the rest of them, and that came up during his senate run.  Interesting it never came up during the campaign, credit David Plouffe and the media for that one.    The big lie is that somehow, by signing our lives over to big government and big finance (it's comrade in arms), we are looking our for the little guy.

After we spend this money bailing out our neighbors so they can keep the house they paid too much for, we'r'e going to ask, what about clean energy solutions that work, what about our ancient railways, what about our deathtrap bridges and tunnels?  When the resources get tight, and it is too late to make that investment, how well off will we be then?  We need to spend the money on the future and create new sources of wealth, not wasting our money trying to stich up a dead horse.

That's the question we should be asking.  Don't let this conversation digress into the same old cliche "Republicans want to spill chemicals into children's water, get rid of education and hand them guns to shoot people so they will fill our prisons" and "democrats are a bunch of terrorist loving hippies" because then the real question of where our money is going is lost.  Unfortunately, for most of the population, the two stereotypes above are all that matter.

Domer82, as of yesterday the House Republican proposal was to eliminate all spending, except for an extension of unemployment benefits, and spend out the same dollars in tax cuts. However, I think that was a rhetorical piece, not a proposal they expected to have a hearing. In the actual floor debate, the Republicans criticized the package for being wasteful spending, and for being delayed spending.

Republicans don't have the power to stop the spending.  The realistic question is how to best distribute the money.  Most of what I wrote is my opinion, I can only comment on some of the sound bites I've heard the last few days and what I've heard in interviews.  Fortunately, I still have a job during the day and graduate classes at night so my biggest worries are making sure I stay ahead of my peers in both.

I stand firm that if we do spend money, it needs to go towards the future, not the past, even though nationalizing the banks is a tempting prey for any proponent of big government.

Thank you, Citybeat!

Domer82, it is not about sterotypes. It is about actions. I agree that name calling solves nothing. I am sick of hearing about Republican tax cuts when the deficits are completely out of control at every governmental level. Let us compromise and find what our real priorities must be, and agree to pay a fair share from all economic quintiles to make those priorities happen. 

Jon Stewart commented last night that why not give the American debt holders a big chunk of the bailout money to pay off their loans.The banks ultimately will get the money, and their loans will be whole. The bond and security paper will be good. Taxes could be apportioned out over time to repay the debt to the government from the citizens.

It sounds workable to me, but will never happen. It will never happen because our country has turned itself on its head and runs by thinking that only the few on Wall Street should be given the money and it will somehow trickle down to the common man. It has never worked and today America looks about the same as it did during the first Gilded Age where monopolists ruled the planet.