Exactly, but you are right he should address them if they come up in general election debates, but not spend alot of time on them. Because the people who believe the crap to no end was never going to vote for him in the first place. But albeit, he has gotten more aggressive lately to fight back. And you are right again, casual voters will do one of two things if he doesnt do a better job at being transparent,(which I think he has recently) the will vote for J-Mac or not show up at all. On the tails side of that coin if J-Mac picks a pro-choice VP, he can call it a day literally. you talking about pissing off your base. Cutting your nose of to spite your face.
I actually like Lieberman, even though I am probably to the right of right. I just respect him as a man. I agree that selecting him as VP is political suicide, as most of the conservatives will just sit home or vote for Barr out of protest. I'm going to start another thread about October surprises. Would love to hear your opinions in that thread.
Who exactly are these people that you fear? Less than 5% of the country is unemployed. Most of them are just between jobs and most of the people getting benefits are the helpless that you claim to be sympathetic to. Other than the homeless bums, who are of no threat to anyone, mostly, and the criminals, the worlds second-oldest profession, everybody is working in this country. Your contempt for those who are working in low-paying jobs is difficult to comprehend. If we didn't have low-paid workers, who would bus your tables, pick up your garbage, clean your hotel rooms, pick your lettuce, or serve you a friggin' hamburger? If you bother to check, you'll find that the working poor, are the majority of the disadvantaged in this country, not the few bums and criminals. We can't afford for them to all get college degrees and become insurance adjusters and auditors. Someone has to mow the highways. If all of our working poor got rich, our cost of living would go through the roof and we'd have to import millions of Africans, Indians, Chinese and Mexicans to do all the dirty work. Better to have low-paid Americans doing it. But they deserve to have fair health insurance, affordable housing, and a retirement plan. They are working, they are not lazy. Your fear and anger is misplaced, I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong Red, but doesn't the Unemployment rate only give a percentage of folks that are unemployed that are seeking employment? From Wikipedia: "Unemployment is the state in which a person is without work, available to work, and is currently seeking work.[1] The unemployment rate is used in economic studies and economic indexes such as the United States' Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators. The rate is determined as the percentage of those in the labor force without jobs." I see and concede your point, but I suspect that there are far more than 5% of the population that just simply won't work. Drive through any ghetto or trailer park on any given weekday at around 11:00 and just see how many people are just hanging out. That being said, I certainly appreciated my low paying job back during my college days. I worked nights at McDonald's to pay my rent and going to the Tiger money. I probably learned more from that job about running a business and having a work ethic than I did in all my classes combined. Many people working in these low paying jobs are teens and college students, who are simply there for a short period of time, and will give these jobs over to the next group of teens and college students. I don't think teens and LSU freshman need government funded health insurance. I just went to the health unit there at LSU after a night with a girl that I would brag to my friends about.
To an extent, yes. The cost of living has gone up much faster than the rate of compensation for the common middle class worker. Stories abound about increased fuel prices and increased grocery prices, while the increase in compensation to the middle class and impoverished has been fairly stagnant. In effect, the piece of the pie that most Americans are getting has shrunk. There may be more money around, but when the staples of life also cost more, that is what we call inflation. When the percentage of money to the majority of Americans shrinks at the same time the cost of living rises, I think there is something rotten going on.
I don't want to put words into your mouth lsu-i-like, so please correct my assumption if it is wrong. When you say something is rotten going on, are you advocating that the way to level the playing field is to have the government take a piece of the pie from the folks with the biggest pieces, and divide is up among the folks with the smaller pieces? I know this is an age old argument between libs and cons, just checking your pulse here. In my opinion, the best way to make sure everyone gets a bigger piece of pie is to give everyone back some of what they are paying in taxes (accompanied by an equal cut in govt spending). This, along with lifestyle adjustments at home, should help offset the additional fuel expense, grocery expense, etc. I don't think I'll change any minds here, most people are firmly entrenched in one camp or another. I do enjoy hearing your side of it though, every now and then I learn something new and get to see the point of view from the other side.
I'm just hoping that we can close some of the inadequacies that some of those that are on top of the pile are exploiting and make government work for the people rather than for powerful special interests. I'd like to see federal funding go into projects that would spread more money out for those that are willing to work for it, but I'm also interested in seeing wasteful spending cut and at seeing a concerted effort at shrinking government bureaucracy. I think we both want to see a smaller federal government.
A lot of this is due to energy prices. We have had a bad energy policy in this country for many years and it is coming home to roost. Example: Ethanol, terrible, we are taking a food product from corn which is used to feed many food sources from animals to people. Now your talking, I agree, although, sadly I think it could be too late for this!
