I wonder if you know who publishes this "First Principles Journal?"

Huh? The war costs went away, but we invested in in domestic infrastructure, education... For example, have you heard of the "GI Bill?"

Clinton was running a rather large surplus. Before the Bush tax cuts it looked like the entire US debt would be paid off by now.

Greenspan actually made this argument for not regulating the big financial firms, even for fraud. He said if a big firm commits fraud and you discover it, you can go somewhere else.

We all know how that turned out. Even Greenspan said later he was wrong.

Right now the government controls the net and the policy has been net neutrality. "Not have anybody control the net" means the big corporations will control it, just like when you weaken government the big corporations step in -- as we have seen take place since Reagan.

As contrasted with corporate bureaucrats, who are obviously directly accountable to the public. Right?

"If the government would mind it's own business"

What do you think the business of We, the People IS, if not to mind business? It's OUR economy, and WE set the rules.

"I'm a big fan of the government not forcing people to do things against their will."

So go live somewhere that isn't governed by We, the People.

Circulating money increases jobs.

A business doesn't lay of someone because of a small increase in wage costs. Businesses employ the RIGHT NUMBER of people to meet the demand from customers. Increasing the minimum wage increases that demand.

Actually HONEST studies, including your own eyes, show that raising the minimum wage doesn't cost jobs. And every time it is raised there is a bit of an increase in economic growth.

Also OBVIOUSLY moving to a 40-hour workweek created more jobs.

A consumer economy does better when more regular people have more to spend. Passing everything up to the rich is what we did leading up to 1929, and then again leading up to this recent economic crash.

Business doing whatever it wants to do makes everyone poor. Ultimate unfettered capitalism necessarily leads to a very few owning everything.

As partial owner you do have some degree of culpability for employing that branch chief.

Corporations are not sentient entities, and can't "commit a crime." Thinking about corporations this way prevents people from understanding how to deal with the problem.

A few PEOPLE make decisions inside of corporations. They are committing the crime. And Boards and shareholders should be held responsible for bringing in people who make these decisions.

Yes, one "side' says the earth is round. The other says it is flat.

Obviously this means the earth is something in between.

Wow, someone who claims that the wealthy pay too much in taxes -- even though the top tax rates have been cut so dramatically that we have had to borrow trillions of dollar to make up for it.

I wonder if you know that the top 1% now take in a higher percentage of all income in the country than ever before?

I wonder if you know about how many don't even pay ANY taxes? See this about a couple with $108 million income, arranged so they pay no taxes at all: http://www.speakoutca.org/weblog/2010/02/108-million-inc.html

I wonder if you know that the top 1% now own about 80% of everything in the country?

I wonder if you know that this massive increase in income and wealth is enabled by the infrastructure that was built by our taxes?

So you think "spending" on things people need is the problem, when all the borrowing has happened since the huge tax cuts for the rich?

meanwhile countries like China are building out a modernized infrastructure. We're losing the competition because we stopped "spending" -- maintaining infrastructure - back in the 80's.