I don't think that anyone makes a conscious decision to be homeless. It's a consequence of their actions. The result of the sum of their decisions over a period of time landed them where they are today. Only 3% of homeless people in this country have mental disabilities, so it's not like they just one day woke up homeless. It's not that I don't feel compassion for somebody who has made mistakes and found themselves in a really bad spot. I do. But that's why I choose to give back in my donations. I believe we should be focusing more energy on prevention and education. If you've got a nail in your head, Vicodin will make it feel a little better -Or I could have provided you with a hardhat so that you didn't get that nail in the first place. Welfare is meant to be the hardhat but, over the years, it has evolved into the Vicodin. Now we've got to surgically removed the nails and pass out hardhats. I'll stop before I get too carried away. My point is, the government doesn't do much with my money to help people rise above poverty. It helps them to stay alive while continuing to live their poor quality of life while not doing much do address the reason that they are there in the first place. Guess what happens to their children.


I agree with you that wealthy people have different concerns than do poor people, but my point is that they aren't as far removed from the rest of us as you make them out to be. Again, I didn't vote for John McCain, nor do I want him to be our next President. That doesn't make Barack Obama qualified. If you present me with a rotten peach and a rotten apple, I'll tell you that neither of them is appetizing.

I don't believe in fundamental capitalism. I'm happy to pay taxes to fund roads and education and defense, among other things. All of those things are good. I just feel that this country already collects more than enough money from it's citizens. We need to concentrate our energy on being more efficient and effective, not on collecting more money from the rich or from anybody. Not adding new programs, but streamlining the programs that we already have in place. Does all the money collecting from the gas tax go to maintain our transportation infrastructure? It was supposed to. Speaking of roads, is our long term expenditure on our roads efficient? No. We focus too much on getting them done quickly on not enough on building them to last. We work over and over on the same problems when we could have done it right the first time for a little more money up front.

I also feel that those who have succeeded have a greater responsibility to support our common good. I just don't believe that they should be forced to shoulder the cost of the common good more than anybody else does.

When corporations receive monetary benefits resulting from legislation, it's not always a bad thing. It's always a bad thing when lawmakers make it harder for large corporations (don't get me started on military contractors like Lockheed. You and I will probably agree a lot on that issue). Too many people in this county have a negative attitude toward Exxon and other oil companies. I think we've done a VERY good job keeping fuel inexpensive. Even with all the recent price increases, fuel is still cheaper here than in most other countries, including Japan and the UK. As soon as you increase taxes on corporations like Exxon, or increase restrictions that cause their profits to be reduced, their responsibilities to their shareholders dictate that they must increase their margins. In other words, picking on big oil only hurts the lower and middle classes in this country. ...or picking on any big business for that matter.