your April 14, 2011 opinion piece was dead on. as ever, WSJ opinion was predictably kneejerk squarely and fairly in the opinion arena, calling President Obama's Wednesday address toxic and partisan. ALSO as usual, with facts and their pesky liberal bias, commentary stating the President's thinking was "distorted" was flat wrong, especially considering the fuzzy $200 billion and more math errors in Ryan's so-called budget plan. the WSJ opinion requires a second opinion, like an incompetent doctor who only knows one diagnosis.
let me stake out my taxpayer philosophical territory: if you haven't always been somewhat pissed as a taxpayer about some of the ways tax money was spent you weren't paying attention, as there can never be full agreement among even taxpayers of goodwill w/ differing opinions. nothing new here, move along...
regarding waste, no doubt government program $$ falls thru the cracks, tho amounts work out to considerably less than taxpayer buck$ lining the pockets of of today's privatized, formerly government, enterprises, for example billion$ in U.S. cash di$appearing -- poof!!! -- off palettes in Iraq, or even privatized V.A. client interface systems, where cronies pocket V.A. money, jobs are cut, wages are lowered, and customer service to our veterans suffers.
Doing Well By Doing Good: fast roads, proposed by Eisenhower and built before progressive tax revenues began their downward death spiral, distributed goods to thriving middle class consumers, boosting corporate profits in the intervening years; higher taxes were good investments for wealthy stockholders and CEOs. since the Reagan years, tax rates on the wealthiest have been in decline. Bush 43 tax cuts put the frosting on their wealthy cakes, tax burdens became relatively heavier on everyone else, and services continue being cut. with the Overton Window tax conversation moving ever to the right, Rep. Ryan and his ilk propose a new Dark Age of Slashed Social Safety Netting.
nostalgic Americans who want things "the way they were" would do well to remember high marginal tax rates on the wealthiest paying for "extras," everything from Eisenhower's modern highway system to "free" (taxpayer subsidized) children's immunization clinics where my brothers and I received the best preventive health care in the world (and nobody screamed "Socialism").
I for one would be delighted to go back to the Socialist environmental policies of Nixon and the Commie government philosophies of Eisenhower, both considered good Republicans of their eras.