This is what we pay taxes for?


Quote taken from this link or source.

This "aircraft" has not left the ground much less the flat bed truck that it spends most of its time on in the twenty years that the Republicans have given this turkey millions with no apparent expectations for a timely or functional result.

Moderator Edit: To edit post and quote source to avoid copyright infringement. ~ Animal

A little more information on the DP-2:
mystery-plane

Unbelievable,, 63 million over twenty years and it hasn't left the ground , he must have some friends in high places.

Makes one feel confident about giving away their hard-earned money to some faceless institution!

The money spent on that PALES in comparison to the money spent on the war on poverty (using our tax money) which has had less success than this aircraft. Where's the outrage over that?

Vertical taking off and landing is a technology shown to be important to the future of technology.

Or the war on drugs for that matter.

My outrage is not directed at the misuse of funds necessarily, but rather the fact that the government thinks they have any 'right' to my money at all. Read the 16th Amendment, it grants no such taxation rights. The Federal Income Tax is illegal, unconstitutional, and enforced by tyranny!

You rock!!! I'm with you....

ABOLISH THE INCOME TAX, and ABOLISH SOCIAL SECURITY!! (Seriously!)

Amen!!

Have you seen the movie, "America: Freedom to Fascism"?

It is an excellent display of how insane the income tax has become. The 1040 violates our 5th Amendment rights, but nobody brings that up.

I would like to know what 'security' I have to look forward to from Social Security?

Man...social security is the biggest ponzi scheme ever created.

Umm, how is that exactly?

By this...

5th amendment...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

63 million over 20 years? Ha, how about 133 million per plane.

And why did we need another air-superiority fighter? To combat Al Qaeda's air-superiority fighters??

Ok, so Social Services, Highways, Clean Water, or Law Enforcement are not equitable compensation? How do you define 'just compensation'? Besides, you can't just pull out one little piece and expect to make your case. Taken in it's entirety, the 5th amendment was written and is still interpreted as a means to prevent government from treating it's citizens in an unjust manner, ie throwing someone in jail without a trial, or forcing them to confess to something they may or may not have done through coercion or torture. That part you clipped out, when taken in context with the rest of the amendment, means that government does not have the right to take my private property as a means of coercion.

We don't - nor do we need a modern Navy or high-tech battlefield equipment or "spy" satellites, etc. especially if we don't want to maintain our way of life - I see no reason to continue with any of that stuff.

As long as there are people in the world who strive to dominate others, we'll always have the choice to succumb.



I'm thinking more along the lines of keeping Al Qaeda from obtaining them. That thought is no laughing matter, in my opinion.

Well, I didn't say I believe it, but I found what he was talking about.
However, you find where the federal income tax and social security are constitutional, then we can talk.

Edited for poor grammar.

Tell that to the DEA. Confiscation of private property on simple suspicion of drug activity is mot unusual.

Geez.

At the "tea party", they complained about taxation without representation.

Now we have taxation with representation, and some folks still aren't happy.

Isn't that the truth. Some people would complain if they were hung with a new rope....

I would!!
There's a better chance of an old rope, failing.

To those folks who hate social security tax I encourage you to not take social security money when you retire. Since it is such a PONZI. [/sarcasm]

1. The US spends roughly the same on military spending as the rest of the world combined. How do other countries maintain their way of life? If we spend less, will ours simply collapse? Or even better, are there more effective ways to spend less money on an equally effective defense force?

Ah yes, one question I can't avoid is what we spend the money on. We can afford a new fighter but we can't afford body armor for all the National Guard troops?

The enemy we fight uses simple weapons effectively. There's no amount of stealth technology that will stop 50 year old RPG's from popping out of windows in random apartment buildings.

I am not arguing that we shouldn't have a strong military. I just don't agree with the logic that the more we spend the safer we will be.

In fact, I think these kinds of projects have more to do with business than defense. If the real goal was US air superiority, you know...so we could "safe," why do military contractors try and sell the blasted things to as many countries as possible? We have a history of selling our top planes (and other weapons) to our allies. Perhaps "selling" is the keyword here?

Of course, we gave/sold/trained/supported the Taliban with advanced weapons in the 80's. They were our "allies" at the time. Too bad they didn't read the fine print that said, "not to be used on the morons that sold you these weapons."

I think that military spending is analogous to health care spending. The US also has the dubious distinction of spending more on health care than any other nation. But it turns out sheer spending doesn't necessitate a healthier society. In fact, in many ways we have the weakest system of all the industrialized nations.

But again, the goal of the health care industry is profit, not health; likewise, the goal of the military-industrial complex is profit rather than national security. The trick for both is to convince the public that the more we spend, the healthier and safer, respectively, we will be.

Anyway, yes, eventually we have to upgrade the military; yes, the military must maintain its "teeth." But the idea that the mere suggestion of reducing military spending equates directly with "abandoning our way of life" is, as Spock would say, "most illogical."

2. Al Qaeda is a threat because it moves across boarders without detection. To deploy an advanced fighter, you would need to have airbases, fuel supplies, ect ect. The great difficulty in defeating Al-Qaeda-type groups is that they have no such points to which they are tied; there are no stationary targets such as you would have if we were simply combating another country.

Of course, that's the main flaw in the logic that occupying Iraq prevents terror. We are expending a huge amount of resources to hold onto an unstable country instead of staying mobile, hunting down the cells of an organization that by definition has no specific national ties or rooted physical location. It all seems very...illogical. Of course, all of this suggests that there were other motives for the invasion. Ah, do we see a pattern forming?

I make only two assumptions here, lp -

one is that there are evil people in the world

and

second is that they will use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals.

One can either succumb or stand up against them. We each have this choice.



Beyond that, I'm not going to debate where each dollar should be spent, or what is the correct action in every case, etc. Arguably, nothing that will ever be done will be without criticism, 20/20 hindsight, and viewed with bias and prejudice.

Well that's true enough!

For you to think it will be available when I retire is lacking in the knowledge of what it is. What else do you call a program where more money is withdrawn than is put in?

Frankly, if the government let me keep that money, I wouldn't need social security when I retire. WOW!!! Imagine that logic.

Tweet!

Foul!

You used the words "government" and "logic" in the same paragraph!

Just because the conversation is interesting....how do you personally interpret the phrase "shall be uniform throughout the United States."

Also, what about withholding introduced in 1943? What was its specific purpose?

What was the original intent for the federal income tax compared to the intent now?

For those of you who are up in arms about the federal income tax allow me to add a little fuel for the fire, this article argues the legitimacy of the sixteenth amendment. Enyoy.

This is something that I ran across several months back and it blew my mind, under the Civil-asset forfeiture laws the police can confiscate all of your possessions if your neighbor makes an anonamous call to the police telling them that you have illegal drugs.

If you want to read something that will blow you mind read this article.

Law enforcement agencies have the right to confiscate any money tainted with illegal drugs. Let me put this into perspective, toxicology consultants who ran a seven year study found that an average of 96% of bill tested in eleven cities tested positive for cocaine. Here's one that will leave you scratching your head, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has revealed that they have found traces of cocaine on 15-27% of their presses that print our money.

Here's an example of how it works, a retired janitor was arrested in a airport where the drug sniffing dog indicated that it had detected cocaine in the woman's luggage and was placed under arrest. The police opened her luggage and found close to $40,000.00, this was her entire life savings and money from an insurance settlement, no drugs were found, not even when they subjected her to a strip search. This woman was able to document all of the cash, she was not charged with any crime but the police kept her money, it's been four years now and she still hasn't had her money returned.

Very interesting article dc3! I had heard and read of States not following proper procedures, but have never seen the evidence presented so succinctly.

And there it is. If for no other reason than this evidence (if it is in fact completely true ) the Federal Income Tax is Unconstitutional! It should be abolished, and a new system voted on. Unless people truly believe "It's just a God$@&# piece of paper!"

... Of course, then you have to say the same for each State's Constitution as well...


And yes, the powers that law enforcement thinks it has are absurd. There will come a day when people refuse to lay down and come prepared for the police, I do not wish for that day. But one can only paint themselves into a corner for so long.

By the time we are eligible for it (age 85 by that time) there won't be any public social security left as we know it.

Actually, that is one of the original problems of Social Security since it was established -

it was based off of the average life expectancy when the age of 65 was first established.

It should have then increased as the life expectancy increased.

It should have been done away with a long time ago. In my opinion.

I agree 100%. Now all the money that we have been forced to contribute will be used to support millions of illegal trespassers in this country.

But, if there is one truth of government, it is that once they find a way to take your money, they will never stop!

When I lived in Houston, I had to cross a toll-bridge every day to get to and from work. Each way was $2.00. I learned that when it was opened, the state said that the then $0.25 toll would only last as long as it took to pay for the bridge...LIARS!

I would certainly agree that if it wasn't going to be continued properly

it shouldn't even have begun.

I lived in Denver when they built the Baseball stadium and created a tax to do it. They said it would go away when the stadium was paid 4. A few years later they said the stadium would be paid off ahead of time and so they extended the tax to pay for the new football stadium.
Once they get a tax going, they ain't gonna give it back....

Some what odd that taxpayers even pay for a stadium. I voted no each time they ask here. We've built and rebuilt stadiums. I've paid and built all the buildings for my business, but one and someone I know did that. Why the Owners and or players don't pay for it is beyond me. There's a healthy TAX deduction there and especially when you're making an awful lot. You want a McDonald's, Dry cleaners or Bowling alley don't wait for a bond to be floated to pay for it.