Only I used angle brackets instead of square brackets

You forgot an option:

3) Inflate the money supply so severely, that the interest on the debt is barely a rounding error of the Federal budget. I’m talking about a world where gas is $20.00/gal. and the minimum wage is $30.00/hr. This has many advantages to the statists:

a) The change is gradual, and eventually everyone just gets used to it and it becomes the new baseline. Consider how you would have reacted in 1992 to $3.00/gal. gasoline versus how you would react today.

b) Since the debt is not indexed to inflation, even a “moderate” (real) inflation rate of fifteen to twenty percent per annum can quickly outstrip the interest on said debt.

c) The actual inflation rate can be deliberately miscalculated to hide what is going on.

d) Blame can be shifted to “Greedy ” while the real culprit is the Fed reserve trying to limit the damage from Congressional overspending.

e) This “inflation tax” can not be avoided through clever high-priced accountants, special rules in the tax code, bald-faced lying about your expenses, or even working in the truly free market (i.e underground economy.) The only defense is to hold most of your investments in some real commodity (wheat, oil, gold, silver, pork bellies … take your pick) and this only helps with part of it, as you have to convert to Dollars at some point to buy things you need.

f) The worse it gets, the more big government politicians can sell the idea that they are going to “save” us from the ill effects of the policy that they have created. Big-government liberals will promise to tax the “greedy businessmen”, and oconfiscate their wealth, while big-government conservatives will promise to confiscate the resource wealth of some foreign country.

g) The minimum wage and price-inflation tend to cancel each other out and the average citizen isn’t affected too severely. The person who is taking it in the shorts is anyone holding US treasury debt or who has to buy something imported.

5. Pork (though not specifically earmarks) like agriculture subsidies has effects far and beyond being a huge waste of taxpayer money. It also is responsible for starving millions of people by driving food costs through the roof.

even though pork/earmark spending accounts for what, like %2, of the national budget? staring at pork spending is watching a birdie while the freight train rolls past you.

1) You have to start somewhere.

2) Earmarks are the currency of corruption as they are often used to benefit campaign contributors, staffers, family members, and themselves.

3) Really, what is the justification for spending money on shrimp research, teapot museums, and bridges to nowhere?

4) Often, these earmarked projects are not wanted by the state and local governments.

Actually, I recall Bill O’Reilly pulling this exact same line of argument a few years back. I don’t know if he still does it since I long ago stopped paying attention to his drivel. In any event, I think you’re right- it’s just his way of insulating himself. But the fact is that he is a right wing authoritarian in every sense of the word.

that’s why the United States will, by my estimation, default its national debt in the near future. China defaulted its nat’l debt 3 time in the 1900s alone, and supposedly it was okay. i don’t have a PhD in economics, but i bet we’ll bet we’ll have to default, and given that we do have a shitload of resources in our soil, as well as plenty of land area to farm, we’ll do the same.

we’ll either:
1) default and continue like nothing happened.

2) not. and be literally sold to foreign interests. not proper nations, but foreign interests. there will be painful serfdom to pay for that. but i doubt we’ll actually be able to tell the difference. you’ll still be mesmerized by a backwoods newsletter.

god it really astounds me how stupid you people are.

Note the “irrational vehemence” caveat…I think Doug’s talking about when the GOP starts directly ripping small government ideas as incompatible with party principle and calling anyone who espouses them traitors to the GOP.

Of course, that’s been happening for quite awhile now so I think Doug’s a little behind the curve here. Just look at how the GOP treated Jeff Flake for calling out legislators for pork (stripping him of his position on Judiciary). Or how the GOP leadership refuses to bring Don Young or Ted Stevens in line when it’s becoming more and more apparent that their problems go beyond simple pork into out and out graft. The GOP already sees anyone who pushes limited government (conservative or libertarian) as the enemy.

The minute you hear Limbaugh/Hannity/Levin talking about a Bob Barr or Ron Paul with the same irrational vehemence they usually reserve for anyone who dares to attack the Bush Administration

I rip Ron Paul harshly, am I a part of the GOP status quo?

I think that because he is neither hot nor cold there is a special place in hell for him. I can hope cant I?

Were you responding to me? Because I pretty clearly labelled Barr as a religious conservative. You can be that way but still push libertarian ideas. And I wasn’t attacking him or even talking negatively about him.