I have posted here at least five times and the filtering software is filtering me out? What kind of algorithms are they using? I know that I am definitely not spamming. Come on, we WANT people to post here, improve the software please.

You forgot New Orleans Saints tickets. I rooted against the Saints this year because of their willingness to fraudulently obtain tax dollars. At least Hooters had the respect for the taxpayers to repay the stolen money. Who'd have thought that Hooters is more moral than a football team called the Saints?

Jim Webb is actually a former Republican who switched Democrat. He was only elected because George Allen had the stupidity to call a Webb campaign worker a "macaca," which is a racial slur that offends people from India. If Allen had kept his mouth shut, he'd be campaigning for the GOP nomination this year. Goes to show you the stupidity of the Big 2.

Maybe they should put the money into our public schools. They aren't doing a very good job of brainwashing children against Libertarianism these days.

OK, I'm done joking around. This is an example of typical government spending abuse. Only 279 days to the next general election, then another year till the next Congressional/Presidential election. Maybe we'll get more good, honest Libertarians like Kim Hawk (see the link on the lp.org homepage) into office and start to cut this spending. Maybe we can also vote out enough pay raise politicians that the big parties accept responsible spending, which has been out of style for way too long in this country (see all the people who max out their credit cards and pay minimum payments). Hopefully, the time-honored tradition of spending within your means will soon come back into fashion.

Back in the early 90's Newt Gingrich authorized an audit of the government. A consortium of auditors from what was then the big 8 ? performed the audit on FY 1996 I believe. The audit could not account for $150,000,000,000. Much to my surprise the biggest violators of acceptable accounting procedures where; 1)Department of Educaton; 2)Department of Agriculture; 3)Department of Commerce; 4)Department of Defense. The report also showed that 30% of all medicare claims were fraudualent.

Having worked for a Defense Contractor during the 70's & 80's sometimes the bureaucrat trying to get his/her budget up, writes the contract so that the toilet seat actually costs $5,000 just to comply with the regulations. It is not just the government contractors that are ripping off the tax payer, it is the career bureaucrats who are trying to advance their careers. As their budgets get bigger so does their salary and their span of control.

Now, in my never to be humble opinion, we need the department of defense, the rest can be pretty much eliminated.

What good would it be to build a swimming pool in Iraq when everything is being bombed over there anyway? They'll be wasting all of our taxpayer dollars on it, only to have it blown to kingdom come.

We could triple the number of auditors and uncover triple the number of abuses (which, let's face it, aren't abuses in the eyes of the folks who approve the boondoggles.) The only way to combat fraud and waste is to lessen the amount of OPM (other peoples' money) that gets spent. Most voters, however, believe it o.k. to spend other peoples' money - whether they believe they are net winners or they believe it moral to redistribute to the needy. Examples like this show the reality of what happens when spending OPM; but many will say "well we just need more cost conscious people in office." So, we absolutely must attack the morality of such spending if we are to get anywhere.

I totally agree, the less a government does, the less that can go wrong.

I just have a hard time convicing my leftist buddy that actually did 2 years in a commune of that.

I personally don't like waste, but it is far from my biggest problem with Big Brother.
Governments waste money. That is what they do. The more you give them the more they waste.
The less departments they have, the less people there are to waste it. The less number of programs there are the less bureaucrats there are.
We will never eliminate bureaucratic waste. It has been around since the first governments.
However the smaller the government is the smaller my personal contribution to the waste is.
Coach Jim- your leftist buddy will never understand that. He, like all socialists, wants a free ride. I'll bet at his commune there were some who worked harder at growing the pot than others but everybody was around when it was time to smoke it. just kidding ;-).

I totally disagree with the free ride part, and he doesn't smoke pot (though I don't hold that against him).

What they were after were that all members contribute a fair share of effort and all would be "paid" equally. The doctor earning as much as the garbage man. It was communism straight up. There actually was no pay, everyone shared the "wealth" (ahem) equally. And it was able to work because it was 30 people. With that small of a community everyone can keep an eye on the other and you don't have fraud. Add that to the fact that everyone left a "normal" life to be there; they all shared the same ideals going in. But in the end it only worked because it was small enough that they didn't need a government.

In the end it was an idyllic adventure for him. He has since returned, got a decent job, and voted straight Democrat. He will be participate in our political game night this Saturday.

Check out my political game; everyone here would probably dig it.

http://hyper2.com/essays/Politigo.html

Coach Jim- I didn't really think he was a free-loader. I was just joking about an experience some of my Hippy friends had in a commune. You're right that it can work with a small group of like-minded people. Under my vision people would be free to enter into such contracts if they wanted. The operative part being voluntary.

THAT is the government Thomas Jefferson envisioned. To have the smallest possible limitations on the people and the freedom to join like-minded groups. Not for some to establish a group and impose it on others.

Like I have said elsewhere it would also allow for states to become socialist if they like (our home state of Michigan is heading that way, anyway). The thing that would happen is business (and people) would leave those states (like they're doing in Michigan). But if they can prove me wrong more power to them. I would just like the option of moving away from socialism.
Even though Michigan is more socialist than most states, moving will gain me little. Because our overall government is mandating many socialist programs it is spreading everywhere.
I guess I am a Federalist Libertarian. One who wants to limit the federal government first and let the individual states choose their own course. Of course I would fight for libertarian laws (or more accurately the repealing of laws) in my own state but I don't care if another state wants to be stupid. Because the more libertarian states will win in the long run.

I would like to say something along the lines of what John said, how about those states passing laws to require school age girls to to take the vaccine that supposedly prevents cervical cancer. Unfortunately my home state of Texas is one of those staes. Just last week Governor Rick Perry made the decision to require parents to have their daughters vaccinated. That is not the government's decision it is the parents' decision.

I know I'm going a bit OT from the theme of this thread, but I realy want to know what the LP take on national defense is.
George Washington wisely spoke out against maintaining a large standing Army, so how about a 20% active duty, 80% National Guard force composition for the Army for starters?

Jimbo, there are many views expressed in these blogs about ideas for the military from personnel makeup to purpose and expenditure. I would refer you to the issues page if you want the official party position. The blogs will get you a wide spectrum of ideas. One thing we all tend to agree on is that the Department of Homeland Security should not exist because the Defense Department should be performing the job of defending the homeland.