Half of Texas Republicans want to Secede

[Winehole23]

And much of the credit for that can be given to a GOP controlled Congress that actually acted as a conservative majority Congress, at least for a few years. In general, fiscal conservatism is not really a selling point for a politician any longer. That is why it's going to get worse in this country before it improves (if ever).

The meme that republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 due to an insufficiency of fiscal conservatism is probably wrong.

War, incompetence, venality, the relentless barrage of brazen lies and -- fatally -- recession did them in.

Really, if the country was so concerned about fiscal restraint, why did we elect Obama and give the Dems a (nearly) cloture proof majority in the Senate?

[LnGrrrR]

Laptops and clothes? Certainly neither should be bought on credit; if you don't have the money in hand for cheap items like laptops, HDTVs, designer-label clothes, etc., then you obviously can't afford them. Even cars shouldn't be bought on credit IMO, but people are stupid and love to buy things because they're expensive so they can give their neighbors penis-envy.

Uhm... cars are pretty much mandatory items nowadays. If you couldn't purchase a car with credit, you'd have 99% of Americans living in huge urban areas.

[SpuronyourFace]

People can say anything and some bag(nbadan) will post it as news.

lol this thread.

[SpuronyourFace]

I'm a Spurs fan yes, but I am also a Virginian and a proud American, and frankly I welcome the day Texas decides to secede.

Go ahead and leave, I mean jesus, your state damn near destroyed this country with the Bush gang anyway.

Texans are ing re ed

LMAO

Get a clue, oh and Virgina.

[FaithInOne]

For the people saying no credit should ever exist, pls stfu and educate yourself on the realities of business.

[clambake]

For the people saying no credit should ever exist, pls stfu and educate yourself on the realities of business.

OMG......i agree with you.

[baseline bum]

Uhm... cars are pretty much mandatory items nowadays. If you couldn't purchase a car with credit, you'd have 99% of Americans living in huge urban areas.

New cars are horrible investments (losing half their value in the first year), and are even worse when one is factoring interest into it. A reliable used car isn't that expensive, but everyone's in a -measuring contest with his car. I know, you buy a Benz and it's better than sex the first week, it's pretty great the second, it's nice the third, and by the fourth it's just your car.

[baseline bum]

For the people saying no credit should ever exist, pls stfu and educate yourself on the realities of business.

Hey jerkoff, I said ordinary people shouldn't buy crap they don't need on credit. Of course credit is needed to buy a home, go to school, or start / expand a business.

[Marcus Bryant]

The meme that republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 due to an insufficiency of fiscal conservatism is probably wrong.

War, incompetence, venality, the relentless barrage of brazen lies and -- fatally -- recession did them in.

Really, if the country was so concerned about fiscal restraint, why did we elect Obama and give the Dems a (nearly) cloture proof majority in the Senate?

I agree. Only fools like us care about such things.

[LnGrrrR]

New cars are horrible investments (losing half their value in the first year), and are even worse when one is factoring interest into it. A reliable used car isn't that expensive, but everyone's in a -measuring contest with his car. I know, you buy a Benz and it's better than sex the first week, it's pretty great the second, it's nice the third, and by the fourth it's just your car.

I assumed you meant credit for cars in general. I've gotten one new car in my lifetime, and it was a luxury purchase. Then I got into an accident. Then I got a used car. lol

[Winehole23]

For the people saying no credit should ever exist, pls stfu and educate yourself on the realities of business.

I missed that. Who said it?

[velik_m]

Hey jerkoff, I said ordinary people shouldn't buy crap they don't need on credit. Of course credit is needed to buy a home, go to school, or start / expand a business.

I didn't need a credit to go to school, but we're a social country.

[baseline bum]

I didn't need a credit to go to school, but we're a social country.

We're not. Here, we pay out the ass for the right to work.

[SnakeBoy]

I said ordinary people shouldn't buy crap they don't need on credit.

Yeah, SNL did a skit on that crazy concept.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/satur...dont-buy-stuff

[baseline bum]

Yeah, SNL did a skit on that crazy concept.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/satur...dont-buy-stuff

[EVAY]

Thus my frustration. At heart, I am not a leftist. I think all things being equal, the public sector is less efficient than the private sector because you have so many fewer people with so much narrower a perspective making decisions in the former than the latter. The leftist's persistent faith in the perfectability of humanity if only it can be properly enlightened, despite the countervailing evidence of the entirety of history makes me sigh. The inevitability of our bankruptcy and descent into chaos given the spending priorities of the left leaves me numb. I believe our basic notions of family, self-reliance, and responsibility are being dissolved into nihilistic oblivion.

And yet... when I hear liberals and conservatives talk about the issues... it's as though conservatives are talking about some other planet. I think a lot of liberal ideas are wrong, but at least they can demonstrate conversance with the issues. In the Obama-McCain debates, it was sad to watch McCain have absolutely zero idea what was going in with the financial crisis while Obama could summarize it with concise aplomb.

Sarah Palin was the last straw for me. She knows less about national and international issues than the average college-educated American, yet she is held up as some kind of female Ronald Reagan. I don't need Newt Gingrich or Daniel Patrick freaking Moynihan up there, but the Alaskan Peggy Hill? Seriously?

And now this... secession talk. Serious things are going on in the world, and the best the conservative ethos in the country can muster up is 19th-century nonsense. Once upon a time, Bob Dole destroyed his own Presidential campaign by offering America a bridge back to the 1950's. Now that doesn't seem to be enough -- people are looking for a bridge back to the 1850's. I guess in their worldview that was the last time the world made sense.

So in America, as I see it, the choices are between one group that has what I think are a lot of wrong answers, and another group that has no idea what the questions are. I have made a dark descent into hopeless cynicism. America is finished.

Except for the last sentence, I find this post a remarkably concise description of the current state of affairs. As naive as I find the far-left, I also find the far right naive in its blind reliance on "free markets" ( and I count myself as one who bought into hook, line and sinker).

I am not yet cynical, mostly because I am still so irate at the republicans for haven't promised a government that was "small but efficient" and that controlled spending and that was "not arrogant" (quoting candidate Bush in 2000) in foreign affairs, and then gave us a government that was internationally arrogant, domestically inept, and that doubled the size of the deficit because they failed arithmetic ( tax cuts + increased spending increases deficits just as much as increased spending with no tax cuts).

I am admittedly angry with myself for ever having believed that the repubs knew what they were talking about...but now I find myself just hoping for the best.

Unlike the republican base, I am not socially conservative, so I am more concerned with fiscal responsibility and international diplomacy than I am with telling people I don't know how to live their lives. The republican party today is so like the old confederacy ( even the only states they can carry nationally are the "old south" states) that they become less relevant to the national debate over any issue at all by the day. Texas should try to secede. I'll move to a U.S. state without state income tax, because you can count on the fact that as soon as Texas secedes, state income tax is a part of life here. But me, I am an AMERICAN patriot before I am a Texas anything.

[Cry Havoc]

Thus my frustration. At heart, I am not a leftist. I think all things being equal, the public sector is less efficient than the private sector because you have so many fewer people with so much narrower a perspective making decisions in the former than the latter. The leftist's persistent faith in the perfectability of humanity if only it can be properly enlightened, despite the countervailing evidence of the entirety of history makes me sigh. The inevitability of our bankruptcy and descent into chaos given the spending priorities of the left leaves me numb. I believe our basic notions of family, self-reliance, and responsibility are being dissolved into nihilistic oblivion.

And yet... when I hear liberals and conservatives talk about the issues... it's as though conservatives are talking about some other planet. I think a lot of liberal ideas are wrong, but at least they can demonstrate conversance with the issues. In the Obama-McCain debates, it was sad to watch McCain have absolutely zero idea what was going in with the financial crisis while Obama could summarize it with concise aplomb.

Sarah Palin was the last straw for me. She knows less about national and international issues than the average college-educated American, yet she is held up as some kind of female Ronald Reagan. I don't need Newt Gingrich or Daniel Patrick freaking Moynihan up there, but the Alaskan Peggy Hill? Seriously?

And now this... secession talk. Serious things are going on in the world, and the best the conservative ethos in the country can muster up is 19th-century nonsense. Once upon a time, Bob Dole destroyed his own Presidential campaign by offering America a bridge back to the 1950's. Now that doesn't seem to be enough -- people are looking for a bridge back to the 1850's. I guess in their worldview that was the last time the world made sense.

So in America, as I see it, the choices are between one group that has what I think are a lot of wrong answers, and another group that has no idea what the questions are. I have made a dark descent into hopeless cynicism. America is finished.

If I thought it would make a difference, I would put this entire quote in my sig. That is one of the most well-phrased posts I've had the pleasure to read on Spurstalk. I'm not sure we're finished, though.

[smeagol]

Hey jerkoff, I said ordinary people shouldn't buy crap they don't need on credit. Of course credit is needed to buy a home, go to school, or start / expand a business.

Interesting.

In my country there is almost now credit. I guess that's why we are in the ters . . .

[FaithInOne]

Montana HB 246
Alaska HB 186
Texas HB 1863

And so it begins...

[boutons_deux]

"the public sector is less efficient than the private sector"

... is why dubya had to give the PRIVATE health insurance corps $50B so they could complete with PUBLIC Medicare.

... is why the health insurance corps are spending $Ms to kill development of a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance.

[Nbadan]

"the public sector is less efficient than the private sector"

... is why dubya had to give the PRIVATE health insurance corps $50B so they could complete with PUBLIC Medicare.

... is why the health insurance corps are spending $Ms to kill development of a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance.

...shhhhh...now, now boutons...Stout and the rest of the hands-off, free-market worshipers are having a life-changing, cognitive-enlightening moment...

[fyatuk]

Texas should try to secede. I'll move to a U.S. state without state income tax, because you can count on the fact that as soon as Texas secedes, state income tax is a part of life here. But me, I am an AMERICAN patriot before I am a Texas anything.

There aren't many options for US States without income taxes. The list includes (for work income anyway, and not including Texas): Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming. And it's irrelevant anyway since these states charge other taxes, mostly at a significantly higher rate than other states.

And, uhh... There still wouldn't be a state income tax in Texas if it seceeded. Mainly because it would be a National income tax. Property tax rates would likely drop with the new revenue stream and overall we'd still likely be paying less in taxes overall.

"the public sector is less efficient than the private sector"

... is why dubya had to give the PRIVATE health insurance corps $50B so they could complete with PUBLIC Medicare.

... is why the health insurance corps are spending $Ms to kill development of a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance.

Uhh, for the most part, Medicare does not overlap with private insurance, so no, he didn't give money to private insurance so they could compete with Medicare.

And duh. If you worked in an industry, wouldn't you do everything possible to prevent the government from putting together something that would damage your bottom line (assuming a capitalist stance)? That's like saying tobacco companies shouldn't fight increases in the tobacco excise tax...

[Blake]

And, uhh... There still wouldn't be a state income tax in Texas if it seceeded. Mainly because it would be a National income tax. Property tax rates would likely drop with the new revenue stream and overall we'd still likely be paying less in taxes overall.

uhh, as far as state and national income tax, you're just playing with semantics.

What new revenue stream are you referring to and exactly how would we still likely be paying less taxes overall?

[boutons_deux]

"Medicare does not overlap with private insurance"

as of the last change to Medicare, private does compete with Medicare, is why dubya had to subsidize private insurance with $50B so their lobbyists wouldn't kill the Medicare modification.

btw, dubya's mod to Medicare increased govt bill by about $11B/year.

dubya's Medicare mod also forbid the govt from getting competing bids for drugs

So all you wrongies who "hate govt" please note that the Repugs intentionally up govt to be "business friendly".

[fyatuk]

uhh, as far as state and national income tax, you're just playing with semantics.

Yeah, that was the point.

What new revenue stream are you referring to and exactly how would we still likely be paying less taxes overall?

A Texas income tax would be the new revenue stream. That was a pretty easy flow to follow there...

Of course, the entire tax code would be rewritten, as would the entire Texas Cons ution (see TX BoR amendment #1). In general, we'd probably (IMO) end up with the same sales tax, much lower property taxes, and a Texas income tax (well, and excise taxes and all that crap could go either way).

It'd still end up less than the current sales tax, property tax, and federal income tax, though. Considering a large part of this secession BS amounts to complaints about taxes, the overall tax burden on Texans would have to decrease for them to be justified.