Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Cost Analysis - Republican Style	Bradd	09/20/05
Estimated costs for Katrina - 200 billion dollars. But George says we must cut programs to finance it. Estimated tax cuts for the truly needy multi-millionaires over the next 4 years - 336 billion dollars. Hey, George, how about cutting that 336 billion dollar welfare program for the richest 1 percent? They'll probably just keep popping out babies with all that money.
Clarification/Follow-up by Bradd on 09/20/05 4:03 pm: Of course, it would. Cogent arguments are welcomed. I don't have a pipeline to absolute truth - who does? Well, maybe some true believers do, but not I. Clarification/Follow-up by Bradd on 09/20/05 4:25 pm: I chose "add without notifying anyone" because that is my understanding how a clarification gets on the main page, and not simply on the page of the replier. I could be wrong. (Are you nitpicking?) You still haven't presented a cogent argument, although I grant you these pages are not suitable for deep analysis of difficult issues. It is not easy to give a brief (soundbite?) answer, but your ad hominem is worse than no answer at all.
Answered By		Answered On
tomder55		09/21/05
Lower tax rates enacted under Bush resulted in revenues that have grown more than 16 1/2 percent for two straight years.I agree that tax cuts across the board would be a better solution in that top heavy cuts for the wealthy are not a sufficent stimulus for the economy . What we need in N.O. is to not let it devolve into a pig roast . There is a real danger of turning the relief effort into a regional version of the BIG DIG in Boston. A temporary easing of regulations to expidite the process would make the project less costly and would speed up the rebuilding .It's similar to a move taken in California after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, when Gov. Pete Wilson suspended regulations and laws that would have made it difficult to rebuild damaged roads. In recent years, environmental groups filed lawsuits under the National Environmental Policy Act that helped block needed improvements to levees in Louisiana.Congress should review these laws that are supposed to protect people, but actually increase their danger. I was disappointed yesterday in the Federal Reserve. There was no justification for the rate increase thety did yesterday .We need to keep the economy going at this time . "Private capital, entrepreneurs, small business people are going to have more to do with how the coast comes back and how southeast Mississippi comes back than all the governments in the world," Gov. Haley Barbour of Miss. recently said . Bush has already pledged to make New Orleans and other Katrina-ravaged areas federal "opportunity zones."He knows that an opportunity zone for the whole region will attract capital and encourage investment in job-creating businesses . Incentives should also be added into the plan to increase private ownership of homes. Yes ;there is plenty of wasteful spending in legislation passed withing the last year alone . The budget is $ 2 trillion .Not all of it is needed spending .There are bridges to nowhere in Alaska in the highway bill(about $25 billion in 6000 pork-barrel projects ) ;there are unneeded subsidies in the agriculture bill The United States pays out billions of dollars in subsidies to producers of cotton, corn, beef and other commodities.There are wasted expenditures to the oil industry in the energy bill ($12.3 billion) ;and the perscription entitlement should be scaled back (expected to cost $40 billion a year initially and God knows how much in a couple of decades when the yuppies retire )John McCaine recently suggested that the plan should be scrapped altogether ;and re-thought .The Congress should use it's ovesight authority to toughen efficiency laws .The Heritage Foundation economists found that the federal government spent an estimated $20 billion on overpayments last year.The Congressional Budget Office found that in 2005, 167 unauthorized programs received $170 billion. There are many programs in the federal government that duplicate each other, such as 300 different economic development programs. They can be consolidated . Bush is correct to look at spending cuts first before suggesting other funding mechanisms.

Additional Options and ratings are only visible when you login!