Poll: Are you scared about the Government shutdown this Friday?

The Republicans are definitely not about smaller government. That is their propaganda line. Republicans have held power for a majority of the past thirty years, and the debt has grown, and government has gotten enormous.

We've cut taxes so low because businesses promise that they will trickle down the money to the lower classes (which I believe qualifies as Socialism by their definition.) However during the 2000s trickle down experiment, businesses invested their tax savings overseas, incorrectly priced risk on investments, and then relied on taxpayers for their bail out. We need a second party. The top .01% controls both the Dems and the GOP.

I've also heard three year olds cry less then the rich. They complain about taxes - yet Obama's tax rates are 15% lower then Reagan's tax cuts. Yet their propaganda machine is amazing.

The middle class still insists on giving them benefits and more tax cuts. Please do the research - check out these charts and let me know if you think the GOP will truly solve our problems. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/... My solution to some of the problems Raise tax rates to the Clinton years - first on the upper then on the rest of us Cut entitlement AND military spending.

This arbitrary cuts to nonessential spending is just a power plan and won't be productive the increase in tax rates must be used to pay down our debt principal and increase the investment in our horrific infrastructure. We also need to invest in profitable science based industries such as nano technology, clean energy, etc. NOT financial services Individuals need to boost their savings rate to 15% That's my two cents - sorry for the long answer.

Meg's answer notwithstanding, none of our Republican representatives has passed on government run health care for them and their families, or shared offices and assistants so that the cost isn't so high to maintain their government office, or passed on any of the perks that come with the position. You misunderstand the Republican position. They don't want smaller government, after all, they blew a trillion dollar surplus and blasted trillions more into war and bailouts before the Democrats were even a majority.

They want government to run on the middle and lower class while staying out of the way of the upper income and business brackets. I find the Republican ideals to be along the same lines as countries that have royal families, they believe that there are the privileged and the rest of us, and if they kowtow to the privileged, they get bigger bonuses, more money in their pockets etc. They want more military (government) less regulation on businesses (privilege) more tax revenue from middle class (pretend tax cuts except for the wealthy, they got a big chunk) with a window dressing tax reduction that wasn't (it was already in place they simply extended it, like your boss telling you that the raise you got three years ago is now permanent..big whoop). They'll press this to point of frustration, then throw the blame on the other side for "refusing to work with us" to cut spending.

It's kind of like asking the gas station to reduce the price of gasoline while you're pumping it into your tank. You know it isn't going to happen, but it becomes the gas station's fault because you wanted them to compromise. This is silliness wrapped in nonsense.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.