Or demand a pay cut.

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The metaphor is accurate, it's Jason's lack of any purposeful attempt to compare the two that fell woefully short.

(Glen) Do you really believe there are GOP members of congress who "don't want American's to get the best possible value for their health care dollars"? Do you even think about what you are saying before you say it? When you make invidious remarks like that, all you do is make yourself look simple minded, angry and hateful.

It's just amazing to me all of the facts and evidence some people will ignore, trip over, walk around, fall over, and run from when it doesn't mesh with their own feckless and confused analysis. Well played.

With that concept in mind I admit to being a little curious to read the post so I could see with my own eyes, proof!, there really was someone trying to convince other people that our 14+ trillion dollar national debt was no big deal,and not only that, didn't mean we were broke! BTW the page where I linked over to here from had nominated it for the distinction of being the Dumbest Post anywhere for the Month of May. For anyone who took this statement to heart I have some bad news. While the act of owing 14 trillion dollars doesn't in and of itself indicate insolvency. When the other factors are considered such as the population size, the cost of servicing this debt, the fact that had we adopted the budget Obama proposed this year the size of the debt would be growing by over 10% a year for many years. The real test, even in the brain of a 5th grader is the 'bad check' test. If you discover that the checks you are writing are bouncing then you are broke!. To put this into context, since November of 2010 the United States has been paying all of it's bills with money we had just printed up! In a fiat currency world that is tantamount to writing bad checks. Just like the little boy telling his mom as he holds up a box of unused checks "Mom look how rich we are" What a foolish and irresponsible for someone to write. You should have run from that one Chuck.Did you even read it? We are scaling back our expenditures because we are spending 1.6 trillion dollars more each year than we are bring in!

Good Call Kari! That was definitely

"The Comment of the Day" On my score card it may ven be the comment of the year! And where better than in response to "The Post of the Monthy" to find such a credible treasure like this. (rolls eyes)

Hoo boy. Where to start with this?

Okay. Lets talk the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. I assume you know this? In it, a farmer discovers one day that one of his geese has laid an egg of solid gold. The next day, the goose does it again. Then, in a fit of greed, the farmer kills the goose to get to the gold he assumes is inside, only to find nothing that you would normally find inside a goose.

This is exactly what I mean, and where your metaphor falls apart. The federal government does not go out and collect a paycheck. It does not need to pay an auto loan. It's sole income comes from itself. And unless it invests in itself, it will never generate more money. Should it begin selling off it's assets, then if things do externally improve, there is less and less to capitalize on that.

Also - you are right in that taxes don't make people wealthy. People spending money makes people wealthy. By giving breaks to the wealthy, they do make jobs, sure. They make them in the FTZ in Mexico. They make tons of them over in China. And Taiwan. And India. We won't even go into the fact that the wealthiest have access to a lot more ways to not pay taxes, from offshoring, multiple locations with lower tax rates in the country, or simply hiring more and better (or more accurately, any) financial consultants.

As for Bill Gates toothpastes, obviously you picked up on the words, but not the meaning. So I will walk you through it so you'll get it this time. Sure, Bill Gates could buy 14 trillion tubes of toothpaste. That's fine. But how many can he use at one time? Assuming he brushes like the rest of us, he may need a new tube every couple of months. So Mr. Gates goes out to the local store, and slaps $2 down for a new one. The store takes it's cut of the profit, and capitalism works. Everyone is a little richer, the shop owner and employees can go home and feed their kids. Hurrah.

However, Bill Gates only needs to brush his teeth so many times in a month. So that means his toothpaste purchases are limited. And if he is the only one who can buy toothpaste, then soon the store shuts down, and the owner and employees no longer feed their children.

Now, if we work to make sure that EVERYONE, from Bill Gates to Bob the Dumpster Diver can buy toothpaste, that is millions of purchases monthly. Even better, it is spread all across the country. So millions of shop owners go home to their millions of kids and everyone eats.

This works with everything. It is simply more economically sound to have millions and millions of middle class people buying televisions and cars and shoes and toothpaste, then it is to have a single Bill Gates buying all the toothpaste in the world.

As for the wealthy making themselves wealthy...that's a ridiculous bit of circular logic. It's a lot easier building yourself a mountain if you begin on a large hill. It is much harder if you begin standing in a valley.