Has Anyone Else Completely Lost Faith In The Government?

^ I don't disagree. But billions of people around the world would love to vote for their government but can't. Just look at the Arab Spring - the major driving force was a desire of people to have a voice in their own affairs. For this reason I always vote. There is only one way to show gratitude for the right to vote, no matter how abortive things may work out practically.

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

Besides, as I see it, if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about how things work out later.

Everytime i hear that quote i automatically think about this.....

Ali G- Politics and Voting - YouTube

^ I don't disagree. But billions of people around the world would love to vote for their government but can't. Just look at the Arab Spring - the major driving force was a desire of people to have a voice in their own affairs. For this reason I always vote. There is only one way to show gratitude for the right to vote, no matter how abortive things may work out practically.

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

Besides, as I see it, if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about how things work out later.

Excellent points, but when it comes to politics, I don't really feel like I'm complaining as much as I am accepting of the fact that this is the way it's going to be. So in a sense I'm just laying down and acting indifferently.

Which is fine by me, I am a registered voter so when the time comes and I feel like I really need to input my influence on the voting process, when I actually care more about how the results of an election will affect me, well that will probably be the time I start voting again.

I don't have faith in our government, I have expectations of it. Reading all of these posts I find it ironic the people with the least faith also champion the notion that lobbying and unlimited donations are a form of free speech that should be protected.

Governance isn't about policy anymore but politics and cold hard cash in ones coffers. Keep your faith for people worthy of it.

We obviously need to break out of this pattern.

Many times, government gets involved in an issue, has great objectives and ideals, but then the results don't happen. The next step is we give that department more money since it is under funded. Again, they don't make a measurable difference, so we give them more money. Then after enough money and discretionary spending is available, there comes fraud. We catch them. Kick them out. But you know what the new guy needs? More Money.

When I was younger, I always thought capitalism was the problem and government intervention would help. Now I see that Republicans, too , have a perverted sense of "free-market" and any form of government isn't going to help.

I don't have faith in our government, I have expectations of it. Reading all of these posts I find it ironic the people with the least faith also champion the notion that lobbying and unlimited donations are a form of free speech that should be protected.

Governance isn't about policy anymore but politics and cold hard cash in ones coffers. Keep your faith for people worthy of it.

So were do we cut off access to government and donations?

Nothing is going to change until you get corporate influence out of our politician's pockets. Get rid of the corrupt politicians and get rid of the lobbyist (or put some serious reigns on it).

For too long, many of our policies and wars have been dictated by the money making machines, which has ultimately brought our country to its knees in debt.

I'm also in favor of bringing new parties out and steering away from the Republicans/Democrats. Too much bickering and grand standing is happening and it's causing serious problems in our legislation. You have parties stonewalling the others JUST so they can turn around at election time and say "SEE, he did nothing".

This quote by JR says it all.

The bottom line is, just like you can't create morality through legislation, you can't legislate or regulate an informed electorate into existence. You can regulate lobbiests, you can make term limits, BUT, if the voters don't take the time to investigate their governmental representatives (small "r"), then no amount of legislation is going to change things. Without the populous holding them accountable, lobbiests and corrupt politicians will simply find ways to manipulate and avoid the laws' and regulations' intent.

Pelosi fires back at '60 Minutes' report on 'soft corruption' - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/13/politics/60-minutes-pelosi/index.html?hpt=hp_c2)

Good example of politicians taking advantage of their power and "insider" knowledge to gain monetarily. Truly sickening and the fact that they deny it and consider it consequence is humorous to say the least. This stuff happens on Wall Street everyday, but to think it happens on Capitol Hill is just bullsh*t. Surprised they dont have some laws to discourage it.

Im gonna quote you in this thread because I think this is so important and its going to get buried in the OWS thread. Hope that’s cool….

Unfortunately I didn’t catch last night’s 60mins. I work in the financial industry and ill say that Boehner’s statement is most likely true, not just for himself but also for the vast majority of representatives. People who have a lot of money are able to get top tier advice and have access to the best type of products to invest in. I’m certain that you would be able to find conflicts of interest for any member of congress that has a 1 million invested in a taxable account were multiple Separate Account Managers are used. Regardless I don’t think Boehner’s statement rings true for every member and I would also speculate that many or most multi term members likely acted on non-public info at least once in their careers.

The problem is that regardless of how hands off people are (like Boehner or maybe like Pelosi) with their investments is that some members may not be (Bachus buying options sounds shady), but also, and just as importantly to me, since there are conflicts of interest there is the perception of wrong doing. Plus members of Congress and their aides are expressly allowed to make transactions based off of insider knowledge, which is shocking when you think about it.


What so troubling with Pelosi’s response is that shes ignoring the issue and instead just talking about the positive she has done for consumers. It almost sounds like the rationalizing people make towards Paterno's inaction. In her eyes she’s done so much good for consumers who cares if she or others do wrong every now and then. Whenever the issue is brought up in Congress they ignore it, which is rediculous considering the crap that choose to get involved in and because its soooo easy to fix. All they have to do is hold lawmakers, judges and their aides subject to the exact same standards as financial representatives and corporate officers, why would that be so bad?

I dont really think anyone expected the Super Committee to come up with anything, and i guess they techniqely have until wensday but this is still just sad. I remembering hearing about a month ago that the automatic defense cuts that would happen are actually just a ploy and a gamble by the GOP. They wrote them in such a way that they can be reversed in 2013 (when the cuts actually start taking place) on the idea that the GOP will win the white house in 2012. It has allowed the GOP to play “harder” since they think they are going to win 2012 and are not very concerned that the cuts will actually ever take place.

Also what I find hilarious in a very sad/unfortunate sense is that the mandatory reduction of 1.2 trillion isn’t really 1.2 trillion since it takes into the cost of interest of the over spending. They clearly are calling it 1.2 trillion to trick us into thinking they are doing more then they are actually not even doing.


By law, 18 percent of the automatic savings are assumed to come from interest costs the government would save from reducing the debt. If the Super Committee fails completely, out of the $1.2 trillion in automatic savings, $216 billion would be assumed interest savings.

Also just as “hilarious” is being reminded that our politicians cant come up with 1.2 trillion, which i actually is 984 billion, to cut from 44 trillion over 10 years.


Mind-boggling to many is the fact that the $1.2 trillion in cuts over 10 years is a fraction being applied against a budget that calls for $44 trillion in spending over the same time period.

No wonder the American people and rating agencies have lost faith

Congress May Try Blocking Cuts If Debt Panel Fails | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/21/congress-may-try-blocking-cuts-if-debt-panel-fails/)

I dont really think anyone expected the Super Committee to come up with anything, and i guess they techniqely have until wensday but this is still just sad. I remembering hearing about a month ago that the automatic defense cuts that would happen are actually just a ploy and a gamble by the GOP. They wrote them in such a way that they can be reversed in 2013 (when the cuts actually start taking place) on the idea that the GOP will win the white house in 2012. It has allowed the GOP to play “harder” since they think they are going to win 2012 and are not very concerned that the cuts will actually ever take place.

Also what I find hilarious in a very sad/unfortunate sense is that the mandatory reduction of 1.2 trillion isn’t really 1.2 trillion since it takes into the cost of interest of the over spending. They clearly are calling it 1.2 trillion to trick us into thinking they are doing more then they are actually not even doing.



Also just as “hilarious” is being reminded that our politicians cant come up with 1.2 trillion, which i actually is 984 billion, to cut from 44 trillion over 10 years.



No wonder the American people and rating agencies have lost faith

Congress May Try Blocking Cuts If Debt Panel Fails | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/21/congress-may-try-blocking-cuts-if-debt-panel-fails/)

The idea that the GOP really cares about budget deficits and national debt was laughable with their proposals from the get-go. Part of me wishes they gain control over everything so they can show us how they can right this ship by not cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Defense spending and not increase revenue.


Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Blog Archive | Republicans’ Latest Supercommittee Offer: $181 in Spending Cuts for Each $1 in Revenue Increases (http://www.offthechartsblog.org/republicans-latest-supercommittee-offer-181-in-spending-cuts-for-each-1-in-revenue-increases/)

Republicans on the supercommittee have made a new offer that would reduce deficits by $640 billion over the next decade, according to news reports (here (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEBT_SUPERCOMMITTEE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-18-15-20-48) and here (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/18/super-committee-headed-for-failure/)). The Republican offer consists of roughly $542 billion in spending cuts and $3 billion in revenues, meaning the ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases in the plan is 181 to 1.

These measures would also produce nearly $100 billion in debt-service savings. Democrats promptly rejected the new Republican offer as unbalanced.
When one includes the $900 billion in discretionary spending cuts already enacted in the Budget Control Act, the plan’s total deficit reduction rises to about $1.445 trillion, and its ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases rises to 481 to 1.
That's not a good faith negotiating, that's sabotage. And in light of their desire not to close carried interest loophole (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/opinion/07kristof.html) it is downright evil.

[H]ere’s how [carried interest] works. These fund managers are compensated mostly with a performance bonus of 20 percent or more of the profits they make. Under this carried interest loophole, that 20 percent is eligible to be taxed at the long-term capital gains rate (if the fund’s underlying assets are held long enough) of just 15 percent rather than the regular personal income rate of 35 percent.

This tax loophole is also intellectually vacuous. The performance fee is a return on the manager’s labor, not his or her capital, so there’s no reason to give it preferential capital gains treatment.

The idea that the GOP really cares about budget deficits and national debt was laughable with their proposals from the get-go. Part of me wishes they gain control over everything so they can show us how they can right this ship by not cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Defense spending and not increase revenue.


Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Blog Archive | Republicans’ Latest Supercommittee Offer: $181 in Spending Cuts for Each $1 in Revenue Increases (http://www.offthechartsblog.org/republicans-latest-supercommittee-offer-181-in-spending-cuts-for-each-1-in-revenue-increases/)

That's not a good faith negotiating, that's sabotage. And in light of their desire not to close carried interest loophole (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/opinion/07kristof.html) it is downright evil.

You are absolutely right. It has been a fraud since the beginning, and both sides knew it the entire time. The republicans set this whole debt reduction thing up with the intent on not making any real concessions and then reversing any military cuts after they win the white house in 2012. Its ridiculous.

You know what would have worked. You make check points so each month they have to cut a tangible (not including interest) 75 billion or a tangible 100 billion in automatic cuts will happen, with the bulk of the cuts to come at the very end. Lets say at the very end there is still 500 billion to cut, well you make it so that if both sides cant come up with the 500 billion the automatic cuts are still the same as they currently are, the 984 billion. So at the very least they have to cut 984 billion, but if they dont work together they will be forced to cut a lot more. Theyre acting like kids so they should be treated as such.

And seriously do you really care about this carried interest “loophole”, I mean its maybe 2 billion per year in additional revenue. That’s 0.2% of the 984 billion they need to cut. Plus it actually sounds pretty fair when you look into it. It’s just a capital gains tax when selling the ownership of an asset someone received when they met certain performance measurements. Based on how the current capital gain system is set up that sounds pretty fair to me. The thing i would be for it that they dont get automatic vested 1 year long term treatment. So they acutally have to hold it for a year after they earn it or else its taxed at the short-term cap gains rate (income).

After getting our economy on track and balancing our budget (via cuts or new revenues) the most important thing to me is scraping our entire tax code and coming up with something that’s fair, transparent/simple and loophole free. Until that happens individuals can not be treated fairly.