[Rhylan]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

No, we're not Norway. Our GDP is like FIFTY TIMES the size of Norway! Hell, I think Texas alone is about three times the size of Norway. And what is Texas trying to do? Talk to your congressman. I listened to Dan Branch a couple months ago. Good Republican, he is. His stump speech was about how much Texas needs to shake off its no-spending habit and get with the rest of the world economy. He wants roads built to renew our aging infrastructure, which will facilitate commerce. He wants investments in upper-tier colleges, to spur innovation--which we are presently lagging far behind in compared to other parts of the US and particularly other parts of the world. He wants our water supply systems to be addressed, so that we don't face crippling problems ten and twenty years down the road.

Who's gonna pay for that? Rhylan, who wants to keep everything that's "his"? Apparently not. Dude? Apparently not.

Business is a pay-to-play game. You don't just wake up one day and decide that you're going to work really hard, and then make a fortune. If you are a lawyer or a doctor or a financier, maybe. But not if you are a CEO.

We here in Dallas are presently to decide upon a multi-billion-dollar bond project to build a new Parkland Hospital. Whoa, now. Sorry, man, I see no reason to pay for that. I've got my own doctor, my own hospital. I'm not paying for poor people to go to Parkland.

You see where this is going? If you want a first-class economy, the kind of economy that supports the lifestyle you enjoy, you have to pay the freight.

If everybody freeloads on it, the whole thing crumbles. Tragedy of the commons, and all.

Dude, this is just like trying to argue basketball with you. You've shifted the argument. What we're talking about here is Federal taxing & spending. Not state & local. The more local a government, the more you can talk about providing services like that, and I might listen.

I am a federalist, you see.

You're never going to hear me argue against transportation infrastructure at any level. I think that's one of the best ROIs that tax money can offer.

Hospitals, I'm on the fence. I'd prefer private organizations fund hospitals. There's a reason that I live in Denton county (and others Collin) rather than Tarrant & Dallas, and part of that is high hospital district taxes. I don't trust a governmental entity to fund & manage a hospital any more than I trust them to do anything else.

Education, well, I think we need some market economics at play to drive down costs at universities, because they have no incentive to do so otherwise. I went to A&M for far less than my wife went to TCU, so I can see the value of state funding at state schools, clearly, but I also think they need some pressure to keep costs down. The citizens aren't just a cash register. "Innovation" comes from minds, whether they're in a marble building or a brick building or a garage... unless you're talking about pharmaceuticals or something like that, money doesn't have to play a factor. ESPECIALLY public money.

You can't tell me that you wanna take some of my money to fund "innovation" when I'd rather pay Steve Jobs & friends, get a product out of the deal, and all Steve needed was his brain, a garage and the Woz to get started.

But to pretend that we need confiscatory income tax policies at the federal level to support the success of individual businesses is illogical and contradicts history.