Bonnie and Kitty Boy, Bonnie and Kitty you both have given me a lot of food for thought today. It has been a long weekend so I will try my best. Kitty, like you, I do not feel I fit into the parameters of either party’s platforms. The parties are being defined by the media as either “Far Right Wing Conservative” or “Far Left Wing Liberal”, whatever happened to the good old solid democrat or republican. I believe the “Far” factions are smaller than people think, but they make most noise and so, as the saying goes, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. They get more attention. Many in the middle of those definitions begin to feel that they don’t fit in either party, hence more Independents. The problem with that is we don’t have any party leaders, or real standing as a group, because Independents fill a wide spectrum of beliefs. I, like Bonnie, do not believe in abortion, but I do not believe I have the right to make that decision for other women. Their bodies are their own to decide what they want. It is not for me to impose my beliefs on them. They have a right to decide for themselves. I am not in favor of partial birth abortion. I don’t know what the answer to the health care problem in this country is. It has been impacted by baby boomers getting older and having more physical challenges. Someone has to do something, but I don’t believe that congress has the faintest idea of how to truly solve it. Elizabeth Bennett gives a good reason for a single payer system on either page 6 or 7 of the “McCain’s Acceptance Speech” thread. It makes great sense, except that it would be run by the federal govt. I do not favor giving the federal govt any more power. They are not doing that great with it. The federal govt is so mired in bureucracy, everything gets parsed down to nothing and then passed on back to the citizen to pay more for it. I don’t want a daddy government, and I know the Founding Fathers didn’t either. They let the lobbyists do most of the work. Politico.com has articles every week on what is going on with the lobbyists. It is eye opening. It is almost as if they are the ones that run government. That is totally unacceptable, and earmarks get added after the bills have been voted on by the congress and senate, of course Bush as said that he won’t sign any more bills that get sent to him with earmarks added after it has been voted on. Will the next president be adamant about it. I hope so. I also agree that the states should have more control of what goes on in their states regarding Health Education and Welfare. The more things are turned over to the Feds, the more money we have to pay in Fed taxes. The more bureaucracy the money has to go through, the less outcome in services. If the money stayed in the states, more problems could be solved on a local level, infrastructure issues could be better addressed. The states would be more empowered to create more fertile ground for job growth. I think the less interference with the progress of the state or the individual, the further they can go. After the problems in the market, I believe there has to be some regulatory guidelines for the banks, maybe reinstate the Glass Steagall Act. Bonnie excellent paragraph on taxes, I agree. Being a business owner, and experiencing the weight of taxes for every little thing, is mind boggling. We want to make more jobs for people and grow our business. Before Gov Schwarzenegger was elected our workers comp payment, for a couple of guys was $600-$800 per week, depending on payroll. We could have bought them individual insurance plans for less than that, and saved the rest for them. Now it is half of that, because they really reformed it. There has to be reform. Everyone keeps debating the same old tax plan, it has to be reformed with no new taxes. Americans should be able to vote on congress getting pay raises, and reduce their pay if they don’t perform well. They have privatized social security, but they can’t come up with a solution for social security. They don’t want to. If attention were really put on it it would show that they have been borrowing money from it forever to pay for their projects and earmarks. None of them in Washington know how to budget so just borrow from the people’s social security, because theirs is secure. If congress’ social security was in the general SS fund, they wouldn’t be screwing with it so much. I am tired, have gone on too long, don’t know if I have made sense, but that is my 2 cents.