I never said "high taxes and huge government expenditures were the key to prosperity". In fact, in my somewhat flippant post to Jody, I suggested they might not be correlated at all.

And as you have pointed out, "There is no cause and effect." Although as we both know, extremes of anything can have bad consequences. However, you are suggesting that lower taxes are the cure for everything, the usual conservative one-note samba.

The truth is that we are in desperate times, and the shock treatment the Democrats are trying, regardless of whether it will work or not, is unnaceptable to you because it will raise your taxes. Your party simply cannot see any further than that, although I note when it's something you feel strongly about, like aircraft carriers, deficit spending and higher taxes are never an issue.

We need to spend less money and we need to collect less taxes. We also need to spend our money more wisely and see to it that the taxes we do not collect somehow get directed to creating jobs, not to the financial sector. And we may all have to pull our belts tighter to get through this, like maybe a reduction in entitlements, some moderate inflation, some cutting back on benefits, and some higher taxes.

Perhaps if the wealthiest sectors of America, including the corporate structure, had spent more of their Republican tax cuts on new workers and plants instead of real estate deals and foreign factories and labor, we would not be in the mess we're in now. THAT is why nobody takes you guys seriously anymore.

I'd just like to see everyone start making some sacrifices.