If we downsized government we wouldn't have the new national banking system, the VA hospital, the post office, jails, Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, SSI, unemployment, parks (national and city), beaches (national and city), libraries, roads, streets, highways, byways, freeways, schools, street lamps and or any lighting paid by the government (city included), the U.S military (paid by the government using tax dollars), firefighters, policemen, WIC, school breakfast program, national school lunch program, FCC, FDA, USDA, import tariffs, child support enforcement, temporary disability insurance, HUD, corporate welfare - why do you think Wal-Mart has low prices. It's one major advantages over small retailers. Their massive taxpayer subsidies goes right to the heart of conservatives' Big Lie about embracing free markets.
Conservatives' false belief that anything having to do with business is automatically part of the free market. Give me a break. Wal-Mart has more workers enrolled in many state Medicaid programs, which are supposed to be reserved for poor people, than any other employer. Look it up.
If some are whining about socialist programs, please feel free to not use them. Capitalism doesn't pay for any of these programs.
Some people don't know what socialism is, they just think it's a bad word to call Obama so they all call him a socialist.
The neocon noise machine is cranking up with cries of socialism as the new budget increases spending on social programs. Why are the conservatives self-defeating and wrong? Social programs are a need not socialism.
Health insurance? Folks take their sick kids to the emergency room, then they get a bill, which goes with the other bills they cannot pay. Then the "contributing" members of society pick up the tab by paying $75 dollars for an aspirin during a hospital stay. It seems like a high price to keep from giving someone access to a regular doctor because they cannot pay the cost of insurance.
Conservatives like giving away government money, too. They just do it differently. Whether they are billion dollar sole-source contracts to Halliburton to Blackwater, farm subsidies that benefit California millionaires with a hobby ranch in Wyoming, or the $12 billion squandered monthly in Iraq nicely paid by the Chinese, conservatives are quite liberal with American tax dollars.
Big corporations pay staffs of attorneys and consultants to find legal ways to dodge taxes. They incorporate in Bermuda or the Bahamas, or they create fantasy charitable trusts with no tax liability. Meanwhile, as conservatives shrink government, the number of IRS tax auditors has dropped by a third since the 1990s.
In the name of individual responsibility, conservatives proudly deny a helping hand to the poor (welfare) and powerless. Meanwhile they ladle money into the banks of the rich and powerful in the form of tax subsidies or unquestioned contracts.
Conservatives are great at moralizing when the target is a vulnerable individual. When it's a big corporation that's exploiting the public purse, they're silent.
What countries have no "socialist" programs? None at all. Anything that is publicly owned or operated is called socialist.
