thing is, many conservatives i know don’t want us to spend it ANYWHERE, doesn’t matter if it’s at the federal, state, OR local level.

i agree with you in regards to, why waste a good chunk of our tax $$ by sending it to Washington, but it’s the folks who say that, and then when it comes to state & local taxes, they bitch and moan endlessly about those too. it’s lose lose with those types of people.

as for Iraq being the “central front”, you’re right, it is… now. it wasn’t before February 2003

-In order for Minnesota to get a “federal dollar” for any purpose, we have to send $1.33 to Washington. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to spend it ourselves?

-Medicare is one of the fastest growing parts of the federal budget, yet many doctors are refusing to treat Medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates, or else they “troll for warts” and deliberately inflate Medicare bills with unnecessary procedures or tests.

-Every Health Savings Account allowed by Congress is quickly “bought” by somebody. Why do you suppose Congress wants to limit this “competition?”

-The current “return on investment” of your Social Security taxes is something like 1%. Congress doesn’t care, their retirement is already privatized.

As for your last comment about Iraq: Fools laugh at lots of things. If you aren’t willing to believe the pronouncements of our own government, why not believe Al Qaeda leaders who say that Iraq is the “central front,” and that their only hope for victory is to use American media?

Sure I know your name from the whining email, but you hide behind some grand pseudonym. Why? Why not have the courage to let people know who you are since all you care to do is come here and trounce on people?

Come on be real with people if you are so right.

but i love how it’s the lefties and medias fault with everything that’s now gone wrong in Iraq… that’s pricelesss… keep on believing that

Sure, there have been mistakes in Iraq. My quick take:
1) The initial war, Removing Saddam, took 21 days, and that was over. Then came trying to rebuild the country and install a Guv. And up popped the insurgency. We should have put the other stuff on hold, but because of the negativity from the (ahem) loyal opposition and media, we “had to put an Iraqi face on the security forces”. That was the first mistake. We forced a people who had never really known freedom and democracy to figure it out, in the midst of an internationally supported insurgency to over throw the democracy.

2) The Iraqis are pretty much expecting to lose to the insurgents, thanks to anti-war peacenicks in the US media and governemnt. They know they will some day (sooner than later if YOU folks get your way) be completely alone battling Iran, al Queda, and the other terrorist supporters, and they are probably more hedging there bets than trying to defeat them. They don’t want to be compeltely against them, because they will someday be left alone with them.

3) The public opinion has been allowed to sway from the war due to Bush and the GOP’s complete ineptitude of dealing with the press. This is a noble fight. It is the right thing to do. When has liberating 26 million people from oppression not been a GOOD THING? (Only when the Dems oppose it.) Now, here we are, looking at leaving 26 million people (and billions of oil $) to terrorists from across the globe, all because the American left doesn’t habve the intestinal fortitude or cajones to fight a good fight.

4) Sadr should have been taken out when we had the chance. Letting him (and the others) hunker down in mosques, and illegally (international law BTW) fight from them, schools, and hospitals should never have been tollerated. Not saying we should have blown them up, but the UN and peacenick groups shouldn’t have over looked it.

There were lots of mistakes made, but not all of them are on one particualr person. There’s a lot of bnlame to go around. Most of it lies with the American left though.

You got played like fools by the terrorists. Yep. They knew, just as the Viet Cong knew, that if they can just keep nipping at our heels long enough, the American eft would come bail their asses out for taking on the most capable military in the world.

So once again, we have a war in which we have or are winning all if not most of the battles, but thanks to the peacenick lefties back home, we’re losing.

Lightrail is a boondoggle. No one that lived there before (almost no one) can utilize that damn thing unless they happen to work in either point A or point B. People that lived down along there who work in St.; Paul, no longer have bus service. They cancelled all those routes in order to FORCE people to ride LRT.

It doesn’t do jack crap for the rest of the state BTW, and it was the largest project ever funded by the STATE (I think). It doesn’t do jack for me either! Live in Blaine, work in New Brighton, what good does it do me? None!

The only reason it is deemed successful is that there was a ton of redevelopment along the corridor. If that thing was to stand on its own, with the area as it was before all that money was spent on it, it would be an abject failure.

Oh and shall we talk about how the nutters want to shove one down University? Did they tell you they would have to wipe out half the building there, throwing people out of their homes, tearing down businesses, and destroying the character that is that region, or make it so that cars are no longer able to drive on that road, well at least not at normal, modern traffic levels. Oh and to the tune of another billion dollars.

Those pieces of crap are economic development and social engineering and nothing else when it comes to Minnesota. We are TOO sparsely populated for them to work. We SHOULD be focussing on more smaller, faster, and convenient busses and bus routes, but instead we keep cutting them so people are forced to go from point A to point B. What, they say 20,000 a month ride it or whatever.

Well did you know some where between 5.5 million and 300 million paid for it?

But I digress