Quote:
Originally Posted by PIMking
If I'm reading this right I have two issues:
1) military spending isn't that bad, Think of it this way, the business center isn't located in Vietnam or India like Nike and Microsoft. So in affect keeping the money at home. It doesn't mean that you have to be at war, but being ready for action would be nice too. (thanks Clinton)
2) Raise taxes? really? haven't we learned enough from history about raising taxes? Romans did that and the rich took their money elsewhere. When the money and the rich are gone and your "tax profit" is down due to the people that did have money are now gone.
Mr. Obama and his 200 million/day trip to Mumbai are great for the deficit too....
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I realise its 3 pages on but I have to make a comment, I assume classics and history arn't taught in the US but
'the rich romans took their money elsewhere' , I mean come on, even watching Gladiator should teach you more than that, the rich Romans were slaughtered by the Goths Visigoths and Huns, along with the poor and not so poor, there was no where else for them to go.
Taxes didn't bring down the Roman Empire, over expansion of their empires limits to beyond their ability to guard the border forced the Romans to rely on mercenary tribes to do their dirty work (kind of like a smelly, brutal version of Halliburton in Iraq, although I would concede Halliburton is probably about as brutal).
These tribes in the end turned on the empire when they realised the Romans were unable to stop them, primarily because Rome was riven by competing candidates for emperor (like your Presidant) who wouldn't work together for the good of the country and were more concerned with gaining power than actually defending the empire.
Then a massive push for territory from the east by early ancestors of the Mongols displaced German tribes and Hunish tribes over the border into the western empire and ultimatly caused it to fail under the stress. Sort of like what China appears to be doing commercially.
History is well worth a study, Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" should be forced on every american student.