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The Republicans have done many great things for this country. One good lesson that the Republicans have taught us is that you can not solve a problem by just throwing money at it.
You can not solve poor education by throwing money at schools.
You can not create a great military by just throwing money at it.
You can not fight crime by just throwing money at it.
You can not even truly solve poverty by throwing money at it.
Yet their entire plan for the problems in the economy, the deficit, and especially unemployment is to--throw money at it.
Tax cuts are basically saying, "here's more money." and with that more money everything will quickly become peaches and cream--employment will be plentiful, deficits will vanish, and companies completely self-regulated--will work for the betterment of all life on the planet.
Isn't that what we are doing--saying "keep the money you would have paid the government because we trust you to do not what is best for you with it, but what will ultimately be the best for all of us. I mean, its always the same thing--isn't it?"
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
You misunderstand. The problem that Republicans are trying to solve is "the rich do not feel like they have enough money." Throwing more money at the rich does solve that problem.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Sounds copy and pasted from an email forward.
Neither democrats or republicans "throw" money at schools. They blackmail them into following national standards regardless of how different rural Tennessee is from urban Boston.
I have never heard that democrats "throw" money at the military.
Violent crime is down over the last 20 years. Republicans and democrats have both been in power during that time. But...
Not giving money to poverty will cause more desperate people, which will increase crime.
How come when republicans cut taxes they are helping the economy, but when democrats do it they are creating a "welfare state"?
I am a registered republican. The only reason I am voting for Obama is because I have a new family. Romney wants to cut all of my deductions, credits, and exemptions. Romney doing this and lowering the overall tax rate will truly cause me to pay more, and the rich (who don't benefit from most of those exemptions) will pay less. That is wrong.
Romney gets credit for being a successful business man. Yet when other successful business men like Buffett (both of them), Hastings, and Gates ask to be taxed more they are called crazy.
[ October 22, 2012, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: Stephan ]
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: How come when republicans cut taxes they are helping the economy, but when democrats do it they are creating a "welfare state"?
posted
It's definitely not about throwing money at the problem, but it's certainly getting to the point where nothing can get done in this country. There have been numerous studies saying that a good, healthy lunch improves academic performance of students. Michelle Obama wanted to improve it and got clobbered over it.
I've heard of a number of other amazing studies on education on CSPAN. There was one conducted by a Harvard professor, examining the academic impact of giving students an allowance for achieving a grade, such as $100 for an A, $50 for a B (I'm making up the numbers). They found out that students getting B's and most students who were C average would all get A's. However D and F students did not. Basically, if you had the skills, money could be a motivation factor to get better grades.
They followed up that study with giving students small allowances for certain tasks like $5 for reading a book or $10 for writing an essay (again making it up). It resulted in the improved academic performance of all students because it taught them the skills to achieve the desired grades.
Leaving the money behind, you would imagine that schools would be encouraged to put more weight on student study habits and learning skills. Instead, kids and teachers are pushed to study to the test. Money is becoming the only way to fix a problem because everything else gets politicized. Fox News made Obama a socialist children-brainwashing president because one teacher somewhere in this large country taught her students a song. He would be compared to Stalin if he suggested students be rewarded for tasks instead of judging them on their final grades.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Apr 2011
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quote:I've heard of a number of other amazing studies on education on CSPAN. There was one conducted by a Harvard professor, examining the academic impact of giving students an allowance for achieving a grade, such as $100 for an A, $50 for a B (I'm making up the numbers). They found out that students getting B's and most students who were C average would all get A's. However D and F students did not. Basically, if you had the skills, money could be a motivation factor to get better grades.
They followed up that study with giving students small allowances for certain tasks like $5 for reading a book or $10 for writing an essay (again making it up). It resulted in the improved academic performance of all students because it taught them the skills to achieve the desired grades.
The problem you run into with external reward or reward/punishment systems is what happens to the behavior when the system is no longer in place (or the participants become habituated to it to the point were it loses its motivating power). In most cases, it declines way past what it was before the system was implemented. The external reward decreases the intrinsic, internal rewards of the behavior. rather than adds to it.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Ultimately the problem with education is our country is that it is free and guaranteed for all students until age 21. Anything free and guaranteed is not going to be valued, especially by children. If parents don't push education at home, most students won't at school.
The problem though is that if we don't guarantee a free public education, crime will rise dramatically.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I am a registered republican. The only reason I am voting for Obama is because I have a new family. Romney wants to cut all of my deductions, credits, and exemptions. Romney doing this and lowering the overall tax rate will truly cause me to pay more, and the rich (who don't benefit from most of those exemptions) will pay less. That is wrong.
Good on you, Stephan.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I was expecting many criticisms of my post, but "Neither democrats or republicans "throw" money at..." was not among them.
First, of course, this was not cut and pasted from an email but was an original thought of mine. If you wish to cut and paste it as an email going out, you have my permission.
Secondly, every time a local school district attempts to raise taxes for the school district, or whenever the teachers are asking for a raise, the response from many Republicans is, "You can not solve our educational problems by just throwing money at it."
And they are right. We need targeted programs to meet definitive goals, not just block grants or chunks of money with vague ideas on how it will improve things.
Your comment about National Standards vs local control is a totally different issue.
The fact that crime statistics are down does not mean that crime is or was a problem that politicians tried to solve by throwing money at it. I remember the headlines where programs for crime prevention were cut because "you can't solve the problem of crime by throwing money at it."
Several homes for abused women and rape victims were recently closed in Florida as part of budget process. The reason given, "we don't have the money to throw at this problem."
So yes, there have been attempts to "Throw money at a problem."
Now we have those who want to throw money at the rich with the idea that they will somehow make things better.
If the business owner takes $1.00 from his lowered taxes, and uses the entire amount to hire a new person. That new person would pay maybe $.20 in taxes on that $1.00. Somehow the other $.80 is made up in volume.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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