Would you favor less government with more responsibility or the reciprocal of that?

^i second that. i hate how goverments say we must do this and we must do that, oh and you must give us money that you have earned when working and we will use it to bail car companies out. screw em!

I feel like half of everything I make goes to uncle sam.

Mmmmmm hmmmmm same here

Yep I second that as well

Less Government.. It’sA Joke Free Bailouts.. With My Money I Earn.Give People Out Of Work A Bailout. Unemployment Checks HaveRun Out

Bigger government.

Funny how deregulation (i.e. less government regulation) landed everyone in this mess and yet people still want smaller government. I dont get it. I dont think it’s about smaller or larger government. It’s about efficiency. It is possible. Governments in Europe somehow manage it.

and you would call this Obama regime efficient? Less and less government would do us all good

The way I see it, the lazier you are the bigger government you would like. If you want to go out and make it on your own, you don’t want the government taking your money and giving it to people that don’t do it themselves. Also it is getting to be that we can do nothing without the government watching every move. God forbid someone do something and not be taxed. Less less less less. America was built on capitalism, lets get back to that…

And yet the less and less government landed us in this mess. Like I said, I dont understand. We saw less government, it was a disaster. So how is it supposed to be the solution? And no, I do not believe Obama is the miracle cure. But he’s an improvement.

America was built on the back of slaves, where rich white men had all the power and the poor, women, and minorities had none. Now, while it is perfectly understandable why some people would want to go back to that… I think the majority of people would pass.

I think I would like to point out just how lazy people still where before the government took “responsibility” just who did most of the work anyway? Um, slaves last I checked while the white folks controlled them all. I’m sure you’d like to patronize a pun but not in front of me, please. While I do agree that the government is stepping foot into every little thing, not the big national one, the state one, I don’t think reverting back is the best choice.

I’d say more regulation of business and industry and less regulation of individuals. Anything between consenting adults should be legal. Corporations are by their nature amoral and their primary responsibility is to their shareholders so they can not be expected to “do the right thing.

I’m not sure we need a big government but we need its priorities changed.

A rather big generalization jag. I’m a fairly successful hard working guy but I don’t look down on everyone less successful and less financially secure as layabouts. While people (especially successful ones) like to think life’s outcomes are largely dictated by initiative and tenacity there is a large element of luck involved. FWIW, I started out as a conservative but life experiences destroyed all the premises that my old politics were based on. There is no constitutional mandate for laissez faire capitalism. I’m all for less government and fewer regulations where it works but in ever recent example it hasn’t.

I really agree with you here, big business well work all flaws and loop hole they find in any regulations, and they are the number one tax evader and humans rights violator. I do not have all the facts to back this, this is my opinion, so don’t ask me where I soured this.

sourced in place of soured

you think slaves built this country…. You should really check your facts. Slaves were simply labor, a horrible time in our past but, it is our past non the less. @filleto yes, a rather huge generalization, but it not untrue. And I totally believe life’s outcomes are almost completly dictated by initiative and tenacity. Luck never hurt, but luck is something you make, not something you aquire.

jag, luck has a lot more to do with someone being a “have” or a “have not” than you wish to believe. The American dream is dying. There are honest people who have worked hard their entire lives and have little to show for it. Most bankruptcies do not come from being unemployed, running up credit cards, or buying too big a house; they come from major illness or injury in the family. Other people find themselves destitute when a spouse dies. Being lucky enough to be born into a family that has the resources to help you reach your potential goes a long way and being born to the wrong family can mean that it is almost impossible to get ahead.

I pay a lot of taxes and I don’t mind that much because I can afford it and I am glad to contribute to the nation I love. I appreciate the roads I drive on, the agencies that try to make the products I buy safe, the police that protect me from crime, the fire department that might save my house or life some day, the military that helps keep us safe, my Social Security that will help my wife and daughter should I meet an untimely demise, etc. These are all programs that I get real value from and want to support. I don’t expect people who make a tenth as much as I do to pay as much in taxes but I wish that those who make ten times more than I do paid more than I have to. If you think wanting a government that actually helps its citizens makes me a lazy person than I’ll just have to be a lazy person in your eyes.

To a hammer… every problem looks like a nail… to government… every problem looks like an opportunity to impose more governing rules. Although any state by definition consists of laws to govern the goings on inside the collective incorporations of the state… an overreaching government… or threat therein… has historically provided the impetus for the people in a state to put limitations on the governing body itself. For example… the Bill of Rights amended to the U.S. Constitution was the caveat anti-federalists insisted upon before they would agree to incorporate into the new union of states. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers upon the people the right to assume any power not specifically enumerated to the federal government under the articles of the Constitution.

In the libertarian perspective… boons for the government and those for the people are not necessarily mutually beneficial. Sometimes those taxes levied in the spiderweb of bureaucratic red tape provide extravagant amenities for those holding the reins of power. Often times… regulations work to stifle competition and maintain the statist society. Even when the loftiest of intentions is the goal in annexing the private sector into the public… the myriad of misconceptions detailed under Frederic Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy show us that it is the least efficient way of addressing problems. Losses can be written off to the public books. Money flows much more freely when it is being supplied out of house.

Is an ounce of prevention truly worth a pound of cure? My uncle was a state meat inspector. During his tenure on the job… regulations were passed to address hygiene in meathouses which would help to assure food safety. The smaller producers could not afford the substantial upgrade and subsequently were bought out by those producers who could afford the upgrade and who had lobbied the state legislators to pass the new regulations in the first place. Those with the means to influence laws tend to be the beneficiaries of the laws. Those with the means to skirt the laws do not care about governing regulations. Google Google’s $3.1 billion double Irish/Dutch sandwich tax loophole. This has been the trend for quite some time and is growing exponentially lately. Despite our tax dollars being used to entice and entrap lackadaisical Islamists… does the potential threat of terr0rism justify the amount of money we are spending to prevent it? You are much more likely to die of a bee sting than to die from the only terr0rism we have seen in this country… that of the false flag variety. The Hegelian dialectic vicious circle is in place here. We create a problem by any means necessary. First by framing islamists… then by stirring them up via the Hegelian dialectic. The corporate media hyperbolizes the problem hoping we will be alarmed enough to overreact. The government provides us a costly solution that maintains the statist… corporatist… government. Wash… risnse… repeat. “Hey!!!… Look!… we’re solving the problem we created… good thing we’re here!”

Government bureaucracy has not been waning. Just ask MSNBC… err… their bookkeepers I mean… http://funadvice.com/r/bfgurcjoi4e

Bush Jr. grew the government at an unprecedented level… http://funadvice.com/r/14o32nl5ntp

Obama… voted in favor of TARP… supported the recent bailout… now he and his administration has overseen the annexation of numerous private sector jobs into the public.

I’m not certain where the belief that the government is shrinking stems from…but it isn’t rooted in reality. Government regulations have been selectively enforced… but rest assured… the laws are on the books and awaiting any unsuspecting enterprise unlucky enough not to be too large to fail. This is and has been the problem all along. The selective enforcement of rules. This is why so many of a libertarian mind endorse deregulation. If regulations do not apply to us all equally… if their existence only hampers the small observing companies growth… if they have spared us from the minimal impact of societies dregs at the expense of our livelihoods and free volition… they have outlived any usefulness. Less is more in this case.