Sorry, I know this isn't directly 2A related, but I just got back to Hawaii and I saw a Hanabusa ad on TV that made blood shoot out of my eyes. Unfortunately, I can't seem to the ad on YouTube (it seems Hawaii's political machine is quite behind the power curve in this area...I think we can capitalize on this...but that's a thread for another day), but the gist of it was that the Bush Tax Cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have accounted for 80% of the Federal deficit.
In the TWO years since Obama has taken office, we have added another $3 TRILLION to the National debt (over half of Bush's $4.9T during his 8 years...which was bad enough). 80% of 3 Trillion equals $2.4 Trillion, yet President Obama said that the Bush tax cuts will "cost" (which is BS...I'll get to that in a minute) $700 Billion over 10 years...or $70B per year. According to Hanabusa's version of arithmetic, that would mean that the 2 wars have cost about $2 Trillion dollars. Yet the Center for Defense Information(1) says that the cost of both wars since
2001 is about $1.8 Trillion. Not exactly chump change mind you, but not even remotely close to Hanabusa's claim. In reality, the 2 wars cost just under $300B in 2009-2010. Again, not a small amount of money by any means, but things still don't add up. Not that I'm surprised by that, leave it up to a progressive to distort the truth to fit her needs.
While we're on the subject, I would like to hear Mrs. Hanabusa explain how a tax-cut "costs" the government money. A "tax-cut" means that they will simply take LESS of YOUR money. Apparently, by Hanabusa's standard, OUR money belongs to the government...since they have obviously already counted on spending it-thus tax-cuts "costing" them money. What a Ponzi scheme...
The Progressives keep arguing that we MUST drop the tax-cuts, because things are currently unsustainable....well, no duh. The CORRECT answer is to SPEND LESS MONEY [Note to Mrs. Hanabusa: For starters, that means no more "Stimulus Plans" that DON'T WORK (2)] and stop counting OUR money as THEIR money.
Reference
(1)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html(2)
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/13/the-50-job-lawnmower-and-other-porkulus-job-fables/- Alex