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JF

Fascinating insights, Tim. I remain optimistic about mainstream opinion regarding the size of government: it sounds good and well to have the government take care of you, but when taxes are raised to do so, people begin to ask why they should pay to subsidize others.

Especially now, with the economy decelerating, when the Democrats/liberals decide to return to the bad old days of massive government growth, they will be punished by deepening deficits, rising inflation, and economic stagnation. This will be bad for our countries in the short term, but in the long term, should serve to rejuvenate the worldwide conservative movements. Liberalism is its own worst enemy, and occasionally people need to be reminded how bankrupt that ideology is by experiencing the devastation left in its wake.

Umbrella man

Just look at Bush's reaction to the bridge tragedy. It's all about spending masses of money to ensure he doesn't have another Katrina political disaster. Politicians just cannot resist spending taxpayers' money.

JF

Umbrella Man,

Bush's "compassionate conservatism" has indeed proven itself to be a failure. The pols can't resist spending, but they can't resist the corruption that comes with that spending, either. There's a reason why the Democratic Congress has an approval rating of only 3%, according to the latest Zogby poll.

Increased spending is not the answer. I appreciate Karl Rove's successes in the past, but his embrace of the discredited Democrat strategy of "spend, spend, elect, elect" has sunk him and the Bush Administration. Never will there be a "permanent Republican majority" through increased spending.

TomTom

Tim, 14 years ago I was at FFM Airport boarding a flight to DC and talking with two Americans. They were going home after being on duty in a listening station in Turkey monitoring Iraqi signals traffic.

Their words were "We're going home. It's up to you guys now. We have so much to repair in our own country. We don't need to be here."

That was when Clinton was in office. Needless to say the infrastructure in the USA was not repaired, the emphasis went on consumption and importing German and Japanese and Chinese goods - lifestyle consumption with huge deficits.

US infrastructure is overloaded - repairs are shunted - and capacity is not planned. Has anyone ever heard of a bridge like this collapsing in France or Germany ? They are specified differently.

So the question is Tim - what is driving Big Government - which programmes ? Where is the growth in spending and where is the growth in taxation ? It would be interesting to know if the old political adage of taxing Peter to pay Paul is being observed or if Peter is being taxed to pay Peter and Paul is freeloading

bundyfan

Calvin Coolidge. Now there was a man who understood the role of the Federal government! Do as little as possible. When the Mississipi Valley was plagued by floods. He didn't want the government to get involved. He eventually sent some aid but only half-fheartedly and most reluctantly.

Matt Wright

Localism could help. On balance many decisions are better and more efficiently made closer to people and communities. Perhaps its not so much a case of making the "state" smaller as reconfiguring the "state" so it starts getting more value for the same bucks,

Matt

Tony Makara

We have to rein in the state before we can reduce spending to any significant degree. Of course that does not mean that we can't find other ways to stimulate the economy. New firms should be encouraged and allowed to operate completely tax free until they have grown and developed a healthy infrastructure. This will not effect spending commitments and will act as a big stimulus in terms of job-creation. Meanwhile we need to undertake a full audit of all government spending and eradicate all unnecessary expenditure and use the money saved to relieve the crushing tax burden that has been imposed on our people.

dissertation

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

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