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Iraqis protest terror at Saudi Embassy. Good.How is this as an invitation for a discrimination lawsuit? RiehlA housing bailout? What sense does this make? MichelleFruits and vegetables don’t do anything for your health. Surber. Yes, we do know that. T…

It is the job, however, of the Federal government to keep interstate commerce on the ethical up-and-up. When it allowed our securities and commodities exchanges to morph into gambling casinos, it clearly failed.

I remember when Schumer’s Republican predecessor Alphonse D’Amato proposed a statutory cap on credit card interest. The howls of the loan sharks financiers were deafening. Why, if such a bill passed, they would have to stop issuing their plastic to deadbeats. Imagine!

By the way, since many of you are deeply perturbed over high taxes, it is my duty to point out that President Bush, in his budget submitted to Congress, has requested that the Alternative Minimum Tax be maintained at the same rate as 30 years ago and with no indexing for inflation over the course of that time. The AMT is designed to sneak up on and clobber us working stiffs without warning when we fill out our 1040′s. Furthermore, the deduction for property taxes is disallowed in determining AMT taxable income. As I said, so much for compassionate conservatism.

The politicians need to wake up to the fact that immigration works both ways. if they’re that set on taxing the middle class until they’re impoverished paying the bills of government welfare brats, perhaps they need to learn to get along without us. We’re already taxed more than the ancient near-eastern kings ever demanded of their subjects, if you can imagine that. The Egyptian pharoahs never took more than 30%, if you can believe that. I make a middle class income and still have to be frugal with how much I spend renting, while waiting probably in vain for the market to come down. Looks like I was the fool.

It is people like you that have made me completely lose trust in America today.

My back can carry no more. My wife and I worked hard for decades. She EARNED her PhD through hard labor. No assistance was available. I worked 65+ hours/week to support myself through college, and her through her doctorate. We are finally in a place where we have enough money to consider buying a house.

There are no houses in the DC area that are within our means. This mess, caused by irresponsible consumers and greedy businesses, has overpriced the market ten-fold. No 4000 square foot space can ever be justified at $1 million, nor can a 2500 square foot space 30 miles out of town be justified at $500,000. The facts simply do not bear it out.

So to have me pay extra taxes to bail out either side is CRIMINAL. That’s the most corrupt form of usary, where I am charged an outrageous rate for something I do not own, nor can make any claim to or against.

Fair trade be damned! Caveat Emptor!

It is not the job of the Federal government to give benefits to the worker. It is not the job of the Federal government to provide housing or food to the individual. Why should the American taxpayer have to pay to support an unsupportable system of consumer demand?

If the business cannot fit a demand, it should die out! If the laborer in that business is so blind as to ignore the lack of demand and affect change in themselves or the company to save the business, then let them live in the cold harsh reality of life.

We ignore Darwin in every attempt to bail out some sector of business, employee, or consumer. The stupid need to die out. It is the natural order of things. The herd must be thinned, or the entire herd will starve, become disease stricken, and die!

This didn’t have to be. Let’s look at history. After World War II, our country went through a period of great prosperity. There were no such things as credit cards or adjustible-rate mortgages. Lenders had to adhere to usury laws that kept interest rates down. Businesses that wanted to merge or acquire had to be mindful of antitrust laws that were more likely to be enforced than they are today. Fair trade laws aimed to keep small businesses from being swallowed up by big ones, albeit imperfectly. The income of a husband as a rule was sufficient to support the entire family, so many wives stayed at home to raise the children. Labor unions, at least the honest ones, generally were able to gain income and benefits for their members that kept pace with the cost of living, and labor-manangement grievance committees settled problems that government is now called on to resolve. Despite the loathing of unions by conservatives, workers established “made in the U.S.A” as the gold standard of industrial quality.

So how did we get from there to here? The answer is the key to straightening out the economic mess we are in. Sen. Schumer’s bailout proposal may not work, but neither will moralistic finger pointing.