State of the Union

[Jason Menard]

Anyone watch the State of the Union address? Typically this is where the pres proposes all kinds of things that don't make it through Congress.
As established in another thread, I have no problem with the tax proposals. I also appreciated some of the comments directed at the UN. But maybe the most impressive thing proposed was the plan for Africa, imho.
Any comments?

[Gregg Bolinger]

The plan for Africa was awesome. I hope it is seen through. I also hope that Americans get the same kind of support from Congress. People are dying from AIDS here too.
The tax cuts are good. I only worry about long term effects. What is that going to do to our national debt? What budgets are being cut to support these tax cuts? Because I know Congress isn't taking a pay cut.

[Melvin Menezes]

Yup, it was great. Another good thing was about the medical liability reform. Hope the health care and insurance costs go down.
[ January 29, 2003: Message edited by: Melvin Menezes ]

[Bert Bates]

I'm suspicious of the tax cuts - who really benefits from not getting taxed on dividends ? You guys earn any significant $$$ on dividends ?
Guess who does?

[Rufus BugleWeed]

I don't think he changed my opinion on anything. I think people have been changing his opinion and 10 years is long enough.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Bert Bates:
I'm suspicious of the tax cuts - who really benefits from not getting taxed on dividends ? You guys earn any significant $$$ on dividends ?
Guess who does?

I have to admit that even though I am not a big stock holder I support tax breaks for dividends. The reason is that it helps promote stable companies that can afford to pay dividends and not fake stocks that hide not being able to pay dividends behind a wall of "re-investing our capital in the company". Srock holders are supposed to be owners and they should get a share in the profits. If they want to reinvest their capital back into the company that should be their choice.

[Rufus BugleWeed]

Even if the dividends tax cut isn't a stimulus, it makes sense to correct problems in the system.

[Matthew Phillips]

I only watched about half of it before I was too mad to watch anymore. He briefly mentioned fiscal responsibility and then started calling for programs that are not constitutional and not immediately necessary to the welfare of this country. On top of this he wants to give a tax cut that would probably increase revenues to the government in the long term but lower revenues in the short term.
I really wish our political officials would realize that the federal government has constitutionally mandated limits. If our government existed within those limits we would all have a lot more money.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Bert Bates:
I'm suspicious of the tax cuts - who really benefits from not getting taxed on dividends ? You guys earn any significant $$$ on dividends ?
Guess who does?

Should it matter who benefits from fixing a problem in the tax code that results in the same money being taxed twice?

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
...and then started calling for programs that are not constitutional

Do you mean his "faith based initiative", or were you thinking of something else? Does giving money to private religious organizations violate the separation of church and state? I don't know. I think a case along those lines could be made if the money were to only go to say Christian organizations, but what if the money goes to organizations regardless of their religious affiliation? So I guess what I'm saying is it's not immediately clear to me how his faith based initiative would be unconstitutional. Or was there something else he mentioned which you thought crossed the lines of Constitutionality?

I really wish our political officials would realize that the federal government has constitutionally mandated limits. If our government existed within those limits we would all have a lot more money.

I'm with you on that one. However rarely has Congress let the Constitution get in the way of it passing some law.

[Matthew Phillips]

I am referring to our federal government operating as a charitable organization in general. Money that goes to Africa to treat AIDS, money that goes to faith based organizations, money that goes to drug treatment, etc.
I was thinking about the general concept of income redistribution and our responsibility as a "caring society" this morning. I am not really against the concept of the government giving someone a helping hand. I am against the federal government doing this. Local government can more easily monitor the situation to determine when someone goes from needing assistance to taking advantage of the system and stop the flow of money.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
Local government can more easily monitor the situation to determine when someone goes from needing assistance to taking advantage of the system and stop the flow of money.

And what if the local government is to poor to do this? The whole idea of having a federal government is so that wealthy states can help poor states!

[Matthew Phillips]

The whole idea of having a federal government is so that wealthy states can help poor states!

Where is that stated in the Constitution?

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
Where is that stated in the Constitution?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That is the preamble. After that it establishes the exact role the federal government is supposed to play in our society. No where does it say redistribute income from one state to another.

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Are there any other children of the 70's here who can't help but sing along in their head whenever they read this?

[Jim Yingst]

Same here, Jason.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:

Are there any other children of the 70's here who can't help but sing along in their head whenever they read this?

Thanks for the link. I had forgotten all about that song.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
That is the preamble. After that it establishes the exact role the federal government is supposed to play in our society. No where does it say redistribute income from one state to another.

So what that it is the preamble? It clearly marks out what the founding fathers intention was in establishing the constitution.
:roll:

[Jim Yingst]

Mmmm... Schoolhouse Rock...
Now after following links and listening to wav files, I'm psyched. Are you guys done talking about the preamble yet? I wanna talk about conjunctions. Or kings. Or - hey! Bills! (In congress, that is.) Probably the all-time classic. And we mustn't forget amendments!
Sadly, the audio from the above link does not include Bart and Lisa's voice-over commentary in the middle, which I feel obliged to post here:

Bart: What the hell is this?
Lisa: It's one of those campy 70's throwbacks that appeals to Generation-X'ers.
Bart: We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.

Annoyingly, the Simpsons parody does not seem to be included on the Schoolhouse Rock DVD. But I think I'm going to have to order it anyway. And eventually, The Simpsons season 7 will be out on DVD too.

[Paul Stevens]

Conjunction junction. What's your function.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

So what that it is the preamble? It clearly marks out what the founding fathers intention was in establishing the constitution.
:roll:

Yes it states the intention our founding fathers had for establishing the federal government. The Constitution then continues passed that and establishes the exact role that the federal government should play in our society. It goes even further to establish the procedure for changing that role through Constitutional amendments. If the preamble is the only part that should be paid attention to, then why was the rest written?

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Are you guys done talking about the preamble yet? I wanna talk about conjunctions. Or kings. Or - hey! Bills!

If things start getting out of hand here I might be forced to unpack my adjectives!

[Paul Stevens]

I am with you on this Matthew. If you take the promote general welfare part, that can be anything they want it to mean. What congress has done is take the interstate commerce provision and bastardize it to include virtually everything.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
If the preamble is the only part that should be paid attention to, then why was the rest written?

But you seem to want to ignore the preamble as if it wasn't written.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

But you seem to want to ignore the preamble as if it wasn't written.

No. The preamble states the purpose of the Constitution. The rest of the document states how it will accomplish this. There are numerous amendments where (rightly or wrongly) it was felt that the Constitution needed the change to meet the purpose stated in the preample.
Unfortunately, over the years our government has passed more and more legislation that ignores both the letter and (I believe) the purpose of the the Constitution. If the federal government really needs to be in the business of social engineering, then there should be an amendment stating that. I believe that it hasn't happened because it doesn't stand a chance of passing.
I started reading The Federalist Papers recently. I haven't made it very far because it is so dry, but from what I have read so far it seems that we have veered way off track of what the federal government was intended to do. It seems that the primary purpose was to protect us from foreign threats. Like I said I am still reading.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
I started reading The Federalist Papers recently. I haven't made it very far because it is so dry, but from what I have read so far it seems that we have veered way off track of what the federal government was intended to do. It seems that the primary purpose was to protect us from foreign threats. Like I said I am still reading.

If the US had strictly followed the Constitution the US would be at least two separate countries run by Germans.

[Matthew Phillips]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

If the US had strictly followed the Constitution the US would be at least two separate countries run by Germans.

What do you mean?

[Matthew Phillips]

Jason, it is all your fault. The preable song has been stuck in my head for the past 24 or so hours.

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Matthew Phillips:
Jason, it is all your fault. The preable song has been stuck in my head for the past 24 or so hours.

I know what you mean. They just came out with a DVD that has all of them, I may actually pick it up to satisfy my nostalgia. Well, either that or Girls Gone Wild.