[Rhodes22-list] To DAVE about Virginia and in reply

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Philip,
 
Thanks for your response, it’s always good to hear from a fellow  Virginian.
 
Sorry to take so long to respond to you, but we’ve been off sailing - as  
opposed to posting to this board.  No offense meant, but sailing is  better.
 
Actually, it was interesting, the powerboat in the slip next to us had  
turtled and sank in it’s slip - I presume because of the humongous rains we’ve  
had.  Our R22 was just sitting there with no problems.  It’s a good  product, you
’re going to enjoy your boat when you get it. 
 
We’re kind of close to you.  We live in Vienna, which is smack  adjacent to 
Tysons Corner.  You may know where that is.
 
Deale is due east of Washington.  Get on the outer loop going north,  get off 
onto Rt4 east, go about 11 miles east to the Bristol/Deale exit from  Rt4, 
the exit puts you on Rt 258, which takes you to Deale Md, the hot spot of  the 
eastern shore.  There may be 10 buildings in all of Deale,  they  do have a 
post office and fire dept, however (and they are 2 of the 10).   It’s really a 
very nice part of the world.  It takes just about an hour to  get to Deale from 
Vienna - I don’t know about Woodbridge, you have to deal with  I95, and that’
s tough.
 
There are a number of marinas on the eastern shore, as you might  imagine.  
If you strike out with the Belvoir marina and other local marinas  in the 
Washington area, I commend the Md eastern shore to you.  There’s a  lot of room to 
sail on the Chesapeake.  But I’m sure any private marina is  going to cost 
more than Belvoir.
 
Regarding your post that said you see Democrats as relying on big  government 
and growing it - I suggest you’ve been listening to too much talk  radio.  
Look at the facts.  Over the past 100+ years the Democrats  have increased the 
national debt by $2.1B, the Republicans, through 2004 had  increased it by 
$5.35B (with more since 2004).  Trick question - who spent  for the bigger 
government?  Also, you might note that the $2.1B the Dems  are charged with include 
all the costs for WWII and the Great Depression, and  WWI.  The really big 
spenders are---- the Republicans.  Funny how you  never hear that on talk radio.  
To get the data for the above go to  ustreas.gov, click on “offices” and then 
click on “debt statistics”, they don’t  break it down by party or president 
instead it’s there by fiscal year, you have  to make the party/president 
association - and the surprising fact is, that you  never heard about this from 
Rush Limbaugh, the Republicans have grossly  outspent the Democrats.  
 
Regarding your concerns about agricultural subsidies, I hope you’ve  followed 
the series of article reporting and analyzing the farm subsidy program  that 
appeared in this past weeks Washington Post.  You don’t even have to  be a 
farmer to get a subsidy, just buying a house that was built on land a  farmer 
once owned is enough.  The interesting thing to me was that  the single farm 
subsidy program that consumes about 1/2 the Dept of  Agricultures budget is a 
consequence of Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom To Farm” act -  no, not the Democrats and 
not FDR.  I don’t doubt that FDR had a program  long-long ago, but your 
Republican friends have vastly “improved” on that -  which frankly, is one reason 
many/most of the “red” states are farm  states.
 
As to your characterization of many Democrats as moon-bats, I share that  
opinion.  There are many times that I feel the Democratic Party could use  some 
adult supervision; however, the numbers show that at their very worst they  are 
much more responsible than the “new conservative Republicans”, which by  
itself is a phrase laden with oxymorons.  Remember, it was VP Cheney that  said “
taxes don’t matter”, and we’ve got the debts to prove it.
 
Dave