[John D Harris]

Originally Posted by robertthebard If by entitlement, you mean I paid into Social Security my whole working life, and now that I need it, and Medicare came hand in hand with my Social Security Disability, then yes, I'm entitled to getting that money back, with interest. Medicaid didn't kick in in my case until I had both disability and Medicare running, so I guess I'm entitled to that too. Here's the conundrum, you can't cut the size of government w/out cutting those jobs. It royally sucks for those people that have jobs in parts of government where somebody that already had a job could have done the work, but reducing pork in government means cutting jobs that weren't essential in the first place. It's just too bad they aren't basing these cuts on performance/qualifications instead of pay grades. However, what this should do is motivate government to actually getting off their asses and creating those jobs, or allowing the people that actually do create jobs to do so. Of course, they could also do a sweep, and eliminate all the illegal aliens working in the US, regardless of what jobs. They could also penalize/reward businesses that are the most hit by illegals for using illegal labor. If they don't have a legitimate work visa, they don't deserve to work. I wonder what percentage of unemployed American citizens would be working then? We could also penalize/reward manufacturing companies for either moving out of the US, or staying. I can't see any way I'd object to a tax cut for a corporation that keeps several thousand Americans working. However, the penalty for manufacturing goods outside the US could be as simple as import taxes on the goods they now make outside our country. Don't want to pay the levy? Simple, re-open/open a factory here, and give Americans jobs making what are supposed to be American products.

I argee that American companies that manufacture outside of the country should pay an import tax, but they get around that by owning a foregin company. Here in Tuscaloosa Mercedes doesn't build cars Mercedees Benz USA does, it is owned by Mercedees but is concidered a seperate entity not a foregin company. I know it is backwards of what you are saying, but American companies do the samething. GM doesn't manufacture cars in Mexico a GM owned company does. That's how they get around it.