You also struck something of a chord when you mentioned folks working 2 jobs and living in cars.
I kicked this idea around a while back.
If we “regressed” to one-job households, our economy would actually improve.
(and I'm not sexistly saying that women should stay home – ONE parent should stay home – male or female.
Reasons for this:
* 2 jobs causes more money to be spent per family member.
* 2 jobs causes doubling up of expenses (2 cars (or tickets for trains/buses), 2 sets of business attire, etc).
* More eating out to cover the fact that no one cooks at home.
* Childcare expenses (the big factor) required.
* And finally…. imagine what would happen to the labor market if half of the labor pool stayed home? Wages would increase and benefits would increase.
* Not to mention, children would actually have a PARENT raise them instead of a daycare worker, which would eliminate many of the social ills now plaguing us

I know this was off the original subject, but I though I'd get your take on it?
What say you, brother?

Now the politically liberal wish to say that “it is not that person's fault that he/she is poor, and they should be helped”. I agree. However, I believe (as do the majority of Americans) that any government boost should be just that – a temporary boost to help them get on their feet – not a way of life. That's what makes me conservative.

What makes me a Democrat (and I AM a democrat) – is that I life in a state where elections end at the primary – 85% democrat. If I were a Republican, I'd have no say in my election process. Democrats here are conservative, not like the ones in Washington.

People wear guns to meetings to reinforce their support for the 2nd Amendment. It's a sort of “here's my gun, liberal. Try to take it from me” gesture. They are not implying that they would use a weapon at a public meeting. Just remember. 95% of all common criminals are liberals – they don't like the prospect of a death sentence or actual hard time.

And racism does exist. I never said it did not (even though you implied it).
Racism exists in the minds of the ignorant, and sadly to say, many Americans.
Racism is rampant within the black community itself, as well as within the white and asian communities.
It is also prevalent within liberal politics – If you draw distinctions between people based upon race, it's easier to get them to vote for you.

Of course, if you'd turn your TV from NBC once in a while, to get varied news sources, you may have already known that.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2009/us-hr…

is just what we don't want the techno-toy totalitarians to have the power to implement on us, but of course is just the kind of scheme such people want. Vehicle weights and odometer readings aren't intrusive enough.

A vehicle mileage tax is easy to implement (it would be paid at vehicle registration or reg. renewal time and only need the same kind of odometer readings or statements made anyway during used vehicle purchases or title transfers). In addition to the mileage, the vehicle's weight could be used as a factor for tax, using Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). (Note that this would delight the anti-SUV crowd, especially those who hate larger vehicles on “principle” most of all.) (The Gross Combined Weight Rating would not apply, because trailers would be taxed separately using their own GVWRs.)

Now, the unnecessarily-complexity techno-toy totalitarian crowd would want GPS tracking, reputedly to be able to charge different levies on different roads, of different costs, or to do time-related congestion pricing, etc., but this is completely unnecessary and downright creepy when anyone reasonable thinks about it for even a moment. This is especially not what you want little green fascists like those who are hovering around ObamaCo to have the power to do.

The case can be made for the (simple!) mileage (and weight) tax in addition to a fuel tax, though a fuel tax is more than sufficient and is superior if it is done alone — it taxes pollution as well as road use and is impersonal, not intrusive (what normal people loathe most about anyone pushing a runaway GPS- or other close-monitoring vehicle use tax scheme).

The fee-bate idea (based on vehicle mileage) is popular with activists, and don't forget the mileage element of the Cash for Clunkers program. It was far from pointless when ObamaCo engineered that, wasn't it?

Congress Mulls Research Into a Vehicle Mileage Tax

An exceedingly stupid way of taxing travel without taxing gas from politicians who lack the intestinal fortitude required to tell the Citizens the truth.

Cash for clunkers was not a bad idea, the only problem with it is that politicians are not willing to take the basic idea to it's logical conclusion, if you want people to consume less gas make it more expensive and the way to do that is to tax it…

Well said. But after an incendiary summer, we've run out of Hitler mustaches

Those were largely LaRouche people, Lyndon LaRouhe was a Labor/Democrat fringenut.
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/politic…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche

Well said. But after an incendiary summer, we've run out of Hitler mustaches.

The fee-bate idea (based on vehicle mileage) is popular with activists, and don't forget the mileage element of the Cash for Clunkers program. It was far from pointless when ObamaCo engineered that, wasn't it?

“A $5.00 to $6.00 gallon of gas would resolve quite a few problems.”

It would create a lot of problems, too. But it would probably reduce discretionary travel.

I agree with the “taking Israel's side” issue, however; as well as with the deficit spending issue.

As far as the “racism” issue, I'm enought is truly enough. I'm fed up with democrats yelling “racist” every time someone disagrees with the President and openly voices an opinion contrary to his.

If you are full of crap, then I EXPECT someone to tell you that your are full of crap whether you are of African decent, Asian decent, European decent, or Martian decent.

Based on the vehicle's fuel economy, that is.

Nice pointless gimmick…

If you want people to stop driving or to drive smaller cars, just tax gasoline…

With the right tax rate, you can reduce pollution, congestion, the trade deficit and the budget deficit.(You could make Environmentalist, the Defense Conservatives and the Fiscal Conservatives happy at the same time.)

A $5.00 to $6.00 gallon of gas would resolve quite a few problems. If such a tax was implemented over a few years in a predictable fashion, people could adjust and it would not be to painful…

Based on the vehicle's fuel economy, that is. (The basis of a “fee-bate” scheme, too — subsidizing and encouraging purchases or use of more-economical vehicles and penalizing and deterring purchases and uses of less-economical vehicles — an MPG subsidy or tax penalty, in other words, depending on MPG)

Having our military is not an excuse to vastly over-price our petroleum and its products, and there's no good reason to force us to drive less or use less fuel, but reasonable pricing of all fuels that includes true military costs plus externality recovery such as for the costs of pollution (real pollution, not “greenhouse gas” stuff) and waste disposal (including solid waste, in the case of coal) makes sense.

In this light, a fuel tax makes not only better sense than a “cap and trade” government-meddling scam, but also more sense than a fuel consumption tax on vehicles, or a tax on engine displacement, or output (horsepower or torque), etc. (A separate tax on vehicle weight — gross vehicle weight rating — and miles traveled, using odometer readings, might be also suitable, in order to recover costs of road construction and maintenance, though a reasonable substitute for this is the fuel tax.)

Re: “Certainly we don't 'need' to be redirected into smaller, less powerful vehicles”

Vehicles have increased in size and power, limiting economy. But people should be free to choose…

All we need to do is price gas accurately… Since at least half of our military forces exist for no other reason than to keep the flow of OIL open, we should at least pay half of our military out of gas taxes which would probably double the price of a gallon at the pump.

Vehicles have increased in size and power, limiting economy. But people should be free to choose…

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/825…

http://www.bentlybiofuels.com/pdfs/EPA_FuelEcon…

http://www.americandreamcoalition.org/automobil…

http://www.pewfuelefficiency.org/docs/cafe_hist…

http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/publication_detail….

Rep.Joe Wilson was actually telling the truth at the time, and now Democrats have placed restrictive language in the Health care reform package as a reluctant afterthought by public demand. This was nothing to do about bigotry or racism, but the American workers and family survival. None of the business community who hire them wants their labor, but forces the taxpayer to carry the financial load. The US labor force should not have to be in competition, with people from other countries. Businesses have already offshore American jobs, because it's cheaper? So every illegal foreign national and family member should be exempt from government run health care, jobs and all the billions of taxpayer dollars secretly allocated to pay for their support. Twenty million plus illegal people compromised themselves, when they entered a sovereign nation without permission. Find out the truth at NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH and contact your politician at 202-224-3121 demanding no weakening conditions to E-Verify or any other law authored by Congress.

I'll agree with you that he was prescient in his views on energy, but otherwise it was a fairly bleak four years. I actually think a lot of the blame for that fell on Volcker, who probably handled things correctly but it was painful at the time.

Still it is customary for presidents to take the credit or blame for what happens during their term. Liberals will try to argue it one way and conservatives another, but Carter's term was what it was.