Comments on: Letter from a town hall

By: Nell Lancaster

Nell Lancaster — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:43:03 +0000

rvman, thanks for that explanation of the $144K. It must be part of a standard Republican talking points package, because my R. congressman (Goodlatte, VA 6th) used the same figure at a recent town hall mtg in talking about the deficit. He wasn’t wack enough to phrase it as “buying Treasury bills”, though.

By: rvman

rvman — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 21:37:40 +0000

The 144k is Culberson mangling the projected costs of Social Security and Medicare – at current benefit levels, these programs create a total liability of 41 trillion, plus or minus. That is about 8 trillion current debt, with the remaining 33 trillion to pay today for the difference between collections from taxes and benefits over the next 75 years or so at current tax rates and benefits, based on reasonable assumptions about growth and returns.

It wouldn’t cost 144k per person to pay off the current debt, it would cost 144k per person to establish a ‘pension’ fund to cover the future unfunded costs of Medicare and SS, along with paying off the current debt.

By: snuh

snuh — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 22:57:33 +0000

should be a question mark after california too. wasn’t that an “activist” city official, rather than judge?

By: jet

jet — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 22:06:06 +0000

I understand we are on the virge of major technological revolutions in energy which will turn current concepts of productivity on their head, but to base our future on the bet that our reckless spending won’t catch up with us before some miracle in science turns the Earth into a technophiles paradise is frigg’n crazy.

You freak’n lose no matter who you vote for.

By: David R. Mark

David R. Mark — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 21:47:16 +0000

With regard to the“Town Hall” meetings on privatization, someone please explain this: In Bakersfield and Reno, Cheney faced only friendly questions, and you can read them on whitehouse.gov in their entirety if you want to “educate” yourself on the virtues of privatization. But whitehouse.gov wasn’t interested in offering a dissenting Republican view in Battle Creek, or even the healthy Q&A that occurred in Pittsburgh.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:58:17 +0000

a complete inability to acknowledge the costs of permanent tax-cutting and a related unwillingness to make a serious case for actual smaller government

Please. I don’t buy “inability” or “unwillingness” for a second.

They know exactly what they’re doing—this is Grover Norquist’s “starve the beast” philosophy in action. If government can’t be shrunk to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub, it can always be drowned in a sea of red ink.

By: norbizness

norbizness — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:41:30 +0000

It could be worse. Your parents could actually live in DeLay’s recently re-re-drawn district.

By: rea

rea — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:07:30 +0000

. . . would have come as a surprise to those old Romans and Germans, to learn that their laws were baseed on those of the Jews

By: Ginger

Ginger — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:36:03 +0000

Thanks for posting this. Culberson is my mother’s congresscritter and she doesn’t think much of him, although she hates him less than she doesn Tom DeLay. It was particularly interesting to hear what he thinks (wrongly, says the legal history geek) about the foundations of American law.

By: maha

maha — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:26:41 +0000

Last week Culberson was interviewed by Dan Abrams on MSNBC. This interview was a jaw-dropper, to say the least. Culberson not only wants Congress to take the judiciary in hand, he also said the courts should reflect George W. Bush’s will. Here’s the official MSNBC transcript:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7406332/

Here’s just the Culberson part of the transcript:

http://www.mahablog.com/id29.html

Here’s my commentary on the interview:

http://www.mahablog.com/2005.04.03_arch.html#1112831026438