Well said Phantom, welfare by any other name is still welfare. Whether we are technically at 'Death Spiral' as we speak, or its just over the next hill, we are being drained by welfare on one side, and Guvcorp on the other. Pretty much screwed. I was all but certain that there would be a yellow dot directly over Bradford.

Change the title of the study to a comparison of government sector vs private sector and the fact check is wrong.

I know this is a hard concept to get .... but if we want less people on welfare, we need to provide good paying jobs in this country not slave labor jobs in China.

Taxing the rich at a more fair rate would go a long way toward balancing our budget.

I wholeheartedly agree, Stony! As the daughter and granddaughter of retired steelworkers, I have "bought American" since the late 'Seventies and early 'Eighties.

That's "taking care of our own" at its most basic.

Stony wrote, "I know this is a hard concept to get .... but if we want less people on welfare, we need to provide good paying jobs in this country not slave labor jobs in China." If we want less people on welfare, we need to kick 90% of these lazy bums off welfare, maybe eliminate welfare completey. My friend lives in Hong Kong where they have no welfare, and almost zero unemployment.

Panem et circensus. Same as it ever was.

A you saying you would prefer out great country to be more like Communist China? Ask your friend about China's right to bear arms. If you wanna call China's system a success, then you need to take with entire system because any little change may be a change to the key of their so-called success.

I cant speak for the rest of their system. Maybe thats why they have so many of our jobs, they are willing to work. Who would possibly defend our bloated parasitic nanny state welfare system and not be on it? (besides Stony?) On a related note, maybe this will make driving in Bradford easier this year; http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-declares-war- ... nance.html

How?

I'd be more interested in "how much". What does anyone think the tax rate SHOULD be on anyone making more than....say....$200,000? $500K? $1M? Don't talk about 'loopholes' since the ones that exempt the most apply to people of all incomes.(Mortgage interest, real estate taxes, etc.) How much should we soak the "rich"? Oh, and will you agree with that rate should YOU someday be as prosperous?

yes, great idea. tax the people that create the jobs until they decide to move to another country. we'll be doing great as soon as all the rich people leave.

flat tax is the only fair tax.

Here's a good question for you Stony. Why isn't gravel used as money? Because there is a ton of it and anyone can get as much of it as they want? Exactly. It has no value as money because there is too much of it.
In this country, we use paper as our currency instead of gravel, but the two are very similar.
We print a ton of money whenever it seems like the country is too poor, same with gravel, if we don't have enough we just dig more up, so it would be worth even less because there is more of it.
Some people are good business people and accumulate a lot of gravel (money), and some people don't work at all. Since these good business people have tons of gravel (money) the country decides that instead of making people work for their gravel (money) we'll just take it away from the good business people and give it away to the people that don't want to work. Would you put a high value on anything that is being given away for free? Well, since we just dig up more gravel (print more money) whenever the country doesn't have enough, and then we give it out for free to anyone that wants it, a big big pile of gravel (lots of money) isn't worth all that much.
Now since our gravel isn't worth that much, it takes a lot more gravel (money) to buy things. A gallon of milk that used to cost 1 piece of gravel ($1) now costs 5 pieces ($5). The product hasn't changed, the currency has lost value.
Now the poor people need more since the prices have gone up. Instead of leaving the economy to work itself out and let charities do their jobs, we'll raise the minimum wage, further devaluing our gravel (money). Now we'll take even more away from the rich and give it to the poor. Now since people that didn't earn it have a whole bunch of gravel (money) the prices on everyday goods has to go up again because if everyone has it, it can't be that valuable.

See the cycle that it makes? If my lowly self can understand this cycle, why can't you or our government? When a president can spend $100,000 on an ad to help push an agenda that the constitution specifically prohibits, and no one bats an eyelash at it because hey, he could be spending billions like he did on his campaign, therein lies the problem. It's simple economics but democrats and welfare bums don't seem to care.