DaVinci

Because the tax code is silly, the IRS is bloated. Just because it is the way it is because of x does not mean y is not true. I agree BTW. The Tax laws are insane. It should be very simple. You pay "X%" of your income to taxes. No deductions after a basic deduction for poverty that everyone gets. You could twist my arm to allow for IRA's pretax. But that's about it. So say poverty level is 15K. No one pays a dime till15K from their income and then X% is sent from their employer to Uncle Sam after that. 90% of people would not have to send in a tax return. Business returns would be a bit more difficult, but getting rid of a majority of personal returns would make the IRS much smaller. Plus we would not have the IRS going after individuals as much either. Agreed... this is the direction we should be trying to go.

Or, we could declare no guns are allowed in school.... Maybe put up a sign that says, "Gun free Zone", or something like that. We could also maybe make it a crime to carry a gun onto school grounds.... Ohhhhh we could also make it illegal to shoot someone!!!! Thats it, we have solved the problem!!! Make it illegal!!!!

Does not matter. The REASON they tried to leave is because the Federal Govt was trying to tell the States how to live. This was/is against the Constitution. You can keep saying it was slavery, but it was States rights issues. Slavery WAS a States rights issue. So the more you crow it was slavery, you just prove the point. Great question, you would have to ask them. But the point still stands, they tried to leave because the Federal govt tried to tell the States what they could and could not do. The issue (Slavery) was a plank, but it was not the platform.

Yawn.... The fact is you lack facts and the best you can do is debate semantics. Changing the context of someone else's post by selective editing is not semantics, it's intellectual dishonesty. This applies across the board, not ONLY to you. Debating semantics is intellectual dishonesty. This also applies to others, not only YOU. Keep digging, you'll soon strike oil. Keep going after the poster and ignoring the topic.... One day we might actually thing you made a point. It might happen.... If we are drunk and sleep deprived one day.

Nonsense, my parents were poor when I was growing up. My parents made bad financial choices. After my Dad starting making good money.... They still made bad choices and my Dad died poor (I had to pay for the funeral). My Mom? She died poor as well, but she was living off of my Grandfathers money and it paid for her burial. And I made PLENTY of bad financial choices. I bought skydives on credit, gear on credit, went to boogies on credit. Bought new cars... Etc. And yet, I am not poor today. Some would consider me 'wealthy'. I have more toys than I can play with and investments that make me money. In 5 years I should have my first million in liquid assets. It is about choices and making good ones, not 'fun' ones. Find another job that requires neither. I have moved several times in my life. Most times, I sell everything I can't fit into a trailer and move. Owning lots of 'stuff' means that stuff owns you. Every day you have a choice. You can make crappy decisions and stay in the same rut you are in right now. This is what most people do. They blame everyone and everything for WHY they do stupid things, but in the end THEY make the choice. Or, you can make smarter choices. For example, my car I just bragged about. Well, this weekend it went into the shop. Just taking apart the engine to look at the problem will be 721 dollars. But since I have not made a car payment in over 5 years I have a fund that is over 30K dollars sitting aside waiting for these kinds of emergencies (500/mth X 12 X 5). If the repair is too high, I'll just continue to drive it while I look for a 'new' used car and trade it in..... Saving 500 dollars a month instead of paying for a new car has given me LOTS of freedom. I have ZERO debt other than my house and I bought MUCH less house than I can afford. My wife and I both work, but we have budgeted our lifestyle that we could live on only one of our salaries. No car debt (1000/mth positive), no credit card bills, smaller house than we could of afforded (2000/mth positive)... and on and on. Others bought the 400K dollar house and are driving two new BWM's. They made different choices. When these couples ask how we can afford to travel the world.... I point at the new shiny BMW's in their driveway, and our nice, but older cars in the street. You can blame everything around you, or you can decide that YOU decide how to spend your money. The biggest reason people are poor, they make bad choices and those choices are often because they do not feel they can do anything about it.... So they buy the new smart phone as soon as it comes out (I have a 4S), they buy a new car (2006), and they spend money on alcohol and 'fun'. They talk themselves into helplessness. The biggest problem is education. People never learn they can make better choices. Even if they never 'move up to the big leagues', they can still do better by making better choices.

In addition to Social Security and the soon to be ACA expenses... Sure. You seem to think I think the military is the right size. Having been in the Military I saw plenty of waste and would have no issue getting rid of that, and other waste. Now, would you say the same of YOUR favorite programs?

I was thinking more along States rights... For example when Romney wanted to basically make the ACA in MA. I think that was a bad idea, but legal. I think the US Congress making the ACA nation wide was stepping all over the States rights issue. Yep. But the EPA for example was more executive fiat (Nixon I think). We have more Czars than Russia it seems now. The ATF and IRS are bloated agencies. The NSA domestic spying programs. There are plenty of places to cut the fat.... Some military expenditures. Handouts to other Countries. Two wars. Welfare programs that seem to never end. We all most likely know at least one person who is "Disabled" but has zero impact from them not being able to work. These are issues.

I don't think you understand what a "zillion" is.

Yes and Scalia listed examples... Felons owning weapons, not carrying in sensitive areas, not carrying dangerous and unusual weapons. But that does not fit for a non-felon with a pistol trying to carry on the street. A guy owning a handgun in his house. Yet Obama has been against exactly these things. And Obama was against these exact things... So his claim of the ACA being "settled law" to be left alone is hypocritical at best.

"It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security. It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system. It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause. It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood. Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England." Again, removing power from the States.... Using Slavery as the catalyst. GA: "They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. " People claim that the South left over States Rights issues and the North tried to keep the Union whole. Well, that means it is a States right issue. And again, that does not mean slavery was not the rally cry, but the very act of the North trying to force the South about slavery is why the South wanted to leave.... A States right issue.

What you want is a guarantee of sorts that the added revenue won't be used to fund pet projects of legislators. I think a considerable percentage of people (of those paying these taxes in the first place) would agree to pay more, but for their sense that Congress will always spend every dollar plus another dime or two. Kind of... What I really want is the Federal Govt to be limited to the powers that the Constitution granted it. I want reckless spending cut and ridiculous programs dropped. Then after spending cuts are made, raise taxes to pay for the smaller govt and pay off the debt. Your point is valid that I am not for higher taxes as long as I know the Govt will just increase spending. I might even be OK with an increase in taxes that is ONLY allowed to be spent on the debt. But, I know that it will not work. Govt will send that money to the debt and then just spend more and take out more loans.

Yeah, it kinda is. Shall not be infringed. So when you try to 'infringe' on it it is against the 2nd. Obama has said that the Congress should NOT take that action since it was "settled law". Well, the BoR is pretty "settled"

You have the dates of the community reinvestment act off. ***The budget battle that recently concluded temporarily was caused by teabaggers who decided to try to nullify a law that was duly passed by Congress and found to be Constitutional by a severely right leaning Supreme Court. And yet Obama does the same thing when it comes to gun rights. 222 years is longer than 2 BTW. You need history lessons. Again, just look at Obama's attack on the 2nd Amendment. I assume you have told Obama to leave the 2nd Amendment alone then? If you make me "invest" 15% of my salary for most of my life.... Yeah, I will try and collect as much "return" as was stolen from me. I'll make you a deal, you make it so I do not have to give my money away, and I will never draw from the pool. Deal? Or do you need people like me to support people like you? The defining characteristics of an LWL is someone who can't discern fact from fiction, and believes things that are patently ridiculous, like the former head of several large corporations does not know how to run a budget. Or how a guy that had a Masters from Harvard is somehow "stupid". You're making this apples to apples like Obama tried to shut down the government to get his way on gun laws. He did not do that. Not so. No, but he did claim the ACA is "settled law" and we should just accept it. Yet he does not follow that same advice on the 2nd.

Yawn.... The fact is you lack facts and the best you can do is debate semantics. Changing the context of someone else's post by selective editing is not semantics, it's intellectual dishonesty. This applies across the board, not ONLY to you. Debating semantics is intellectual dishonesty. This also applies to others, not only YOU.

You normally buy more than you need when you use credit... Human nature. I'd be fine with some raises in taxes.... Provided it was not just going to be pissed away like it currently is. We pretty much HAVE to raise taxes to get out of the mess we are in. But raising taxes before we get ahead of spending stupidly will just mean we continue losing money.

Based on age and very few limiting factors... Yes. Yes it is, and it is your only argument. Care to debate the topic without the BS?

But it is not ignoring it to correctly state the real reason. Slavery was the push, but the *reason* was the Southern States didn't like the Federal Govt telling them what they were going to do. It was against the Constitution. I think it is greed. Look at the Whiskey Rebellion. It was about a tax to pay war debts and increasing the Govts power. Washington himself rode against the rebellion (making him the only sitting President to lead troops, IIRC). Then came the Civil War where a President basically forced the States to follow federal decree. Then came FDR. While there is no doubt that technology plays a role... These all happened long before serious leaps in technology and they all took power away from the States.

It is as you describe in my opinion as well... The problem is that some groups have also adopted the CSA battle flag as "theirs". This does not help the issue. But the fact still remains that the war was about States Rights and slavery was just the push.

You are still trying to make it into something it was not. The Constitution did not see slaves as people. As revolting as we can look at that today (and as some did even back then). The Constitution was written as it was written. It has since been amended to correct the errors... As it should have. But even the Supreme Court in Dredd agreed with the Constitution at the time. And NONE of this changes the reason for the civil war. You can claim it was because of slavery, but that is just not true... The Civil War was about States rights issues. Slavery was the catalyst, but not the reason. The southern States wanted to run the States the way they wanted and for the Federal Government to stay out of the States issues. If someone tried slavery NOW, the 13th Amendment would make it a Federal issue, but the 13th did not exist till AFTER the war. I fail to see how this is a difficult concept. I can only assume that slavery is so evil to us that we just assume it was THE reason and not just the issue that was rallied around.

Because they are by STATE. Not a difficult concept. Same pool, same rates. I know your whole intent is to get into semantics. But it just shows the weakness of your position.

Yawn.... The fact is you lack facts and the best you can do is debate semantics.

They are not allowed to consider pre existing conditions. They are only allowed to base it on age and sex, although I thought I heard something about smoking. So there might be variations depending on those factors, but they cannot use the real risk factors. It would be like charging for car insurance only on age and sex, but not being able to consider make and model of car or past driving history. Because there ARE factors that are included. For one, each STATE gets to decide the rates. So the rate for a 20 year old non-smoker in California might be different than Nebraska.

Not really. And it still does not change the very basic concept that to make sure everyone is covered at the same rate.... The people who would normally have low rates (and those that normally would not even carry anything) will have to be made to carry something and will have to pay more than they did. And yet when my wife sells a policy to a jumper they have two options: 1. Pay more. 2. Lie. Many policies have a two year window.... If anything happens after that two year window you are still covered. But this included in many cases suicides. Tell you what.... Just for fun, try to get life insurance and right after they give you a quote... Ask if it covers skydiving and see what happens. Your life experience up to this point has not covered this, maybe the only way you will learn is by doing. Try it and report back and let us know how things went.

You have the dates of the community reinvestment act off. And yet Obama does the same thing when it comes to gun rights. 222 years is longer than 2 BTW. You need history lessons. Again, just look at Obama's attack on the 2nd Amendment. I assume you have told Obama to leave the 2nd Amendment alone then? If you make me "invest" 15% of my salary for most of my life.... Yeah, I will try and collect as much "return" as was stolen from me. I'll make you a deal, you make it so I do not have to give my money away, and I will never draw from the pool. Deal? Or do you need people like me to support people like you? The defining characteristics of an LWL is someone who can't discern fact from fiction, and believes things that are patently ridiculous, like the former head of several large corporations does not know how to run a budget. Or how a guy that had a Masters from Harvard is somehow "stupid".

No, it is not. 3:47: If a LIFE insurance company has more people dying than their life insurance premiums per person in that same group of people is going to be higher. And as a person with a wife who works in the industry... Unless you are covered by GROUP insurance and you state you are a skydiver on the application, your rate will go up. How do I know this? My wife is licensed to sell life insurance and she has sold policies to several people on the DZ. Semantics aside (can you do that?) His point is still valid. If you make a company cover everyone no matter what, rates for healthy people have to go up to cover the ones who will cost more to cover. To put this in car terms.... The habitual drunk driver now has to be offered car insurance. The fact that he is a HUGE risk and has wrecked several cars is not allowed to be factored into his acceptance nor his rate. So the 45 year old white woman with zero accidents driving a Volvo will see a rate increase to cover the spread.