OT: Congress go home and stop "fixing" this country

[sabotai]

Not sure what the diffence is between the gov't using my tax money to fund charities and starbucks charging me 5 dollars for coffee so they can give to some charitey and still not effect their profits.

You can choose to pay for Starbucks or not. You don't get a choice with taxes.

[AENeuman]

I guess i have choice to buy coffee or not. But looking around my town, Starbucks is it, all the others shops closed. Same with the hardware, grocery and toy stores. But at least Home Depot used my money from paint to help a speed skater. And safeway took my money from overpriced lettus to fund a trip for kids to go to Disneyland. Walmart just took my money... How is this consumer democracy?

[Buccaneer]

I am getting old and senile. AENeuman is my brother and he was talking about our 70-yr old Libertarian-minded father. He and I differ on the role of govt but I certainly agree with this sentiment

By the way, parents do not chose to raise their kids in front of the TV. Peace and quite via TV, limited interaction (dinner/homework/etc) and displacing responsibility to teachers, happen because they are the path of least resistance, not because of a conscious choice made that what they are doing is on in best interest of their child.

The laziness and lack of personal responsibilities in some parents extends to our role as citizens, imo. I just believe we need to be more critical of Congress' actions despite their massive PR in saying what they do is good for the country. We seem to be more and more out of the loop, not wanting to hold any institutions (public or private) accountable unless it suits a political argument.

[SlapBone]

I work for the biggest drilling contractor in the world and there are a few facts that that people may not realize:

1. Any tax incentives or breaks on Operators (Exxon, Shell, Marathon, Anadarko) ultimately lead to more exploration. More exploration leads to more jobs and ultimately more food for my family (wife and 4 kids).

2. When most people think of energy, they think of crude, but crude oil is not the fossil fuel that keeps our lights on. Natural gas accounts for probably 95% of all domestic drilling and natural gas is still what most leading scientists consider an unlimited resource. The only drawback is getting at new sources. In this area tax breaks on the operators will lead to more research and thus the cycle starts again. Research leads to new (and cleaner) drilling technology, new technology leads to more exploration, and thus fills my pantry once again.

Yes the CEOs and executives that run my company are insanely rich and spend a lot of time worried about how to line their pockets more, but you know what...I don't care.

Why does this not bother me? Because I am merely a high-school graduate with some experience with computers, mechanical systems, instrumentation, and a little bit of the oil patch (my father was a roughneck with an 8th grade education).

Here is the kicker (note to out-of-work IT people). My skillset (obtained entirely on my own with no secondary education) nets me about 35%-40% more salary than if I had tried to make it in a truely IT related job. The oil business is one of the few job markets that truely value common sense, reliability, and even a little bit of creativity. My company is made up entirely of people that worked hard to get where they are (except for the upper echelon of executives). The percentage is not only true for me but almost everyone that I work with on a day-to-day basis. Hell, the CIO of the company was a codebase programmer when he started with the company.

Anyway, I say all of that to say this... Tax breaks on the rich do not only effect a group of top-level executives. Sure they profit the most, but to stay effective in a business as cut-throat as the oil business, they have to pour out a lot of that capital on research and explortion, which means jobs for a lot of people, including the man that helped bring me into this world, poor people in some of the more rural areas in this country (the most blue-collar of the blue-collar), and yes me. Surely these are the things that matter.

I could go on to note how these thing effect all of us (especially California) but I fear that it would fall on deaf ears.

I

[Buccaneer]

SlapBone: That's a good post. I work for a public utility so I know a little where you are coming from. One thought. If Congress aims to "fix" things by offering tax breaks/incentives, then I would be in favor of that since it is getting more of our money back. I also look at it in that some legislation in the past perhaps made such taxes too high that they now have to recind in order to create more jobs? Why did this happen in the first place if not doing so would have create more jobs?

[SlapBone]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
SlapBone: That's a good post. I work for a public utility so I know a little where you are coming from. One thought. If Congress aims to "fix" things by offering tax breaks/incentives, then I would be in favor of that since it is getting more of our money back. I also look at it in that some legislation in the past perhaps made such taxes too high that they now have to recind in order to create more jobs? Why did this happen in the first place if not doing so would have create more jobs?

I went on a long diatribe above but know this: While I support tax breaks on oil companies (and the opening of the north slope), I do not like the spending philosophy of the current president. I agree with someone above that said that tax breaks have to be supplemented by tighter control on government spending.

Yes, I am a Reagan republican. I do believe in trickle-down economics but the first step in controlling spending is not to kick-back money that is already collected but to never collect it (taxes) in the first place. The kick-back method allows the government more control over private industry and anyone from a socialist or communist country can tell you that even though a government-run business or program may sometimes be effective it is never profitable for the masses (government prescription plan will be the poster child for this economic philosophy). Spending on these programs will always spin out of control.

A lot of the libertarian ideas in this thread are spot-on. For government to control more industry it has to maintain control of a percentage of the money that controls that particular industry. This results in the bloat of special interests and pork-barrel spending. This is the farce that congress perpetuates on us time and time again. The steps in this farce are as follows:

1. Congress demogogues an issue until it builds up the public opinion high enough to overtax an industry or everyone in general.

2. Targeted industry fills the pockets of lobbyists and special interest groups with the goal of getting that money back.

3. Congress kicks back some of the money it overtaxed in the guise of incentives, government programs, and on a stealthier path, pork to subdue the masses when they realize they aren't getting all of their money back.

This juggling act (of congress) is masterful but at the same time hard to maintain. This leads to all of the flat-out lies that politicians (on both sides of the aisle) and the media continually spew. The fact that you will never hear in the media is that politicians get rich (in power and money) no matter which path is taken except for one: Not overtaxing in the first place.

What is my point? The government has every right to make sure that industry is doing its part to protect the environment (EPA), it's workers (OSHA), and the economy (FTC), but it has no right to set aside large chunks of land, to stifle research, or to bankrupt small business just to extort more taxes from the "richest 10%" which is their mantra.

Whew...sorry guys. It is rare that I get to unload about these things.

edit: corrected some typos

[sabotai]

SlapBone, couldn't have said it better myself (beleive me, I've tried. )

[Buccaneer]

Originally posted by sabotai
SlapBone, couldn't have said it better myself (beleive me, I've tried. )

Same here.

[Tekneek]

Originally posted by SlapBone
Tax breaks on the rich do not only effect a group of top-level executives. Sure they profit the most, but to stay effective in a business as cut-throat as the oil business, they have to pour out a lot of that capital on research and explortion, which means jobs for a lot of people, including the man that helped bring me into this world, poor people in some of the more rural areas in this country (the most blue-collar of the blue-collar), and yes me.

Are these Executives really putting that capital back into their companies? Don't confuse "Executives" with founders, and investors. A lot of Executives only own significant portions of their companies because they have been given lucrative shares and options as part of their already large compensation package. These aren't guys who got in on the ground floor, and put a lot of their hard-earned money into the company to make it work. These are guys who came in long after the fact, and in most companies they are the people who are cutting corners in everything except their own salary and benefits.