[speaker001:] Steve uh with the election year and whatnot coming up do you think we ought to cut taxes raise them or or or what do you think
[speaker002:] well that's that's a really hard question I do know that uh politicians always talking out of both sides of their mouths um I let's example uh our our friend the President right now says no new taxes we should and especially if anything be cutting taxes now because of the recession and at the same time the budget he sent to Congress has tax and fee increases so uh I know the politicians uh aren't aren't straightforward now in in terms of economics I'm not it's hard hard to call it really is
[speaker001:] uh-huh see I never thought really it's uh I never really thought that that the the question really had to do whether or not we're paying too much or too little I I always that the the real question was is are we getting a reasonable return on on investment for instance like Social Security tax or Social uh I mean that's that's tax we're paying money and and supposedly this money is going into some kind of fund so that when it comes our turn to retire the money will be there for us
[speaker002:] hm right
[speaker001:] that's yeah you know when I when I see that money taken out of my paycheck each each week I or each every other week I I really think that money's history and you know so as far as return investment that's not that's nothing and we're not even going to get the exact same number of dollars back
[speaker002:] yes uh
[speaker001:] uh someone was telling me that there is a uh uh there's still an office in uh you know staffed with with people there and in DC that are researching to find a cure for polio which I may be wrong but I believe that the cure for polio is already founded but but supposedly once you have an office in DC or you know and and staff it with people it's really tough to close it down and and they just haven't yet
[speaker002:] well yeah I'm not exactly sure uh about polio in particular I know we have a polio vaccine which will prevent somebody from getting polio I'm not sure if we know what to do in terms of curing some who has already gotten polio
[speaker001:] uh-huh well that might be the difference I don't know uh the other thing that uh I remember seeing on TV lately is uh had to do with it's like seventy five percent of the historical sites in America are in the home districts of very powerful people politically
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] that that historical for some reason historical sites with you know the the full federal money and everything seem to appear as as almost as like political favors to to very strong politicians
[speaker002:] yeah it's it's it's funny because uh it was one of the things that Bush is been trying really hard to get ahold of is the line item veto where uh you know Congress is able to attach all kinds of uh funny amendments for individual uh congressional congressional districts to the to the main budget proposals and
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] the poor President has has to uh either accept or reject the whole thing
[speaker001:] so it sounds like you uh you think that that we'd be able to save some money by uh passing the line item veto
[speaker002:] uh I I think the line item veto is not not is not necessarily a bad thing assuming that the uh the the President uh uses it to get rid of uh this kind of waste on the other hand uh uh it it assumes that you have lots of confidence in your President not to veto important things
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] right and just to get rid of the unimportant things and whenever there's that kind of subjective judgment there's always going to be a dispute as to uh where the exactly where the boundary between waste and and necessity is
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] so I'm not I'm not sure that that that will help solve our problems but there definitely is is a problem with uh I forgot there's a political term for this stuff pork barrel or something
[speaker001:] yeah pork barrel politics
[speaker002:] uh pork barrel politics there there there has to be some way to do it I know state governors usually have line item vetos and uh well I I lived in Massachusetts for a while and uh when Dukakis vetoed certain things there was a big uproar and wasn't necessarily so popular
[speaker001:] yeah but Massachusetts wasn't when Dukakis was there anyway wasn't in that great shape financially
[speaker002:] but at least at the end
[speaker001:] uh-huh I mean I don't know I
[speaker002:] yeah I I they were very good at first they were in very good financials at first and uh that's part of the reason he became a nominee is because things went so well and then of course the bottom fell out
[speaker001:] it's uh I mean it's it's tough I mean there's there's two ways you can kind of go to get out of tough financial situations I guess you can like raise taxes and then create like job programs and whatnot or you can hope that if people keep their money that they'll spend more and create jobs and and whatnot
[speaker002:] and spare the economy yeah it's really it's a hard balance it it definitely is even not for government even just say for a small business um I know some