Or finds the $ is better spent elsewhere. From what I can tell, it could be there's just no more ad time to buy here, the direct mail is saturated/ mailboxes are full, there's no one left to hire to canvas, etc. It's just nuts around here.

F$$$ PACs. The US desperately and urgently needs campaign finance reform.

How is me agreeing the government is much too large and involved it much too much leads you to think I think it's the solution?

You contradict yourself and don't explain, probably can't, your positions.

You're hell bent on wanting to believe we don't agree on much. You prefer to believe not what I wrote, but your notion of what I believe.

Too bad. There are many Americans like you, hell bent on disagreeing. Too bad for America.

Since Total Wine came in, everyone has had to compete. Prior to that even Kappys didn't compete with the NH state stores.

DUI and buying liquor are two different things. The State stores do not require people drink the liquor before they leave the property. That would be two faced. Asking people to buy their liquor at State Stores, but not drink is drive seems just fine.

By the way, I do think government should be funded for the 10% of the stuff it should be doing. And not do the other 90%. So taxes.

What do you mean when you write you don't think it should be funded, but that it should do 10% of what it does. How does it do that 10% without funding?

Wow. How we are talking past each other is beyond me. It seems we agree on the major problem. Government subsidizing industry: tech, banking, ..., railroads, oil, etc, etc.
Almost everything you write I agree with: government channeling huge sums to global industry and little to most Americans, crumbs as you say. I completely agree. If tech was greatly subsidized by the public, either directly or indirectly, then how is it inaccurate for people to take down the billionaires' boldness in saying they built it all? They took advantage of the public money, no?
There are details we disagree about: the vast majority of the internet was built out by private companies such as AT&T, L3, etc. You say it was to a large extent, fine, I'll give you that.

Paragraph by paragraph
You paragraph 3: agree,
4: absolutely, but SEC only puts in place what they write! (a nuance)
5: absolutely, and I would add almond growers - much more water than Nestle, the most water intense crop in a water baron area. That is government subsidies for over 100 years.
6: You say the industries would not exist, I think they would, but be less profitable and not grow as fast. But YES.
7: Yes, the scraps do pale in comparison. What we see differently is that I see redistribution as roads, schools, water & sewer generally infrastructure that benefits all, being funded by tax dollars coming from a flat or progressive tax type system, which is not at all what we have today, it starts progressive, but then gets regressive as high-income folks get income from gains rather than wages, which are THE highest taxed thing in the country. I would argue for no corporate taxes, but a very different personal income tax system that is truly progressive or flat. You say these folks make huge money from subsidies, but they should not be taxed too heavily "stolen from". What am I missing here?
8: I do not want government to be Robin Hood. I do not want to regressive tax system, like we have today. I want government out of a lot of stuff they are in today, and work to foster free markets, competition, etc. As it used it. Government is in as much as they are due to industries pulling them in to extract $, which you also said.
I think you are stereo typing me as liberal, but I far from that. Do not read into what I write, just read what I write.
9: completely agree with your "Helping Americas" paragraph, but remember, it does help a handful of rich Americans who are execs of the financial institutions and also helps the largest owners (some American - all rich), and of course keeps the global banks solvent, when they should have been bankrupt, or at least taken huge haircuts.
10: Your best case is exactly as I see it.
11: I agree with you about the good jobs, but know that started in the mid to late 70s and supported by both parties, if you don't remember Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot, check them out. They warned the country about this, and ridiculed primarily by their own party. They were wrong on much, but right on the exporting of jobs. We agree. Back then the jobs were not smart manufacturing jobs, no, just high school was good enough and often not required. But those jobs were lost primarily to automation, and also to exporting.
12: I agree about the race to the bottom, which is foolish of the US.

We are seeing almost exactly the same thing, but yes, from a different view. We both do not like it, and think it should change.

I do not understand some of what I see as contradictory. You think they build it, but say a lot got built with public money. I don't get that. I do not want Robin Hood or handouts, but do want a progressive tax, rather than the regressive we have today. I want gov out of subsidizing, but working to foster competition in order to make things as affordable as they are in most other developed nations.

Ok, here is something I am guessing we very much disagree about, but I look forward to hearing from you on it...
The reason guys putting a nut on a lug and tightening it, and the many other low skill jobs of old school manufacturing paid a good middle class wage was that corporations agreed to pay that good wage, and society expected it, it was normal. There was nothing inherently valuable about the job, they just paid middle class wages. They paid the CEOs about 20 times that wage. Today unskilled people are paid poor wages and the CEOs get 500+ times that compensation. Why not do the same thing today with service jobs? Maybe profits would not be at record highs, maybe the US would not have as many billionaires and multimillionaires, but wouldn't we have a better country of people who would need fewer handouts, etc?

I think you and I have some common ground. The government regularly errors on the side of putting too much money in areas it often should put some. As you point out, railroads, thus far relatively small amounts towards electric vehicles and the required infrastructure. But notice I said too much money, railroads were great and imperative to the US's very successful industrial revolutions. But yes, too generous. Nonetheless, extreme wealth is mostly not due to government largesse, but great innovation without redistribution. If you look at emerging billionaires, rather than inherited wealth, they are generally either tech or private equity. Yes, there is some government involvement in both, and of the last couple of decades too much to bail out financial institutions and therefor indirectly private eq and hedge funds. But all in all the vast majority of wealth was what I think you and I would call legitimately earned, but that wealth generally pays less than half of the tax rate you pay, as you said 40%. To me, that is unjust and un-American. In the time of railroads, the oil industry made even more wealth, but not government subsidized as RRs were.

The federal government is doing much too much to provide corporate welfare, often in the name of helping Americans. It is the new era or corporate exploitation. One great example is heathcare, another Rx drugs, another broadband access, etc. In all of these industries, rather than being competitive and therefore economical, the industries choose to exploit Americans with the highest prices in the world, then lobby government to subsidize Americans, which is really just lining the global corporations' owners pockets. The government should be fostering competition. Unfortunately, political leaders are beholden to global corporations for the large donations that they are allowed to make.

I'm not trying to frame any argument. I have heard and read people say taxation is theft. You are the first person I read use that phrase but make a distinction between some taxes and others.

On the face of it, taxation being theft seems stupid to me. But I am willing to learn why, I just have not heard anyone explain it. Clearly, we need government, many examples show we have no modicum of effective, civil society without some organization. Keeping that organization effective is a constant challenge, but even effective needs revenue, which it gets from taxes, of one sort or another.

I am not for government picking winners and losers. Which is why I hate the fact that people who make money with their money have a much lower tax rate than those working for a living. Sales versus income versus property is to some extent picking winners. Efficiency comes in having one, so why not, which is effectively what we have in NH. MA sales tax does something like what you seem to favor: essentials such as groceries and clothes, but not extravagant ones do not suffer from a sales tax. I haven't spent much time down there in years, so I am not sure how that might have changed.

Too bad for Maryland, but that is not how it is working in NH.
One way or another, government has to be funded, and the State Stores in NH are well run, efficient, generate much revenue for the state and offer a good service at a great price. So, I'm okay with it.

That said, I am definitely a free market guy. But, there are things in which all evidence points to the fact that free markets do not serve the need well.
For example, I would not want free market military, even the current level contracting is corrupting and weakening the military.
There is zero evidence in the world that free market healthcare works. There is plenty of evidence otherwise. Maybe on some other planet they have figured it out, but not here on Earth.
Free market roadways suck, but maybe one day that will work.
In general, free markets will not work where society finds a need, but the needy do not have the funds.

By the way, capitalism requires some form of wealth distribution. In EVERY case of capitalism without sufficient wealth redistribution, the best capitalists come to have all the money. That maybe fine, but not if you want a great country and society.

That said, there are plenty of things free markets should handle, but do not. One pervasive example is trash pickup. Completely pointless for a city or town to do it themselves. There plenty of competition, let them do it.

Okay, go to town...

Very out of touch. Nice guy, smart, but not very in tune to his constituents. Definitely aspires for some Washington appointment, and in order to procure it a little too often he does stuff not good for his constituents, like no pot.

BowTied, So help me understand, some taxes are theft, but taxes on pot are not? Sales taxes are not? What is the breakdown?

Why are they the worst? The free market in MA and elsewhere has not resulted in better results. At least not as far as I know. Enlighten me.

The NH folks are just pissy because they sit in traffic every weeknight coming home from their good paying MA jobs. The last thing they need on Friday is MA people coming up to their second homes in NH.