IRAQ DID NOT REPEAT DID NOT ATTACK THE US. THE US ATTACKED IRAQ UNPROVOKED. END OF STORY.

stop perpetuating lies.

We lost more lives invading and sitting in Iraq than were ever lost in the 2 towers.

We lose more people to traffic accidents and hand gun accidents each year than the 2 towers yet we do little to combat the causes of these deaths.

Please don't excuse one cause for another. We have spent enormous sums of money to promote war. IIRC that money could have provided health insurance for every child in America. Or A college education for every child.

As a country we are penny wise and pound foolish. Willing to save a penny on healthcare but spend billions on wars in foreign land and military equipment that the military doesnt want or need.
Please tell me the war on an idea has worked. the war on terror is a joke. It is an endless loop of waste.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

health insurance for every child in America. Or A college education for every child

Or Thousands of Infrastructure Projects; or or or etc etc etc.

Well, Get To IT LIbbErs. What's Stopping You? Oh Yeah. DEM Guys On Da Right. Yeah.

Libbers Ain't Gots The Cojones, NOr Leadership Skills to Get 'er Done. The Big Bad GOPTers are Stopping All The Goodness. BahWaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Only LIbbErs Know The Way To Prosperity and A Better World. Their Agenda and Vision is Sacrosanct.

Well, Other Forces Say NO.

The World Will Have To Slowly Slog On As Per USual.

Bound For IT IT. Oops Forgot. All Only In Hustlin'Hussein'sWorld

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

health insurance for every child in America. Or A college education for every child

Or Thousands of Infrastructure Projects; or or or etc etc etc.

Well, Get To IT LIbbErs. What's Stopping You? Oh Yeah. DEM Guys On Da Right. Yeah.

Libbers Ain't Gots The Cojones, NOr Leadership Skills to Get 'er Done. The Big Bad GOPTers are Stopping All The Goodness. BahWaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Only LIbbErs Know The Way To Prosperity and A Better World. Their Agenda and Vision is Sacrosanct.

Well, Other Forces Say NO.

The World Will Have To Slowly Slog On As Per USual.

Bound For IT IT. Oops Forgot. All Only In Hustlin'Hussein'sWorld

40 conservatives in the senate and a conservative majority in the House whose only interest is to constantly attempt to repeal the ACA

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Lets also look at unemployment which seems to be dropping which means more people are working and paying taxes as opposed to collecting unemployment benefits. Seems the deficit went down all on its own because people are working. Working because the economy is recovering not because of some Bush league tax cut to the wealthy.

Now just a dang minute there. Before you go say that more are paying taxes, you better have some numbers to back that up. I don't think you are going to find them.

First ask yourself what kind of jobs are being created. Industrial production jobs? Would you like fries with that jobs? Full time jobs? Part time jobs?

You also better ask yourself why are less on unemployment. Think it might have anything to do with shortening the length you can claim it?

Ask an employer with say about 50 employees if he is going to hire full time people. He will tell you no, he can't afford to, something about forcing him to buy medical coverage for his employees. So he will hire, 2 people to work 20 hours instead of one to work 40. Yes, that gets the unemployment rate down in a big hurry. Doesn't help the economy any. Doesn't generate income tax revenue. But it all looks good as smoke and mirrors.
<edit>And both of them are still looking for a job ensuring that he can hire at minimum wage!

A certain political party wants everyone to have a dead minimum wage job so they are dependent on handouts so that party can stay in power. I can't think of a more despicable plan for the country. They want the 47% to become the 99%.

Want to do something for America? Ask yourself, in China, if you invent something, is that invention a state secret? In America, if you invent something, do you send the invention to China for manufacturing?

Outsource, outsource, outsource! They are even outsourcing the government. Look at government contracts. The ones that used to require 100% made in USA. Ask your union leader why he wants money for candidates who voted this out of law.

It is easy to put up smoke and mirrors. Even easier when you are too far removed from how you have to look at the world when you are trying to make a profit for yourself. Take that requirement away from the people and you have a class of slaves.

Despicable naked grab for power.

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His wars? HIS WARS? Just what the hell do you think the response should have been after THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE from FORTY different countries DIED when a certain religious FANATICAL organization STOLE OUR PLANES with AMERICAN CITIZENS on them and CRASHED them into OUR BUILDINGS? HUH?

Iraq had nothing to do with that!

Just what the hell do you think the response should have been when MULTIPLE COUNTRIES came to the conclusion Saddam Hussein and his two sadistic sons had WMD and were planning to use them sooner or later? HUH?

A war based upon an internally created lie.
Guy, I guess you can reach any conclusion when you rewrite history to suit your right wing viewpoint

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Chris, it does bother me just a bit when I post a couple of articles about our government continuing their spending rampage in the face of the American public, in spite of our budget woes, and you consider this thread 'irrelevant'.

Mark, I am not saying that your views are aren't right, sincere, and heartfelt, I am simply suggesting that publishing them here in Seti Politics, is going to get a very narrow audience, and probably not reach the people that you would really like to target and put your case to. Although I will admit this thread has had over 2300 views.

Thanks, Chris.
I do realize this forum is not a mechanism to achieve change. And, although I feel strongly about the issues, I am not a confessed activist.
I guess sometimes, it just helps if I can vent my frustration and perhaps get a few folks to understand just how out of control our government is right now.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

What federal program in the past 60 years has, in fact, worked?

•Regulation of the Business Cycle. Until the financial crisis that began in 2008, most of us had forgotten how dependent we are on the federal government to prevent economic depressions. Since the 1930s, the government has used a variety of monetary and fiscal policies to limit the natural boom and bust cycles of the economy. Before government took on this responsibility, severe depressions were a routine and recurring problem in this country – occurring in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907 and 1929. Thanks to government intervention, we have been able to avoid the enormous amount of human suffering caused by these massive economic meltdowns – the widespread joblessness, the destitution, the rampant hunger, the disease, the riots, the hopelessness and the despair. By any measure, eliminating these depressions and this misery has been one of the greatest – and often unheralded – achievements of our federal government.
•Public Health Programs. A variety of programs run by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local Public Health departments have greatly improved the health of most Americans. For example, the scourges of polio, cholera, and smallpox have been effectively eradicated from this country – a huge achievement. And vaccination programs have reduced by 95% our risks of contracting potentially debilitating diseases like hepatitis B, measles, mumps, tetanus, rubella, and diphtheria. Federal funds spent on buying and distributing these vaccines have saved countless lives and the billions of dollars it would cost to treat these illnesses. In addition, the dedicated scientists who work for the CDC are all that stand between Americans and a potentially catastrophic epidemic imported from abroad. The most likely and worrisome threat is from a new and deadly strain of bird flu. The last deadly flu epidemic to hit the United States, in 1918, killed over 675,000 people in matter of months.
•The Interstate Highway System. Started by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s, this system now forms the backbone of long-distance travel and commerce in the United States. It makes up less than 1% of our highways, but carries almost a quarter of all roadway traffic. It has also allowed millions of Americans to move out of big cities and live in more pleasant suburban and small town environments. In addition, the interstate system has the benefit of being considerably safer than the old two-lane highways it replaced – saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even some conservatives have been forced to admit the success of this building program, with George Will calling it “the most successful public works program in the history of the world." It’s hard to imagine the U.S. without this interstate highway system, and this system would not exist at all if it weren’t for the government.
•Federal Deposit Insurance. Another government program we've taken totally for granted until recently is federal protection of our bank deposits. In bad economic times, banks are inherently vulnerable to destructive "runs" – where worried depositors all seek to take out their money at the same time. Before the FDIC, in the depression of the 1930s, over 5,000 banks went bust and millions of Americans lost their savings. The main reason we had no disastrous runs on banks (and money market funds) during the financial panic of 2008 was that government was there to guarantee those deposits.
•Social Security and Medicare. Without these two government programs, growing old would be hell for many Americans. Before Social Security and Medicare, millions of the elderly were doomed to spend their retirement years in poverty and illness. Social Security has cut the rate of poverty for the elderly by over half – from 29% in 1966 to 10% today. Not surprisingly, financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn has described Social Security as “arguably the U.S. government's greatest success.” Medicare has also been incredibly successful. It has doubled the number of the elderly covered by health insurance, so that 99% now enjoy that benefit. Without this form of “socialized” medicine, 15 million of our neediest citizens would be going without many vital medical services and many would have to choose between food and medicine. Older Americans are now living 20% longer, thanks in part to this effective program. These two programs have done more than anything else to relieve the pain and suffering of our elderly population.
•GI Bill Without this program, the middle class as we know it would not exist. The GI Bill provided government funds for 16 million World War II and Korean veterans to attend college. It allowed my father to become the first one in his family to graduate college, to become an engineer, and to go on to build a middle-class life for our family. Historian David Kennedy has remarked that “GI Bill beneficiaries changed the face of higher education, dramatically raised the educational level and hence the productivity of the workforce, and in the process unimaginably altered their own lives.”7
•Federal Housing Authority. The middle class housing building and buying boom in the United States was initially financed by cheap GI Bill housing loans and by Federal Housing Authority insurance of conventional home loans. In 1945, only 44% of Americans owned their own home. But thanks in large part to the FHA program that lowered interest rates and down payments, 63% of Americans owned a home by 1968. These homes have become a multi-generational source of wealth for tens of millions of Americans. The FHA still insures over $50 billion a year in mortgages, and remains especially important for low-income house buyers.
•Consumer Protection. In reaction to increasing public pressure in the early 1970s, government began to pass legislation to protect consumers from shoddy and dangerous products. The Consumer Product Safety Commission remains the key agency enforcing these laws. The need it fills is still a vital one – products kill over 20,000 consumers a year and injure over 25 million more. It would be far worse if the CPSC did not recall hundreds of products every year. It is estimated that its activities produce $10 billion in savings on the health care bills, property damage, and other costs associated with these defective products.
•Anti-Discrimination Policies. Since the 1960s, policies like the Civil Rights Act and Title IX have chalked up impressive gains in decreasing discrimination against minorities and women. Racial segregation in hotels, restaurants and other public facilities has been eliminated. Housing discrimination and workplace discrimination, while not completely eradicated, have been substantially reduced. College enrollment for minorities has greatly increased, jumping 48% during the 1990s alone. In terms of gender, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment have decreased and record numbers of women are now attending colleges and graduate schools. There is still room for improvement – particularly in the area of equal wages – but it is clear that these policies have made substantial progress in eliminating racist and sexist practices that had existed for hundreds of years.
•Clean Water and Clean Air Programs. America’s water and air are significantly cleaner than they were in the 1960s, thanks to federal legislation. The levels of four of the six air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act – nitrogen dioxide, smog, sulfur dioxide, and lead – have been reduced dramatically, by an average of 53%. The quality of the air has significantly increased in virtually every metropolitan area in the U.S. The Clean Water act has been similarly successful. When it was passed in 1972, only one-third of the nation’s waterways were safe enough for fishing or swimming. Today that has doubled to two-thirds. And while only 85 million Americans were served by sewage treatment plants in 1972, that figure has now risen to 170 million.
•Workplace Safety. Businesses love to complain about the rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and sometimes its policies have been a bit overboard – but it has clearly been very effective in greatly increasing the level of protection for American workers. In 1970, the year before the creation of OSHA, 22,000,000 people were injured on the job and 14,000 died from job-related injuries. Since then, OSHA has helped to cut occupational injury and illness rates by 40 percent. Even more important, between 1980 and 2002, workplace deaths fell from 7.5 per 100,000 workers to 4.0. Particularly impressive has been its success against brown lung disease among textile workers, which has been virtually eliminated.
•The Military. Even Rush Limbaugh, who has never met a government program that he likes, admits that the U.S. military is a great success story. Although debates continue to rage over how the military should be used, there is complete agreement that our Army, Navy, and Air Force are the most effective military organizations in the world today. We have the best trained and the best equipped armed forces, and they have an unparalleled ability to effectively project military force – as was demonstrated in the two recent Gulf wars. In the case of the military, the government has clearly done an exemplary job of creating a well-working and effective organization.
•The West. Although few Americans think about this, much of the Western United States as we know it today is the creation of various federal programs. It has been that way from the very beginning, starting with government-sponsored explorations of the West in the early and mid-19th century. It continued with the federal government providing the money and troops for the depressingly efficient program of “Indian removal.” The government also sold public land to settlers for low prices and sometimes even gave it away. The railroads, which spurred so much growth in the West, would not have been built without massive subsidies from the federal government. And today, much of the farming in many Western areas is made possible by federal water projects, substantial parts of the ranching are subsidized by the artificially low grazing fees on federal property, and much of the mining is made more profitable by dirt cheap access to federal land. Cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas would dry up and blow away without the federally funded dam and canal projects that provide water to those arid regions. So it is ironic that while anti-big government sentiment is very strong in parts of this region, the West literally would not and could not exist as it does today without the sustained help of the federal government.
•National Weather Service. This government agency not only makes your life more convenient by forecasting your daily weather, it also helps to ensure the safety of planes in the air and ships at sea and it has saved countless lives with its hurricane and tornado warnings. It also just keeps getting better. It’s predictions of hurricane paths has improved by fifty percent during the past 15 years; and its forecasts of weather 72 hours in advance is now as reliable as 36-hour forecasts 25 years ago.
•Poverty Policies. This may seem counter-intuitive. Everybody knows that poverty policy is the classic example of government failure. How could it possibly be considered a success when the poverty rate is essentially the same as it was thirty years ago? The answer is that most of the policies aimed at the poor in the U.S. were never intended to get them out of poverty. They were only intended to alleviate the suffering of the poor – and studies have shown that they have been very successful in doing this.8 For example, food stamps have worked to greatly reduce hunger and malnutrition among the poor. The poor are much healthier and have more access to medical treatment thanks to Medicaid. And rent subsidies have allowed many of the poor to move out of places with leaking roofs, inadequate heat, and faulty plumbing. These three programs form the backbone of our anti-poverty efforts – their combined budgets are eight times larger than that for welfare – and in terms of achieving their stated goals, these programs have to be considered impressive government successes.
•Student Financial Aid Programs. College is getting increasingly expensive and more and more students require financial help to attend. The federal grants, loans, and work study money provided by the Department of Education form the largest source of college financial assistance, providing billions of dollars in funding each year. These programs have worked to remove financial barriers for students and thus create more equal opportunity in higher education. They have been a major factor in producing the rapid increases in college enrollment seen in the last 50 years, and they have also contributed to the increasing class and racial diversity of the college population.
•Food and Drug Safety Programs. The federal government enforces extensive rules to protect the public from tainted food and directly regulates both the meat and poultry industries. It also plays a key role in ensuring the safe use of pesticides on agricultural products, both from here and abroad. Federal authorities are also on the frontlines in combating new threats to our food system, such as mad-cow disease. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration ensures that the drugs we take are pure and effective – an enormously complicated enterprise. Every year the FDA identifies almost 3,000 products that are unfit for consumption and ensures their withdrawal from the marketplace. Americans are undoubtedly safer and healthier thanks to these government programs.
•Funding Basic Science Research. Most research on basic scientific topics – in physics, biology, chemistry, etc. – does not have immediate commercial applications and so this work is highly dependent on government funding. Federal funds pay for 80% of the basic science research in this country, through laboratory facilities in universities and in government agencies such as the National Institutes for Health. For this reason, the government deserves a great deal of credit for the important scientific and technological breakthroughs produced by these efforts. In just one area – biomedical science – basic research has provided the foundation to develop new diagnostic technologies, such as nuclear magnetic resonance machines, and new treatments for cancer, diabetes, and many other diseases. It is revealing that nearly half of the most important medical treatments in the field of cardiovascular-pulmonary medicine have their origins in basic research attempting to unravel the mysteries of the lungs, heart, and muscles – work done by scientists not working in this specific disease area.9 Beyond such practical payoffs, government-funded basic research has also made important progress in answering many of the most profound questions that have baffled humanity for centuries: What is the nature of matter and energy – and the nature of reality itself? How did the universe begin? How will it end? Are we alone in the universe? What is the nature of life – and how did it begin? The achievements of basic science in the United States have been many and stunning – and these are achievements of government as well.

you didn't ask for just one but you can see. That you presumed null answer is incorrect by a mile.

lets not forget Ike started the Interstate highway system. Nixon and reagan were for anti poverty measures. So, modern republicans are wrong

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

So, modern republicans are wrong

DEM/Libs are Looking Forward to Your Votes in '14 and '16 and for the Rest Of Your Voting Life. Enjoy Da Bacon.

May I suggest Vacation Tours to Any District in the US which is 99% for Hustlin'Hussein. Look Around, Stay Awhile and Enjoy The Progress of The DEM/Lib Agenda.

Got 100 Million Dolla Trip to Afrika? Good Will for da Future. Oh Yeah.

All Only In Hustlin'Hussein's World.

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

Paraphrasing a famous bit by dearly departed Paul Harvey.
And so, God made a Democrat....

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

You know Guy, "Current Regime" applies, on so many levels.
At the Top, the Presidential Agenda.
Here at the bottom, the tyranny of the appointed and the self anointed.
Hall Monitors and Police Force Wannabee Mods, using Freedom of Speech to quell Free Speech.
Can you hear the Echo as Free Speaking Setizens are driven off?
A 1 month term for seti mods is probably pushing it.
Beyond that you get borderline hall monitors influencing weak mods into a coordinated attack on individuals expressing genuine concerns. Resulting in banishment.

With a user base of 250,000+ there should be no problem in getting enough volunteers for a 1 month rotation for 9 active mods.

What federal program in the past 60 years has, in fact, worked?

•Regulation of the Business Cycle. Until the

ET CETERA

you didn't ask for just one but you can see. That you presumed null answer is incorrect by a mile.

lets not forget Ike started the Interstate highway system. Nixon and reagan were for anti poverty measures. So, modern republicans are wrong

Oh yeah! All wonderfully successful government programs. The ROI on every one of these programs is incalculable. We need to double, no TRIPLE funding for all these programs. We need to fund them at what ever level those appointed to run them ask for plus 75%.

Don't worry about what the constitution says. Don't worry about where the money comes from. The recipe for success is to give all the power/money/authority to government so they can take care of us.

Trust them! They know what they're doing!

Oh yeah! Why didn't we do this starting in 1776? Those darn stupid founders. They didn't know anything back then. After all, how could they have known with out an iPad and a high speed internet connection?

Soooo I point out the absurdity in your statement and you take a trip down loonie lane? You didnt ask for justification constitutionality or anything other than to quote name gov't programs that work. I name them and you get hellbent on how unjustified they are.

Screw it. Tell the local gov't you will no longer pay your vehicle license fee( which pays for roads and bridges) since its unconstitutional and you refuse to use a road or bridge anymore.

Dude take a pill. you are wrong. No big deal.
BTW and just for giggles why is the US freeway system unconstitutional?

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I do love the but but but arguements you provide.

Do remember the Document you mention is a living document. It isn't a trophy to admire but a living breathing document. It evolves and as good as it was its needed 27 little tweeks along the way. If you'd read a bit into it you'd see its almost like its alive.

heck, its miles better than the Texas constitution which basically states: Texas is a state. Everything the Texas Gov't wants to do has to have an amendment to its constitution.

And my last word. If the programs you so abhor are unconstitutional why haven't they been struck down by any court in the US. Seems that the SCOTUS would have the last word on constitutionality and yet unlike you they don't currently have a problem with any of the programs I made mention.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

And my last word. If the programs you so abhor are unconstitutional why haven't they been struck down by any court in the US. Seems that the SCOTUS would have the last word on constitutionality and yet unlike you they don't currently have a problem with any of the programs I made mention.

Because they didn't go to the Guy school of constitutional law?

Why don't we ask Guy to cite us a ruling and then have him pull up all the material for and against that SCOTUS had (it is all published, including the oral argument) as well as the decision and tell us specifically where the court made the error in logic. Should keep him busy for a while and also very educational. It may be he finds the error is Marbury v. Madison and SCOTUS really has no jurisdiction! :)

Of course if he finds a material error, he can run to the ACLU and file suit. It is what the ACLU is there for. To protect Americans who feel aggrieved by their government.

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I would find it humorous if he asked that liberal bastion of freedom for any help

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope