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The principles that rule this blog

Principles that will govern my thoughts as I express them here (from my opening statement):


  • Freedom of the individual should be as total as possible, limited only by the fact that nobody should be free to cause physical injury to another, or to deprive another person of his freedoms.
  • Government is necessary primarily to provide those services that private enterprise won't, or won't at a price that people can afford.
  • No person has a right to have his own beliefs on religious, moral, political, or other controversial issues imposed on others who do not share those beliefs.

I believe that Abraham Lincoln expressed it very well:

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot
so well do, for themselves — in their separate, individual capacities.”


Comments will be invited, and I will attempt to reply to any comments that are offered in a serious and non-abusive manner. However, I will not tolerate abusive or profane language (my reasoning is that this is my blog, and so I can control it; I wouldn't interfere with your using such language on your own!)

If anyone finds an opinion that I express to be contrary to my principles, they are welcome to point this out. I hope that I can make a rational case for my comments. Because, in fact, one label I'll happily accept is rationalist.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

The Obama/GOP deal on taxes

President Barack Obama has apparently made a deal with GOP Congressional leaders on taxes. The tax cuts from the Bush administration will all be extended for two years. (The GOP wanted them made permanent, but in 2012 we will have a chance to elect a new President, so a two-year extension is good enough for now.) Anf the Republican leaders agreed to an extension of unemployment benefits, which (despite some Republicans' belief that this encourages people to sit back and collect benefits rather than looking for work) is probably a good thing in an economy with a scarcity of jobs. (Who will collect a benefit that's only a couple of hundred dollars a week, when there are jobs that pay twice as much or more? If the jobs were there, people would take them.)

I said that when Pres. Obama does the right thing, I'd acknowledge it. And he has. He's forsaken his class-struggle leftism long enough to agree to an extension of the tax cuts. Now the ball is in Nancy Pelosi's court. For the next month, she is still Speaker and the Democrats still control the House. Will she and the Dems keep their part of the bargain? We shall see.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower - three progressive Republicans who set an example of what a U.S. President can be. Don’t let this tradition die. “Two out of four on Mount Rushmore ain’t bad.”

ProgressiveRepublicans.org
http://www.progressiverepublicans.org/