Economy. Bottom line. Look how many taxes are being taken out of our paychecks now. Gas prices. Do you have any idea what it will mean to a single mom or dad if the dems take office?

Hope: People will vote their needs and the safety of our country over their seeing what they want to see in a candidate and not the truth.

While, the president can certainly influence tax rates through proposals to congress and political deals, he doesn’t have the power to set tax rates.

Yep. Even if Bush wanted to cut taxes and spending by 50% (and he doesn’t) congress wouldn’t allow it. Reform occurs glacially slow in Washington.

The bad part is that in less than 10 years the Social Security surplus will be gone forever. Our reaction time is so slow that no reform can occur until it’s much too late. To be fair, entitlement reform probably needed to occur 20 years ago. Even if we fix the system tomorrow it’s too late.

I agree that spending is out of control – in some part due to the war, but it doesn’t follow that the private sector will solve our ills.

Again – we’ve had 8 years of tax reductions and a growing private sector – yet our economy is suffering.

Although we did have some modest tax cuts during the Bush administration government spending rose to record levels. The government has never been bigger. Just because Republicans are in charge doesn’t mean the government is shrinking. In fact we are lucky when the rate of government GROWTH shrinks. Spending is completely out of control.