‘We need to invest in our future, which will cost a lot of money.’ The response by any conservative to this is “Where is the money going to come from?” Then you are on the defensive. Instead allow me to help you, mainly because I think you are sincere and very motivated: The money can come from the failures we are now financing; for example, the Army Corp of Engineers:
The Army Corps of Engineers spends $5 billion annually constructing dams and other water projects. Yet, in a massive conflict of interest, it is also charged with evaluating the science and economics of each proposed water project. The Corps’ “strategic vision” calls on managers to increase their budgets as rapidly as possible, which requires approving as many proposed projects as possible. Consequently, the Corps has repeatedly been accused of deliberately manipulating its economic studies to justify unworthy projects.
Investigations by the GAO, The Washington Post, and several private organizations have found that Corps studies routinely contain dozens of basic arithmetic errors, computer errors, and ridiculous economic assumptions that artificially inflate the benefits of water projects by as much as 300 percent. In one case, a study’s authors inflated a project’s benefits by using a 2.5 percent interest rate that dated back to 1954. In many cases in which the Corps calculated that a project would be a net benefit, arithmetic corrections revealed that the costs would be many times greater than the benefits. By that point, of course, the unnecessary and wasteful project is often underway and cannot be stopped.
These errors appear to reflect more deception than sloppiness. A Washington Post investigation uncovered managers ordering analysts to “get creative,” to “look for ways to get to yes as fast as possible,” and “not to take no for an answer.” After a public outcry, in 2002, the Corps suspended work on 150 projects to review the economics used to justify them. However, given the combination of Congress’s thirst for pork-barrel projects and the Corps’ built-in incentives to approve projects that will increase its budget, real reforms seem unlike
The Army Corp of Engineers should put out all projects for competitive bid to the private sector and do only awarding of bids and oversight. The great amount of money freed up from this and other fed govt agencies could be used to implement your ideas! Now, understand that The Army Corps is only a tiny example. You can easily get on the net and find your own – breathtakingly poor spending of our money by the fed govt.

‘Now we hear the loud conservatives who suddenly have an interest in controlling government spending, after an eight year silence while deficit-spending went through the stratosphere. Listening to them now would be a terrible mistake.’
You are wrong.
I’m a conservative and have been shrieking about govt waste, dishonesty, secretiveness, greed and an uncaring attitude for years. Your target should be the country club republicans, not conservatives.
I think Saint Reagan (hee, hee) and GW were wrong to lower taxes, then choose to go more deeply into debt rather than reduce the size of govt correspondingly.
Supreme Saint Obama promises to go through the whole of the federal govt and reduce waste. This is encouraging, if he will just do it.

“Redistribute income and revenue through progressive tax reforms” This is Marxist thinking and doesn’t need further comment except to say it won’t work.

‘Greed is good, the corporations and investors can regulate themselves, and the free market has your best interests at heart. Nice fairy tale…we are in our current economic dilemma because the federal government did not properly regulate the markets.’
Very correct. There needs to be a proper balance between free mkt activities and govt regulation.

‘For the rest of us that means layoffs, foreclosures, 401Ks that disappear into thin air, inflation, less government services and a more dangerous society.’
Inflation is the result of dishonest govt. We need to replace fiat currency with a solid non-inflating dollar. Only the fed govt benefits from inflation. RS Jane moans that we will never get away from fiat currency, but I disagree. Inflation creates poor people.

‘The only way we are going to move ahead as a nation is by putting people to work in serious productive careers that work towards the goal of building a long term, sustainable economy. That means investing in education, renewable energy resources, information technology, the nation’s physical infrastructure and the industries here in America that can produce the materials for that.’ The govt isn’t the way to do this, at least not directly, because it has proved itself to be so wasteful, dishonest, and uncaring. In order to become more competitive with the world we must reduce expenses. For example, the fairtax is wildly more efficient, please read the book. A smaller govt will result in lower taxes and a more competitive private sector. Lower taxes must be accompanied by cuts in federal spending and responsibility.
You made the mistake of asking for comments, hope you don’t mind mine too much. I could obviously go on and on, but this is too long already.
Have an excellent day.
Grimgold

I swear, you certainly always have something to say about our politics huh? LOL, good job, I like it.