General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf we only eliminated all help to the poor
we wouldn't have any problems from the Sequestration.
No delays for private jets. Fix all the commuter rails from upscale suburbs to business districts. Have all the expensive lodges in the National Parks running with full staff. Make sure there are enough yacht berths. All farm and energy subsidies to agra-bussiness and big oil.
And never-never raise taxes on the rich.
All the important problems will be taken care of.
madokie
(51,076 posts)I'm sure there will be those who don't get it though
edhopper
(33,577 posts)if someone needed the emote on this they were a lost cause.
think
(11,641 posts)there are probably dozens of useless weapons systems not being built.
MattBaggins
(7,904 posts)useless my ass
edhopper
(33,577 posts)ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
RyanThomas
(23 posts)Think of the poor defense contractors!
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)One problem is that too many of our enlisted soldiers are poor. They need food stamps. What's wrong with them?
Tell me I don't need the sarcasm or irony thingy here.
RyanThomas
(23 posts)Attempting to help them would no doubt be an attack on Capitalism and Democracy. Besides, if we just cut back on feeding them and providing medical care we might be able to scrounge up enough money to invade another country. The Czech Republic maybe? It certainly sounds like Chechyna.
lpbk2713
(42,757 posts)We'd be living in paradise in no time.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)and megacorps. People who work at McDonalds, people who earn minimum wage, fly very rarely if at all.
Middle class people fly occasionally but not often.
It's big business that uses the airports the most. Yet corporations do not pay the taxes that keep up our costly security and everything else related to air travel. Here is an article on the cost of airport security.
. . . .
Yet the TSA still commands a budget of nearly $8 billionwhich is why the agency is left with too many officers and not enough to do. The TSAs Top Good Catches of 2011, reported on its blog, did include 1,200 firearms andtheir top finda single batch of C4 explosives (though those were discovered only on the return flight). A longer list of TSAs confiscations would include a G.I. Joe action dolls 4-inch plastic rifle (its a replica) and a light saber. And needless to say, the TSA didnt spot a single terrorist trying to board an airline in the U.S., notes Bruce Schneier.
According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in toll and physical damage, while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion. Mueller and Stewart estimate that government spending on homeland security over the 2002-11 period accounted for around $580 billion of that total.
Article dated Nov. 18, 2011
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-security-is-killing-us
And from the right-wing CATO Institute, the admission:
In fiscal 2011, the FAA budget will be about $16.4 billion.1 Of the total, $9.7 billion will go toward "operations," which includes $7.6 billion for air traffic control operations, $1.3 billion for safety regulation and certification, and $0.8 billion for other functions. In addition, the FAA will spend $3.3 billion in 2011 on capital investments in ATC facilities, equipment, and research. Most of the rest of FAA's budget, about $3.4 billion, will go toward grants to state and local governments for airport investments.
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/airports-atc
That is only a tiny percentage of what was spent on food stamps last year, but food stamps keep people alive. If the FAA and airport security budgets were paid directly out of taxes on airline ticket sales and totally covered by those taxes, it would make a lot more sense.
If airport customers cannot cover the costs of flying, why encourage airport use? Why subsidize the travel of people who could afford to pay more? Many of the people who fly most frequently are the most enthusiastic about budget cuts. I'm sure they won't mind.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)it seems to be the right thing to do.
We need to get our priorities straight and stand together to eliminate poverty ... I mean the poor so that we can move forward without distraction or dissent from people who don't understand that they don't matter, the people who matter, matter.
It is so simple when you don't let stupid facts pollute your dedication to austerity for the good of the people who are more good and better important.
The Middle-class are becoming rather useless, too. So, everyone in that income range should do their best to sacrifice more and lower their expectations in a patriotic way.
Follow or get out of the way.
++Good!
edhopper
(33,577 posts)Social Security, Medicare and a strenuous employment agenda (i.e domestic spending) need to be done away with or turned over to private enterprise.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Cirque du So-What
(25,938 posts)but long-term, the 1% would have to start worrying about security whenever they venture outside their cloistered communities. Eventually, their concerns could possibly include getting murdered in their sleep - not that I advocate violence in any form. But I'd understand.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Cirque du So-What
(25,938 posts)they would constantly wonder if they'd hired the correct mercenaries or allowed 'undesirables' into their midst. Helluva way to live...or die.
beveeheart
(1,369 posts)site by mistake?
edhopper
(33,577 posts)and figure it out
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Cirque du So-What
(25,938 posts)edhopper
(33,577 posts)but sometimes it ruins the joke.
Cirque du So-What
(25,938 posts)Your OP was so obviously that I hardly believed it was necessary...but there you have it.
beveeheart
(1,369 posts)world wide wally
(21,743 posts)edhopper
(33,577 posts)is the game.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)a giant game of Monopoly???
Interesting possibility, actually, since there are those who seriously contend we are actually living in a computer simulation, not the "real" Universe, whatever "real" means here.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)The Game is nearly over, but the poor still have a few pennies left, one hopes that soon the rich will have those pennies and the poor will be no more. In the final round, the rich will have to eat the rind of their dying planet to extract whatever value might remain.
The game will end with a dozen of the wealthiest people the world has ever known drinking one last glass of champagne while standing on the corpses of the rest of humanity as the earth's ability to support our form of life flickers and is gone.
The last, wealthiest few, the wealthiest the world will have ever known will die winners, but what is the fucking prize?
world wide wally
(21,743 posts)will have to eliminate the Donald because he has less money. Then the brothers will have to fight to the finish and decide a winner once and for all.
edhopper
(33,577 posts)during the Financial Crisis, with Goldman Sachs, Lehman and Bear sterns, that is actually how they played it out. With Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen working to make GS the winner.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)BethanyQuartz
(193 posts)But to avoid having to spend more on police and prisons, the poor must then be rounded up and shot. Not sure how much the burials will cost but the disposal process can be profitably contracted out. Perhaps bring in guest workers in to do the burials then hastily send them back across the border before they can poor the place up again?
edhopper
(33,577 posts)when there is a more "final solution"?
treestar
(82,383 posts)If we eliminated all aid to the poor, they would pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They would get a job. If they could not find a job, they would invent one. You know, start a business.
edhopper
(33,577 posts)hard enough, you can levitate.