# Taxes and health care in America



## Guest

Almaviva said:


> By Dr. Mike: "But there were numerous people who lived in apartments and did not pay property taxes" - just to say that renters also indirectly pay property taxes. It's usually built into the rent. When property taxes go up, rental fees go up as well.


Not always. In my specific example, another postdoc who worked in my lab and lived only a few block from me in an apartment, whereas I owned a house - his rent did not go up more than maybe $5 or $10/month, depending on how long of a lease you signed, and for him it usually did not go up year by year, whereas in one year, my property taxes went up several hundreds of dollars. I'm not saying to change it, and I don't know a better solution that I would be happy with, but there is generated a real problem when you start to have non-taxpayers voting for politicians who promise to raise taxes on everybody but them. Hence the popularity of raising taxes on the "rich" who already pay most of the income taxes in this country - there are a lot fewer "rich" than not-rich, so most people are okay with tax hikes on people so long as they are not those people. Everybody loves to go out for the fancy dinner. Nobody wants to be the one footing the bill. So naturally they want to pawn it off on the "rich" guy, because, hey, he can afford it, can't he?


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Not always. In my specific example, another postdoc who worked in my lab and lived only a few block from me in an apartment, whereas I owned a house - his rent did not go up more than maybe $5 or $10/month, depending on how long of a lease you signed, and for him it usually did not go up year by year, whereas in one year, my property taxes went up several hundreds of dollars. I'm not saying to change it, and I don't know a better solution that I would be happy with, but there is generated a real problem when you start to have non-taxpayers voting for politicians who promise to raise taxes on everybody but them. Hence the popularity of raising taxes on the "rich" who already pay most of the income taxes in this country - there are a lot fewer "rich" than not-rich, so most people are okay with tax hikes on people so long as they are not those people. Everybody loves to go out for the fancy dinner. Nobody wants to be the one footing the bill. So naturally they want to pawn it off on the "rich" guy, because, hey, he can afford it, can't he?


If you're talking about rent controlled properties, they won't go up as fast as property taxes. But when a corporation builds an apartment building and rents out all the units, rest assured that when they calculate how much they'll ask for each unit, they have the property taxes in mind, and they'll factor them in and will pass them on to the renter, in order to maintain their profit margin.

My income is such that I'm one of those who will be more heavily taxed if the Bush cuts expire, but as long as my tax money is put to good use (which is far from being the case these days) I don't really mind. I do think that those who can afford it should pay more than those who can't. It's an ideological disagreement that you and I are not likely to surpass, but that's the way I feel. I believe that responsible citizens should see the value of paying taxes, and those who are poor should not pay; those who are in the lower middle class should pay a little; and those who are in the upper middle class and upper class should pay more.

If my tax money is squandered in futile wars and in sweetheart deals with no-bid contractors I'm not happy, but if my money is used to build schools and hospitals and infrastructure and job-creating projects, as well as to fund services such as the police, the firemen, etc., then I'm happy to pay my share, even though my bracket is a lot higher than that of the vast majority of people in this country (so much for the stereotype that people who vote Democrat are leeches who only want to get entitlements for themselves - I certainly don't qualify for any federal benefits given my income).

See, when I vote Democrat I definitely vote against my own financial interest. If I were to only think of tax cuts for my income bracket, it would make a lot more sense to vote Republican. It irks me when Republicans complain of the deficit, when most of the time they keep repeating their mantra of "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts." Well, spending creates deficits and I'm all for fiscal responsibility, but so do tax cuts. Sometimes I think that the obsession of the Republican Party with tax cuts is such that they'd only be content if suddenly all taxes were eliminated. They might soon realize that next time someone broke into their homes they wouldn't be able to call 911 and have the police there, and if their houses caught fire, they'd burn to the ground because the firemen wouldn't be there.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Almaviva said:


> Sometimes I think that the obsession of the Republican Party with tax cuts is such that they'd only be content if suddenly all taxes were eliminated. They might soon realize that next time someone broke into their homes they wouldn't be able to call 911 and have the police there, and if their houses caught fire, they'd burn to the ground because the firemen wouldn't be there.


This is an obvious straw-man... and really doesn't merit a response except to point out that it's a caricature of the contrary position and not a depiction of it.

I think great insight can be found in the words of America's top Democrat party politican, President Obama, who actually said that even if 'Laffer curve' contentions that increasing the levels of progressive taxes would suppress revenues were proven to his satisfaction, he would STILL support escalation of graduated taxes under the premise that it's more "fair." And that's NOT a straw-man-- that's actually the guy's articulated position.

Also, to my mind- Arthur Laffer's observations hold some common-sense validity. Just like subsidizing behavior ensures more of it, disincentivizing behavior (e.g.: spiking the graduated tax) opens the door to less of it (that is to say, less achievement). As an example, how many American small businesses are taking special care not to hire a 50th person, simply so they can steer clear of recently passed mandates upon businesses of that size or larger?

The core of government's fiscal crises can be depicted by one's position between these two statements- does the government have a _revenue_ problem, or does it have a _spending_ problem? Well, obvious answer is both, really... (and let's not forget that the current president is already on record as saying that he's rather see revenue GO DOWN if doing so aids in his vision of redistributive "fairness") but put me in the camp that has resolved that government has much more of a SPENDING problem than a revenue problem- by a factor of multiples.


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> This is an obvious straw-man... and really doesn't merit a response except to point out that it's a caricature of the contrary position and not a depiction of it.


I grant you that it *was* a straw man, but it was softened by saying "sometimes I think" which makes of it more like a hyperbole, out of frustration with the other side's often inflexible stance. The "sometimes I think" indicates that I don't really believe that what I'm saying is really the case, but the Republican obsession with tax cuts makes it sound like it, "sometimes." I remember a comedian taking aim at this issue and mimicking a rich guy's (with a snobbish accent) answer to the question of what number would be acceptable as a percentage of his income for tax purposes: "Hm... let's see... hm... zero, really."


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> If you're talking about rent controlled properties, they won't go up as fast as property taxes. But when a corporation builds an apartment building and rents out all the units, rest assured that when they calculate how much they'll ask for each unit, they have the property taxes in mind, and they'll factor them in and will pass them on to the renter, in order to maintain their profit margin.
> 
> My income is such that I'm one of those who will be more heavily taxed if the Bush cuts expire, but as long as my tax money is put to good use (which is far from being the case these days) I don't really mind. I do think that those who can afford it should pay more than those who can't. It's an ideological disagreement that you and I are not likely to surpass, but that's the way I feel. I believe that responsible citizens should see the value of paying taxes, and those who are poor should not pay; those who are in the lower middle class should pay a little; and those who are in the upper middle class and upper class should pay more.
> 
> If my tax money is squandered in futile wars and in sweetheart deals with no-bid contractors I'm not happy, but if my money is used to build schools and hospitals and infrastructure and job-creating projects, as well as to fund services such as the police, the firemen, etc., then I'm happy to pay my share, even though my bracket is a lot higher than that of the vast majority of people in this country (so much for the stereotype that people who vote Democrat are leeches who only want to get entitlements for themselves - I certainly don't qualify for any federal benefits given my income).
> 
> See, when I vote Democrat I definitely vote against my own financial interest. If I were to only think of tax cuts for my income bracket, it would make a lot more sense to vote Republican. It irks me when Republicans complain of the deficit, when most of the time they keep repeating their mantra of "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts." Well, spending creates deficits and I'm all for fiscal responsibility, but so do tax cuts. Sometimes I think that the obsession of the Republican Party with tax cuts is such that they'd only be content if suddenly all taxes were eliminated. They might soon realize that next time someone broke into their homes they wouldn't be able to call 911 and have the police there, and if their houses caught fire, they'd burn to the ground because the firemen wouldn't be there.


You are right, the two of us do have fundamental disagreements regarding the role of government and taxes. I will make some points, which are probably repetitions of what Chi_townPhilly has already said. I have problems with deficits, but am not totally averse to them. My problem, though, is when people talk of tax cuts as being a root cause of deficits. They aren't. Deficits are caused by too much spending. If I go out and run up debt by over-extending myself, is it because my employer does not pay me enough, or because I spend more than I make?

Too many people think that the ultimate solution to cutting deficits is simply take in more money. Why not just spend less? I agree that the GOP is not the best at this, especially in recent years. Many in the GOP, and more specifically in the conservative movement are awaking to this. And so you will notice that the calls for reductions in taxes are not as great as they once were. Now the greater call is for spending reductions, and specifically going after runaway programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Now, where the GOP is weak is admitting that we could also stand to cut some spending in defense. Arguably, at least national defense is a constitutionally mandated role of the government, but we all know that politics plays a big role, with contracts for unwanted weapons systems or vehicles going through because it benefits some politically important congressman's district.

When your child has maxed out your credit card, the way to get things back under control is to cut their spending, not simply get the credit limit increased. Giving government more money only leads to more spending, not fiscal responsibility. I don't care if there are more tax cuts right now, if they could just responsibly spend what they now get. I am fine with responsibly spent tax dollars. I recognize the necessity of public services like police and firefighters. What I don't understand is my tax dollars being taken and spent by some politician, not for the greater good, but to scratch the right backs to get him/her re-elected. When I owned a house, I was smart in my investment, bought only what I could afford, and made all my payments on time. Why did I then have to subsidize those who didn't? Why did my tax dollars have to go to prop up banks and auto companies that made foolish choices, and auto unions that leveraged themselves into untenable situations that were crushing the companies they were working for, and ultimately buy them a share of those companies? How is that making me confident that the government should have one more penny of my money?

Not too many years ago, I had gotten myself into credit card debt that was getting pretty oppressive. I was having a hard enough time just making the minimum payments each month, and anybody who has been in that situation knows that when you are only making minimum payments, the balance goes up, not down, over time. I am out of debt now. How did I do it? Did I go in and complain to my boss that his failure to pay me a high enough salary was leading to my staggering debt, and demand that he not be so selfish and cough up more money? No - I put myself on a budget, went without some of those nice perks that I had come to enjoy, but ultimately weren't necessary, and paid off my debt in a few years. And now I live comfortably again. My bank account steadily rises each month, I could afford the loss I took when I sold my house and not be financially ruined, and can even afford the luxury of buying a new classical music album occasionally. And my income has not significantly increased in that time. That is all I am asking the government to do.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> I grant you that it *was* a straw man, but it was softened by saying "sometimes I think" which makes of it more like a hyperbole, out of frustration with the other side's often inflexible stance. The "sometimes I think" indicates that I don't really believe that what I'm saying is really the case, but the Republican obsession with tax cuts makes it sound like it, "sometimes." I remember a comedian taking aim at this issue and mimicking a rich guy's (with a snobbish accent) answer to the question of what number would be acceptable as a percentage of his income for tax purposes: "Hm... let's see... hm... zero, really."


I like the comedian's joke. But you know what the problem is? The rich guy does pay taxes. The people telling him he needs to pay more don't. We are coming to a tyranny of the untaxed. I would love to not pay taxes. Who wouldn't? But why is a rich person not wanting to pay taxes somehow more morally reprehensible than a person who demands the money of others? What is worse, a rich person saying they want to pay less taxes, or a poor person who demands the rich person pay more so that they can have some new program? Even if the rich person paid zero in taxes, they would still be more beneficial to the economy and country in general, because they would be hiring people to work for them, paying those people, and generating more wealth.

Our tax dollars are spent poorly. Take education. We always hear that the problem with our educational system is that we don't spend enough and we have to large of classroom student to teacher ratios. We are one of the highest spenders, per student, in the world when looking at first world industrialized nations. Switzerland is up there with us. And we spend nearly twice as much per student as countries whose students perform better than ours. So that seems like a pretty poor return on our investment. We have out of control spending on Medicare and Medicaid. And yet we read of studies that show that people on either Medicare or Medicaid (I can't remember which, and am too lazy right now to look it up) do no better healthwise than people with no insurance. That sounds like a wonderful program. The welfare state has been on steroids in this country ever since LBJ launched the Great Society and his War on Poverty - and it hasn't done a single thing. The plight of the poor has not improved one iota, even though our spending to fight poverty has shot up exponentially. Either the programs don't work, or they are being horribly mismanaged. Either way, they need to be fixed, and the way to fix them isn't simply to tax the rich more and pour more good money after bad. But if you so much as suggest reforming these programs, and Democrats accuse you of wanting to kill the poor and throw grandma out on the street. Barack Obama understood that last year, when he made the point that we don't need to demagogue people who suggest that we look to seriously reform these programs. Too bad he forgot his own advice.


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## Almaviva

Certainly debt starts with overspending above and beyond one's income, be the "one" a household, a state, or a country.
But obviously if then in the middle of a large debt burden you go and cut the household income or the country's revenue to even lower numbers (in the case of a country, you cut taxes) then the situation gets even worse, doesn't it? So certainly when you ran into debt it was not the fault of your employer who wasn't paying you enough but rather your fault for spending beyond your means, but if he then called you in his office and said, "Dr.Mike, you have this debt, and I think that a good way to deal with it is to cut your salary in half," how would that have worked out for you?

Regardless of the origin of the deficit, we are in a big enough hole to make it pretty clear that it is *not* a good time to be proposing tax cuts. Certainly we need to cut spending, but we don't need at this time to also lower the revenue. The Republicans keep saying that cutting taxes is good for business. Well, it may very well be the case in the short run, but unfortunately, it also increases the deficit which in its turn will be eventually bad for business. Too large a deficit compromises the bases of our economie, will devalue our currency, and will even compromise national security and sovereignty. If it spirals completely out of control it may affect our international credit ratings, make countries sell dollars to buy more stable currencies, which then will bring the dollar further down which will make us have to pay more dollars for the service (interests) of the debt, and at one point we may default and then all hell breaks loose. When the Chinese start owning more than half of our country we'll be in trouble (currently they own 20% of our foreign debt) - including, they will be able to exert more pressure on us in matters of international law and international disputes. So sure, we need to cut spending, but at the very least if raising taxes irks so much half of the voters in this country and is unpopular among politicians these days, let's at least not cut taxes even more.

Regarding bailouts for banks and the auto-industry, aren't you aware that most of the money has been paid back already with interest? Often when Republicans say that Obama is the biggest spender we've ever had as president they factor in the bailout, but that money is back. Big spending has actually started in the Bush era, and wasn't like this in the Clinton era.


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## Almaviva

Dr. Mike, you said "I would love to not pay taxes. Who wouldn't?"
I wouldn't, because I know that the other side to this is social chaos. Taxes are necessary and I'm fine with paying my share.

"And yet we read of studies that show that people on either Medicare or Medicaid (I can't remember which, and am too lazy right now to look it up) do no better healthwise than people with no insurance." I sincerely find this hard to believe, if it was done with the proper age matching, etc. This may be an effect of the fact that many healthy young adults choose to go without insurance while those on Medicare are old and sick. But to say that two persons of the same age group and equally sick, the one with insurance fares less well than the one without it, is rather against logic and common sense. So, please do quote this study and we'll take a look in the methodology.


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## Almaviva

Another aspect, Dr. Mike. Take mental health for example. It is the nature of these disorders that people get profoundly disabled and can't work. In many cases if they do try to work they start getting paranoid about co-workers, etc., and all hell breaks lose. So they are a group that is by nature unable to generate much personal income, and this is for no fault of their own, but rather that of their genes that make them the victims of an unfortunate brain disease (not lazy parasites, many of them actually want badly to work). Many of the more efficient drugs that treat these brain diseases are expensive. Often these folks run out of private insurance either because of lost jobs, or because many private plans have caps on mental illness treatments which are expensive and lifelong. Then, Medicaid is a safety net that allows them to afford their treatments and be relatively stable.

Cut them off the program and you'll see what will happen next. We'll have a lot more people shooting others in universities like in the case of the Virginia Tech tragedy. We'll have a lot more mentally ill incarcerated in prisons where they end up spending more governmental money than they would have, if they were provided appropriate treatment. It costs more to house an inmate in a prison then to preventively treat a mentally ill person so that he/she doesn't become a criminal. So these choices have consequences, and when the mentally ill start preying on regular citizens on the street because their network of care was dismantled, don't go blaming hospitals and doctors for not spotting them and treating them, because screening and treatment costs money.

Besides, a good way to gauge the degree of civilization of a society is to look at how they treat their most fragile members. Social programs are also important in a balanced society, and cutting them may have unintended consequences.

And please, don't you or CTP call this a straw-man because it's happening. Many states have slashed funds for the treatment of the mentally ill, and the percentage of mentally ill inmates in prison populations has increased. There is a direct relationship between this and cuts in services (such as case management, ACT teams with nurses and doctors and social workers who visit the mentally ill at home and encourage them to take their medicines, structured group homes, protected workshops, etc.). Many of these services are paid for with Medicaid money. Cut them, and you'll see what will happen.


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## Chi_townPhilly

*If I can add a personal note...*

This hit, if not home, pretty close to home:


DrMike said:


> Not too many years ago, I had gotten myself into credit card debt that was getting pretty oppressive. I was having a hard enough time just making the minimum payments each month, and anybody who has been in that situation knows that when you are only making minimum payments, the balance goes up, not down, over time. I am out of debt now. How did I do it? Did I go in and complain to my boss that his failure to pay me a high enough salary was leading to my staggering debt, and demand that he not be so selfish and cough up more money? No - I put myself on a budget, went without some of those nice perks that I had come to enjoy, but ultimately weren't necessary, and paid off my debt in a few years. And now I live comfortably again. My bank account steadily rises each month, I could afford the loss I took when I sold my house and not be financially ruined, and can even afford the luxury of buying a new classical music album occasionally. And my income has not significantly increased in that time. That is all I am asking the government to do.


My wife has a close personal friend. A very capable, intelligent woman. The kind of woman who's not only a good friend, but the sort of person you could imagine being a great co-worker- professional, capable. Anyway, SHE found herself on the wrong end of a massive credit card debt. And, like you, she went on campaign to eliminate it, and (after years of tough effort) she's emerged from that hole. So- all plaudits to you. The people who really have problems are the folks out there whistling in the darkness, averting their eyes from the crises.

I'm about finding common ground- so I seek support for the Balanced Budget Amendment, or, barring that, the first Debt Commission proposal that for every dollar of tax cuts, find two dollars of spending cuts. Can it happen?!


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Certainly debt starts with overspending above and beyond one's income, be the "one" a household, a state, or a country.
> But obviously if then in the middle of a large debt burden you go and cut the household income or the country's revenue to even lower numbers (in the case of a country, you cut taxes) then the situation gets even worse, doesn't it? So certainly when you ran into debt it was not the fault of your employer who wasn't paying you enough but rather your fault for spending beyond your means, but if he then called you in his office and said,


I didn't mean to cut down that much of your post, but wanted to save space.
Certainly, long term, cutting corporate taxes might decrease revenues if you assume that no new business would be generated. But, as has been shown over and over, decreasing taxes on businesses encourages companies to move there and invest more. California saw a business flight in the 90's when taxes simply became too high, and states like Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona benefited due to their lower tax rates. Many Southern states have had positive business growth, especially in the automotive sector, as companies have chosen to locate there, as opposed to places like Michigan, because of the lower taxes and more friendly business environment. So in the long run, business booms. And the problem is that liberals already understand this. But they only selectively apply the principle. It is the very cause that they cite for businesses shipping jobs overseas. Because it is cheaper to work in some other country. So why don't they recognize that principle locally?

Whether or not the bailout money has been paid back is irrelevant. The point is that I'm not sure it should have been given in the first place. What if it hadn't been paid back? And I am fair in my blame. A lot of the bailouts were by Bush. But I also know that, while Bush's deficits were measured in the hundreds of billions, Obama is running up multi-trillion dollar deficits. And if I concede that right now is not the best time to cut taxes further (which I am only doing for the sake of argument), would you also concede that now was probably also not the best time to create yet another massive government entitlement program?

Keep in mind, as well, that the Ryan budget proposal, while it does propose cutting tax rates, does not cut them as much as Obama's own bipartisan deficit commission recommended? And he proposes removing tax loopholes.

People talk about taxing the rich more right now. But you are aware, I hope, that even if you taxed the "rich" (i.e. those making $250,000/year or more) at 100%, we still could not come close to closing the deficits that Obama is running up? I believe the total number is somewhere around $400 billion in revenue if the rich were taxed at 100%. Our deficits lately have been more than $1 trillion.
So the debt that we are accumulating each year is more than double what we could generate by extreme confiscation of the wealth of the "rich." That sounds to me, then, like the bigger problem is spending. So to take our analogy a little further - you have run up debt by overextending yourself. Obviously it isn't your employer's fault for not paying you enough. And let us concede, for the sake of the argument, your point, that it would be bad for your boss to say he is cutting your pay to help you pay your debt. But let's say that you go and talk your boss into a large raise, but then go out and buy a mansion that wouldn't even be half covered by your new pay raise. Again, the problem isn't your revenue, but the incredible stupidity you exercise in determining where that revenue will be directed. (And I don't mean you, specifically, rather referring to the hypothetical individual in our example). Obviously this individual would never be solvent, no matter how much money they received. That is where the problem with our government lies. Any new revenue they receive is only seen as the meal ticket for some new spending program. Government is like that leech relative you have that can't put food on his kid's table, and when you lend him some money to go fill the refrigerator, he blows it on cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets. And it doesn't matter how much money you give him, he'll never spend it the right way. So you may soothe your conscience by thinking what a great humanitarian you are, helping this poor sould out, but in reality you are contributing to the problem by enabling the person to only spiral more and more out of control.

Democrats are hollering and screaming about how disastrous the GOP plan is - and the GOP plan is to cut spending back to 2008 levels - you know, those record high levels that Democrats were blasting the GOP and Bush for. So blame Bush for his record deficits, but Democrats are screaming now that those spending levels are so low, we'd practically be giving the poor a death sentence. This has nothing to do with our international standing. Government never passed a program it didn't fight to the death to continue in perpetuity.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Another aspect, Dr. Mike. Take mental health for example. It is the nature of these disorders that people get profoundly disabled and can't work. In many cases if they do try to work they start getting paranoid about co-workers, etc., and all hell breaks lose. So they are a group that is by nature unable to generate much personal income, and this is for no fault of their own, but rather that of their genes that make them the victims of an unfortunate brain disease (not lazy parasites, many of them actually want badly to work). Many of the more efficient drugs that treat these brain diseases are expensive. Often these folks run out of private insurance either because of lost jobs, or because many private plans have caps on mental illness treatments which are expensive and lifelong. Then, Medicaid is a safety net that allows them to afford their treatments and be relatively stable.


I have never said to completely cut all programs. My complaint is that the system we have now either doesn't work, as it is designed, or is so poorly managed that it isn't doing what it was intended to do. So reform it. I don't mind spending money for those who truly need it. But so many of the Democrats aren't content with that alone. What about the cry for single-payer systems and government run health insurance. If you want to help the few unfortunate, then that is okay with me. But you can do that without screwing everybody else as well. The straw man that you create is this idea that either you are for the system as it currently is, or you are for completely doing away with it all. Other than Rand and Ron Paul, what major Republicans are talking about completely doing away with these programs? Do you honestly believe that the programs, as they now stand, or as they have ever stood, are ideal? And I'm not even talking utopian ideal - I mean as good as we can do ideal, realistic ideal. What is wrong with means testing? Why do we have to make social security checks out to old rich people? Let's be honest with ourselves with what we want to accomplish. Do we really want to help the unfortunate, or catch more people in the mesh of government control? Why not make it a true charity program. Wealthier people would no doubt probably be okay with a program that they contributed to, through taxes, that specifically helped out poor people, so long as it didn't put greater restrictions on them. Let taxes go to help truly unfortunate individuals buy health insurance, but let those who can afford it buy whatever they want. Let taxes go to create safety nets for poor people into their retirement years, but let wealthier people see to their own needs. Let medical insurance be like car insurance - let people decide what kind of coverage they want. Younger people might like a plan that would be cheaper, and not have to cover things that they statistically won't face for decades to come. Why does medical insurance have to be a one size fits all? Because the bureacracy has set up the system to work that way. You can't even buy it from another state.


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## Guest

The praise goes to my wife, who brought me back to sanity. I don't mind helping the people who are where they are through no fault of their own. But I would have real issues going back and having to give my money to someone like the old me who got where they were through sheer stupidity and a lack of personal responsibility. Why should someone who made a good living but chose not to prepare for retirement have any claim on my hard-earned money? It makes no sense.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Certainly, long term, cutting corporate taxes might decrease revenues if you assume that no new business would be generated. But, as has been shown over and over, decreasing taxes on businesses encourages companies to move there and invest more. California saw a business flight in the 90's when taxes simply became too high, and states like Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona benefited due to their lower tax rates. Many Southern states have had positive business growth, especially in the automotive sector, as companies have chosen to locate there, as opposed to places like Michigan, because of the lower taxes and more friendly business environment. So in the long run, business booms. And the problem is that liberals already understand this. But they only selectively apply the principle. It is the very cause that they cite for businesses shipping jobs overseas. Because it is cheaper to work in some other country. So why don't they recognize that principle locally?


I'm quoting just your first paragraph, just to identify what post of yours I'm responding to.
I'd like to say that I actually think you're making a lot of sense, and some of your arguments are sinking in.:tiphat:


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> I have never said to completely cut all programs. My complaint is that the system we have now either doesn't work, as it is designed, or is so poorly managed that it isn't doing what it was intended to do. So reform it. I don't mind spending money for those who truly need it. But so many of the Democrats aren't content with that alone. What about the cry for single-payer systems and government run health insurance. If you want to help the few unfortunate, then that is okay with me. But you can do that without screwing everybody else as well. The straw man that you create is this idea that either you are for the system as it currently is, or you are for completely doing away with it all. Other than Rand and Ron Paul, what major Republicans are talking about completely doing away with these programs? Do you honestly believe that the programs, as they now stand, or as they have ever stood, are ideal? And I'm not even talking utopian ideal - I mean as good as we can do ideal, realistic ideal. What is wrong with means testing? Why do we have to make social security checks out to old rich people? Let's be honest with ourselves with what we want to accomplish. Do we really want to help the unfortunate, or catch more people in the mesh of government control? Why not make it a true charity program. Wealthier people would no doubt probably be okay with a program that they contributed to, through taxes, that specifically helped out poor people, so long as it didn't put greater restrictions on them. Let taxes go to help truly unfortunate individuals buy health insurance, but let those who can afford it buy whatever they want. Let taxes go to create safety nets for poor people into their retirement years, but let wealthier people see to their own needs. Let medical insurance be like car insurance - let people decide what kind of coverage they want. Younger people might like a plan that would be cheaper, and not have to cover things that they statistically won't face for decades to come. Why does medical insurance have to be a one size fits all? Because the bureacracy has set up the system to work that way. You can't even buy it from another state.


No, I resist the idea that this is a straw-man. Like I said, it's already happening. States get cash strapped, and oops, "let's cut this and that program for the mentally ill, you know, these folks don't even vote anyway." In my state, a program of case management for the sickest and most fragile patients was cut, which increased admissions to state psychiatric hospitals and local prisons. I don't think there was any saving, but why would they care, the money came from different piles. It happens a lot.


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## Almaviva

Dr. Mike, I don't see where you said that, I was looking again and didn't find it, I'm running out of time to re-read everything, but your example of the young guy who is healthy and wants cheaper health insurance - or no insurance - is one of the problems with not regulating the system. Because this guy then goes and suffers a car accident, breaks a number of bones, is seen on an emergency room, doesn't pay, and puts a burden on the whole system. Gotta go now.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> No, I resist the idea that this is a straw-man. Like I said, it's already happening. States get cash strapped, and oops, "let's cut this and that program for the mentally ill, you know, these folks don't even vote anyway." In my state, a program of case management for the sickest and most fragile patients was cut, which increased admissions to state psychiatric hospitals and local prisons. I don't think there was any saving, but why would they care, the money came from different piles. It happens a lot.


The problem again lies with the politicians, for setting up unfunded mandates. Unlike the federal government, states can't simply print more money when they are out. So the federal government tells them they have to have certain programs, doesn't give them enough money to do it, then when times are tight, and cuts have to be made, the ones that put up the least fuss get cut. I don't like it any more than you do. Not only do we have to cut, we have to make smart cuts. But as you said, the mentally ill don't vote, unlike the unions and the other interest groups who march on government when you suggest they should actually pay into their own retirement funds. The problem you cite is the casualty of the current climate, not an example of heartless conservatism wanting to cut social programs. When cuts have to be made, they usually go to those who will complain the least.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Dr. Mike, I don't see where you said that, I was looking again and didn't find it, I'm running out of time to re-read everything, but your example of the young guy who is healthy and wants cheaper health insurance - or no insurance - is one of the problems with not regulating the system. Because this guy then goes and suffers a car accident, breaks a number of bones, is seen on an emergency room, doesn't pay, and puts a burden on the whole system. Gotta go now.


So you let the guy pay off the hospital bill over time. I have listened to numerous financial programs explain that, if you go in and talk to them, hospitals will work out some kind of payment system. They'd rather have the money over time than not at all. We let adults go and buy houses and cars worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on credit. Why not a hospital bill? And then they will realize that next time, they should probably get the insurance. If you just bail them out, then they will never see the necessity in buying the insurance themselves. After a couple of fender benders with my wife's car, I saw the light and now pay a little extra every month so that I have a very low deductible, and don't have to pay $500 every time something happens.

If people want to make stupid decisions, I say let them learn from their mistakes, not bail them out. Let's save the money for those who honestly can't afford it, not for some idiot who just didn't feel like it. If someone comes into the emergency room with no insurance, treat them, then review their finances. If they have the financial means to pay the bill over time, let them. If they are truly indigent, then we can talk about picking up the bill.

But there is simply no constitutional basis for forcing someone to buy health insurance. Your rationale is that it helps to keep another program solvent that also is not a constitutional requirement. Nowhere does it say that the federal government is responsible for making sure that our health care system works a certain way. And as we are finding out, multiple courts are agreeing that the individual mandate to force people to buy insurance is unconstitutional.

Let people, within reason, feel the responsibility for their actions. I sometimes wonder just how many people would be happy with the tax system if, rather than having payroll witholding, everybody had to calculate their tax quarterly or annually and write out a check. Most people don't think much of how much they pay in taxes, because it is taken out before they ever see it. All they ever think about is their after taxes net income. If they had to pay all those things themselves, they might have a different take, and might even be more in favor of a Fair Tax or Flat Tax.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> So you let the guy pay off the hospital bill over time. I have listened to numerous financial programs explain that, if you go in and talk to them, hospitals will work out some kind of payment system. They'd rather have the money over time than not at all. We let adults go and buy houses and cars worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on credit. Why not a hospital bill? And then they will realize that next time, they should probably get the insurance. If you just bail them out, then they will never see the necessity in buying the insurance themselves. After a couple of fender benders with my wife's car, I saw the light and now pay a little extra every month so that I have a very low deductible, and don't have to pay $500 every time something happens.
> 
> If people want to make stupid decisions, I say let them learn from their mistakes, not bail them out. Let's save the money for those who honestly can't afford it, not for some idiot who just didn't feel like it. If someone comes into the emergency room with no insurance, treat them, then review their finances. If they have the financial means to pay the bill over time, let them. If they are truly indigent, then we can talk about picking up the bill.
> 
> But there is simply no constitutional basis for forcing someone to buy health insurance. Your rationale is that it helps to keep another program solvent that also is not a constitutional requirement. Nowhere does it say that the federal government is responsible for making sure that our health care system works a certain way. And as we are finding out, multiple courts are agreeing that the individual mandate to force people to buy insurance is unconstitutional.
> 
> Let people, within reason, feel the responsibility for their actions. I sometimes wonder just how many people would be happy with the tax system if, rather than having payroll witholding, everybody had to calculate their tax quarterly or annually and write out a check. Most people don't think much of how much they pay in taxes, because it is taken out before they ever see it. All they ever think about is their after taxes net income. If they had to pay all those things themselves, they might have a different take, and might even be more in favor of a Fair Tax or Flat Tax.


If the solution was this simple - 'you know, make them pay overtime' - emergency rooms wouldn't be in the red all over the country. Uninsured people end up not paying, period. Yes, hospitals will work something out because it's better to get a little rather than getting nothing, but when people don't even try to pay and just disappear in nature, hospitals end up eating up the costs, and passing them on to other custormers (because supplies, medications, professional time, etc, don't just materialize out of thin air, someone must pay for them). So, you're already paying for other people's health care. The new law would actually make *them* pay for their premiums. Because, see, a system of insurance only works when there is a big enough pool of people who actually don't use the product (in this case, health care) but pay into the system as a safety net for a big emergency. If you only insure the very sick, you'll break the insurer's bank. That's why it is important to make it mandatory (or you pay a fine). And the constitutionality challenge got a few judges (usually sympathetic to the Republican party) to go for it, but I'm quite sure when it reaches the Supreme Court it will become clear that the law is not unconstitutional. Because yes, the government can perfectly regulate what kinds of obligations and fines the citizens have if they live in an organized nation. Next time, try to say to your town that you have decided not to pay property taxes, because you don't care for the services of the firemen and the police, you think your house is safe enough and it is unlikely that it will catch fire or be broken into, and you don't care for sewage because you have a septic tank and garbage collection is not essential because you prefer to take your garbage yourself to the landfill, road maintenance is not for you because you don't have a car, and then you have just decided that you don't need these services therefore you won't pay the taxes. Well, you'll get a fine. That's all that the health law says. You don't want to participate in a minimum of mandatory insurance so that you won't put a burden on the system, because you think you don't need the services? OK, you'll get a fine. Nobody is really forcing you to buy anything, you can have the option of paying the fine. But fines for not complying with various obligations of living in a civilized society exist in a variety of ways. We'll see what the SCOTUS will do, but I think that chances are that it will uphold the law.

You may say, well, if I don't want to pay property taxes, I may decline to own property, and live in an extended stay hotel. Sure, but the problem with applying the same idea to the health system is that certain moral and societal obligations related to health care make the system unfair, there's asymetric power there. Because, see, medical ethics and JCAHO regulations prohibit denial of care in critical situations. So if our hypothetical uninsured young man is taken to the ER and he refuses to give his name and address and social security number so that the hospital can follow up with a bill, the hospital will still have to treat him. Who pays for this? You and me, who have health insurance and pay our taxes. This unfair asymetry that allows the young man to have the power to force the hospital and the doctors to treat him for free and use up materials, supplies, and professional time although they are not being paid is unique in the business world. Try to walk into a clothing store and say: I want this Armani suit but I can't afford it, you'll have to give it to me for free - and see if it works. This is why this industry - health care - needs a different kind of regulation.

I'd agree with many of the things you're saying, if ER's were allowed to say to the young man with several broken bones: 'sorry, buddy, you can't pay, no service, there's no free lunch, you can't get something for nothing, you should have thought of this when you refused to buy health insurance. Hey, go home and hope for the best, see if the bones mend on their own. If they get all crooked, tough luck, like I said, you should have thought of this before. You wanted to stay out of the system, that was your choice, choices have consequences, now deal with the consequences on your own.'

Oh, no, if the doctor tried to do something like this, next thing the young man would find an ambulance-chasing lawyer to sue the doctor for neglect. No fun. Can anyone sue the clothing store owner for refusing to give you the Armani suit?

So yes, if people can't be responsible enough to participate on their own and then their reckless behavior endangers the whole system, at the very least they should pay a fine.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> If the solution was this simple - 'you know, make them pay overtime' - emergency rooms wouldn't be in the red all over the country. Uninsured people end up not paying, period. Yes, hospitals will work something out because it's better to get a little rather than getting nothing, but when people don't even try to pay and just disappear in nature, hospitals end up eating up the costs, and passing them on to other custormers (because supplies, medications, professional time, etc, don't just materialize out of thin air, someone must pay for them). So, you're already paying for other people's health care. The new law would actually make *them* pay for their premiums. Because, see, a system of insurance only works when there is a big enough pool of people who actually don't use the product (in this case, health care) but pay into the system as a safety net for a big emergency. If you only insure the very sick, you'll break the insurer's bank. That's why it is important to make it mandatory (or you pay a fine). And the constitutionality challenge got a few judges (usually sympathetic to the Republican party) to go for it, but I'm quite sure when it reaches the Supreme Court it will become clear that the law is not unconstitutional. Because yes, the government can perfectly regulate what kinds of obligations and fines the citizens have if they live in an organized nation. Next time, try to say to your town that you have decided not to pay property taxes, because you don't care for the services of the firemen and the police, you think your house is safe enough and it is unlikely that it will catch fire or be broken into, and you don't care for sewage because you have a septic tank and garbage collection is not essential because you prefer to take your garbage yourself to the landfill, road maintenance is not for you because you don't have a car, and then you have just decided that you don't need these services therefore you won't pay the taxes. Well, you'll get a fine. That's all that the health law says. You don't want to participate of a minimum of mandatory insurance so that you won't put a burden on the system, because you think you don't need the services? OK, you'll get a fine. Nobody is really forcing you to buy anything, you can have the option of paying the fine. But fines for not complying with various obligations of living in a civilized society exist in a variety of ways. We'll see what the SCOTUS will do, but I think that chances are that it will uphold the law. . . .


Apples and oranges. You are talking about a federal mandate. That is not constitutional. At the state and local level, it is decided by those laws. But are you saying that the individual mandate is nothing more than a tax? Because Obama and his AG swore up and down during the debate on the bill that it wasn't a tax. But now it is, now that that argument better suits their political objectives?

The other problem is that property taxes and such are to provide public services. But here you are forcing people to buy private insurance. Think about that. You are forcing a person, as part of their citizenship, to buy something from a private entity. I know that liberals are drooling over this as a backdoor to going with a single-payer (i.e. government) payer, but right now you are going to force people to buy a commodity. So where does it end? All we have to do is deem something essential, and then the government gets to force you to buy it? And already we are seeing it happening! In Chicago, kids can't bring their own lunches to school - they have to eat the school-provided one. Because, you see, the government knows what is best for you, and they are going to make sure you get it, whether you like it or not.

You know, maybe there would be difficulty in making people pay for hospital services like you say, but if we tried in earnest to get them to pay, I'm sure we could devise a way. And we could then take those unable to pay, and work out a system for them, lumping them together into a high risk pool and see about the government helping them out to get insurance. If someone comes into an ER in really bad shape, I guarantee there are ways of finding out who they are. And if you find out who they are, you can do a credit check and find out whether they are able to pay. If they then decide to not pay, there are ways to enforce it. Nobody does any of that now because it is so much easier to just write it off and pass the costs onto others. But if there was a higher incentive for hospitals to be more aggressive at getting people to pay, I bet you they would.

But it just isn't constitutional to force people to buy private commodities - and yes, that is what insurance is. You know, shelter is essential. Shall we mandate that everybody procures shelter? And, really, if this is about the burden that these people are on the system when they don't buy insurance and then go to an emergency room, well, what about their health in general? After all, it is sick people that drive up costs. So what about diabetics that don't properly takes their medications, and end up with complications that lead to more health care costs? Does that mean that we should mandate proper medication compliance? After all, not doing it increases healthcare costs. We can fine them if they don't take their medications as prescribed. Where does this end? Shall we just monitor everybody and fine them when they don't do everything that the government deems essential?


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Apples and oranges. You are talking about a federal mandate. That is not constitutional. At the state and local level, it is decided by those laws. But are you saying that the individual mandate is nothing more than a tax? Because Obama and his AG swore up and down during the debate on the bill that it wasn't a tax. But now it is, now that that argument better suits their political objectives?
> 
> The other problem is that property taxes and such are to provide public services. But here you are forcing people to buy private insurance. Think about that. You are forcing a person, as part of their citizenship, to buy something from a private entity. I know that liberals are drooling over this as a backdoor to going with a single-payer (i.e. government) payer, but right now you are going to force people to buy a commodity. So where does it end? All we have to do is deem something essential, and then the government gets to force you to buy it? And already we are seeing it happening! In Chicago, kids can't bring their own lunches to school - they have to eat the school-provided one. Because, you see, the government knows what is best for you, and they are going to make sure you get it, whether you like it or not.
> 
> You know, maybe there would be difficulty in making people pay for hospital services like you say, but if we tried in earnest to get them to pay, I'm sure we could devise a way. And we could then take those unable to pay, and work out a system for them, lumping them together into a high risk pool and see about the government helping them out to get insurance. If someone comes into an ER in really bad shape, I guarantee there are ways of finding out who they are. And if you find out who they are, you can do a credit check and find out whether they are able to pay. If they then decide to not pay, there are ways to enforce it. Nobody does any of that now because it is so much easier to just write it off and pass the costs onto others. But if there was a higher incentive for hospitals to be more aggressive at getting people to pay, I bet you they would.
> 
> But it just isn't constitutional to force people to buy private commodities - and yes, that is what insurance is. You know, shelter is essential. Shall we mandate that everybody procures shelter? And, really, if this is about the burden that these people are on the system when they don't buy insurance and then go to an emergency room, well, what about their health in general? After all, it is sick people that drive up costs. So what about diabetics that don't properly takes their medications, and end up with complications that lead to more health care costs? Does that mean that we should mandate proper medication compliance? After all, not doing it increases healthcare costs. We can fine them if they don't take their medications as prescribed. Where does this end? Shall we just monitor everybody and fine them when they don't do everything that the government deems essential?


Hey, the fact that it is a private commodity is because you guys have never wanted the single payer, governmental universal health care anyway, so, the insurance pools and mandatory minimum participation is the second best thing. If you ask me, I'd rather have the single payer system.

You are talking about the diabetics that don't properly take their medication - it's when you have a well oiled health care system that you can rein in those behaviors. What is the alternative, just let the diabetics go on with no insurance so they'll crash and burn and drive costs up even more for lack of preventive care? It's when you have universal access to care that the health of the population progressively gets better. This is what France has demonstrated: they have the number 1 health system in the world, not only in the performance of the system (no waiting lists) and universal access, but also in outcome measures. I lived there for 5 years and experienced first hand the advantages of their system. I think Americans don't want something like this (and put up with the 37th health system in the world) because they haven't experienced the number 1 ranked French system. Nobody in his/her right mind would *not* want such a system. People don't know what they're missing, and they scream 'communism!' - 'I don't want to pay for other people's care' - not realizing that they already pay for other people's care, just; it's in a bloated, inefficient system with plenty of middle men who keep most of the money, instead of being in a very efficient, lower cost, better performing system like they have in France.

And yes, your example at the end of your post does exist. There are plenty of countries that fine you if you don't take your kid to receive the proper vaccinations.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Hey, the fact that it is a private commodity is because you guys have never wanted the single payer, governmental universal health care anyway, so, the insurance pools and mandatory minimum participation is the second best thing. If you ask me, I'd rather have the single payer system.
> 
> You are talking about the diabetics that don't properly take their medication - it's when you have a well oiled health care system that you can rein in those behaviors. What is the alternative, just let the diabetics go on with no insurance so they'll crash and burn and drive costs up even more for lack of preventive care? It's when you have universal access to care that the health of the population progressively gets better. This is what France has demonstrated: they have the number 1 health system in the word, not only in the performance of the system (no waiting lists) and universal access, but also in outcome measures. I lived there for 5 years and experienced first hand the advantages of their system. I think Americans don't want something like this (and put up with the 37th health system in the world) because they haven't experienced the number 1 ranked French system. Nobody in his/her right mind would *not* want such a system. People don't know what they're missing, and they scream 'communism!' - 'I don't want to pay for other people's care' - not realizing that they already pay for other people's care, just; it's in a bloated, inefficient system with plenty of middle men who keep most of the money, instead of being in a very efficient, lower cost, better performing system like they have in France.
> 
> And yes, your example at the end of your post does exist. There are plenty of countries that fine you if you don't take your kid to receive the proper vaccinations.


I don't want to live in one of those countries. There is a certain price to pay for more freedom. It means more personal accountability. I know you want all of those things - but my point is that it is unconstitutional to set up such a system in this country. So either you amend the constitution, or you find judges who redefine the constitution to suit their own ideals.

There are plenty of places in the world you can go if you want greater government control over your life. The U.S. doesn't need to be yet another. And it should be noted that one of the reasons that countries like France could dump so much money into those types of programs is that, with only trivial exceptions, among Western countries, the U.S. has footed the lion's share of defense costs ever since WWII.


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## Ralfy

U.S. citizens receive various government services but also receive tax cuts:

"The Misinformed Tea Party Movement"

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

and pay some of the lowest rates for petrol among industrialized countries while receiving very good wages (around 8 dollars an hour compared to around two dollars a day for up to 60 pct of the global population, where in several poor countries, petrol is priced at around $3.50 a gallon).

The result is not just government debt driven by tax cuts and war costs:

"CHART OF THE DAY: Reminder, The Deficit You're Freaking Out About Is Bush's Fault"

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-bush-policies-deficits-2010-6

but a total (not just government) debt of around $57 trillion:

"America's Total Debt Report"

http://grandfather-economic-report.com/debt-nat.htm

In general, then, we are looking at the results of around four decades of casino capitalism, with all three groups--households, government, and corporations--using the dollar and rigged credit ratings to borrow and spend heavily. The result is four decades of trade deficits, U.S. banks exposed to over $370 trillion in derivatives, up to 70 pct of economic "growth" based on consumer spending, and "recovery" based on increasing debt as more states come close to bankruptcy.

The other countries are following suit. The total money supply worldwide is around $1.4 quadrillion, with over $800 trillion consisting of unregulated derivatives (put simply, debts based on debts) and over $500 trillion in government liabilities (not necessarily debts but health care and social security obligations). Much of the wealth of the global economy itself consists essentially of numbers in accounts and with no real value.

Given this situation, credit crunches leading to major government cuts and private sector losses are inevitable, but this will pale in comparison to a resource crunch. Oil production has remained relatively flat since 2006, and more reports are being made regarding the threat of a drop in production only a few years from now. We also face top soil destruction, shortages for other resources, from fresh water to phosphates, with very few alternative sources of energy (most cannot produce petrochemicals, which we also need). All these will have a severe impact not only on health care but also on food availability and other needs.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> I don't want to live in one of those countries. There is a certain price to pay for more freedom. It means more personal accountability. I know you want all of those things - but my point is that it is unconstitutional to set up such a system in this country. So either you amend the constitution, or you find judges who redefine the constitution to suit their own ideals.
> 
> There are plenty of places in the world you can go if you want greater government control over your life. The U.S. doesn't need to be yet another. And it should be noted that one of the reasons that countries like France could dump so much money into those types of programs is that, with only trivial exceptions, among Western countries, the U.S. has footed the lion's share of defense costs ever since WWII.


No, I reject the implication of "if you don't love it, leave it." I love my country. What I want is to see it improve, and more particularly, I want to see our citizens get better health care. I know that I'll shock you with what I'll say next, but freedom is over-rated, when freedom results in detrimental behaviors. Having the freedom to make horrible decisions about health care in my opinion is not as good as being nudged a little to do the right thing. Since people seem to only care when something hits their pocket, a few fines here and there to produce wise and prudent behavior are not such a dent on freedom as you're saying. You can always choose to pay the fine if you don't want the wise behavior.

Sometimes - emphasis on sometimes, please don't call it a straw-man - I daydream of a hypothetical Tea Party member talking on the phone to a major and lousy health insurer, and saying - "I'd like to enroll in your lousy plan that will charge me three times as much as I could get from an insurance pool set up by the new law and will give me one third of the services I'd otherwise get if I joined the pool, and will exclude my pre-existing conditions unlike what the government is proposing, because I don't want any part of that communist health plan." Or else, the Tea Party guy would get a refund in the mail from health expenses incurred thanks to his 2 decades of diabetes, but would send the check back with a little note: "My diabetes is a pre-existing condition so I don't want this refund otherwise I'd be accepting that communist health plan, I prefer to go uncovered."

Sure, he'd have the "freedom" to do so, but it would seem rather stupid to me.


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## Almaviva

Ralfy said:


> U.S. citizens receive various government services but also receive tax cuts:
> 
> "The Misinformed Tea Party Movement"
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
> 
> and pay some of the lowest rates for petrol among industrialized countries while receiving very good wages (around 8 dollars an hour compared to around two dollars a day for up to 60 pct of the global population, where in several poor countries, petrol is priced at around $3.50 a gallon).
> 
> The result is not just government debt driven by tax cuts and war costs:
> 
> "CHART OF THE DAY: Reminder, The Deficit You're Freaking Out About Is Bush's Fault"
> 
> http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-bush-policies-deficits-2010-6
> 
> but a total (not just government) debt of around $57 trillion:
> 
> "America's Total Debt Report"
> 
> http://grandfather-economic-report.com/debt-nat.htm
> 
> In general, then, we are looking at the results of around four decades of casino capitalism, with all three groups--households, government, and corporations--using the dollar and rigged credit ratings to borrow and spend heavily. The result is four decades of trade deficits, U.S. banks exposed to over $370 trillion in derivatives, up to 70 pct of economic "growth" based on consumer spending, and "recovery" based on increasing debt as more states come close to bankruptcy.
> 
> The other countries are following suit. The total money supply worldwide is around $1.4 quadrillion, with over $800 trillion consisting of unregulated derivatives (put simply, debts based on debts) and over $500 trillion in government liabilities (not necessarily debts but health care and social security obligations). Much of the wealth of the global economy itself consists essentially of numbers in accounts and with no real value.
> 
> Given this situation, credit crunches leading to major government cuts and private sector losses are inevitable, but this will pale in comparison to a resource crunch. Oil production has remained relatively flat since 2006, and more reports are being made regarding the threat of a drop in production only a few years from now. We also face top soil destruction, shortages for other resources, from fresh water to phosphates, with very few alternative sources of energy (most cannot produce petrochemicals, which we also need). All these will have a severe impact not only on health care but also on food availability and other needs.


Scary! Thanks for posting.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> No, I reject the implication of "if you don't love it, leave it." I love my country. What I want is to see it improve, and more particularly, I want to see our citizens get better health care. I know that I'll shock you with what I'll say next, but freedom is over-rated, when freedom results in detrimental behaviors. Having the freedom to make horrible decisions about health care in my opinion is not as good as being nudged a little to do the right thing. Since people seem to only care when something hits their pocket, a few fines here and there to produce wise and prudent behavior are not such a dent on freedom as you're saying. You can always choose to pay the fine if you don't want the wise behavior.


And this is our fundamental disagreement. I don't think freedom is over-rated. I agree that, in order to live in a civilized society, there is a certain degree of freedom we have to surrender. But I think there is a limit. I am not saying love it or leave it. I am saying this is how ours was set up. It was specifically designed differently than anything else. It was understood that people would have to take more personal responsibility. That they didn't want a government with too much power over its citizens.

Tyranny is tyranny. Most start out as benevolent tyrannies - they are only looking out for your best interests. But once you give government such fundamental control over your life, how can you justify saying no when they take just a little more? Being free and being charitable and caring for your fellow men are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to imply. Having a system to help out those less fortunate is not possible through your system alone - a government take over of these services is not the sole solution to these problems. And the increasing insolvency problems in various European nations is showing that such programs simply aren't tenable for very long. As Margaret Thatcher very wisely said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of people to tax. And that is the problem we are approaching. Even if you taxed the millionaires and billionaires at 100%, you only gain an additional $400 billion. To afford all of these programs, you have to start significantly increasing the taxes on the middle and lower classes. There is simply no way of avoiding it.

The Tea Party has so much scorn heaped upon it. Because they charge that the government should be accountable and responsible with the money entrusted to it. And the opposition is left, essentially, with the argument of, "No, let us spend more and confiscate more from those nasty rich who should feel privileged to surrender more of their money. After all, they are only rich from exploiting the rest of us."

So in order to be compassionate, we have to run our economy into the ground. We have to tax ourselves into oblivion and incite class warfare, inspire envy of those who are successful. That is how we can truly show that we care for others.

France may be doing fine now, but like most western nations, their birthrate is dwindling, and soon there will be less paying into the system than are taking out. And then you will HAVE to ration care, or be forced to take more draconian measures.


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## science

Cut taxes on people with tens of millions, and hundreds of millions, and billions of dollars of assets - and cut benefits to the bottom 80% of society. 

It's worked for 30 years, and I bet it'll work for about 5 more. But the day of reckoning is coming.

Remember the tax rates of the 1950s? They're coming back. The John Birchers are going to have to start all over.


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## science

Originally here: http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/budget_similarities_20110417/


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## Guest

science said:


> Cut taxes on people with tens of millions, and hundreds of millions, and billions of dollars of assets - and cut benefits to the bottom 80% of society.
> 
> It's worked for 30 years, and I bet it'll work for about 5 more. But the day of reckoning is coming.
> 
> Remember the tax rates of the 1950s? They're coming back. The John Birchers are going to have to start all over.


There is a fundamental difference in our understanding of wealth. If I make a million dollars, it is my money. By cutting taxes, government is not giving me money. It never belonged to the government. It was produced by my exertions. The only reason government has any money is because the citizens (we the people) have mutually agreed that government should receive some of our money to run things. But we run into trouble when we start to assume that anybody who has not worked for the money has any claim to it. That those who generate the money are in agreement that some of it should be paid to government is how this system works. Somewhere along the line, we have generated a society that thinks it is owed that for which it has not gone to any effort to procure. They feel they are entitled. Somehow letting me keep more of the money that I earned from my own work is stealing from someone else who did not earn it. A cut in tax rates is not the government being generous and giving us more money. It is merely the government deciding to take less of my money.

I understand taxes are necessary. I understand there are basic necessities that government provides that we can't provide ourselves - and so did the founding fathers, and they spelled those out in the constitution. But because the government provides some essential functions doesn't mean they have license to take my money and promise everything under the sun to everyone.

Democrats have been moaning for decades that Republicans are always right on the verge of throwing poor people out on the streets and letting granny die from lack of healthcare. It is the same, tired straw man they pull out every time they lose some control of government. And yet when has it happened? From 2001 to 2007 the GOP controlled the White House and Congress. Did Armageddon occur? Did the sky fall? In contrast, the Democrats have controlled Congress for a large chunk of time since the 1950s. And we have entitlement programs reaching insolvency to show for it. How is it a wonderful thing to promise the world to all the poor if you end up destroying the whole machine in the process? Democrats already complain about companies outsourcing jobs to other countries. Do they really think that jacking up tax rates is going to improve that situation? A Democrat governor in New York has realized that there actually is a point where you can tax people too much, and then they leave. This isn't theory - this is reality. California has seen it. New York is seeing it. There is a point when it is no longer worth it. I could promise my kids to buy them luxury cars, a mansion, and feed them at fancy restaurants every day, and they would probably think I was the greatest dad in the world. But what happens when I go bankrupt and we are all in the poor house? What then? Well, at least I was really loving and gave them all those free things. They'll love me for that, even though now our lives are ruined.

Wake up - you can't have a system of government based on robbing from the rich more and more every time you want a new program. It is immoral. I don't care how compassionate you think you are. Compassion and charity is taking from your own pocket to help out the unfortunate, not reaching into mine.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> And this is our fundamental disagreement. I don't think freedom is over-rated. I agree that, in order to live in a civilized society, there is a certain degree of freedom we have to surrender. But I think there is a limit. I am not saying love it or leave it. I am saying this is how ours was set up. It was specifically designed differently than anything else. It was understood that people would have to take more personal responsibility. That they didn't want a government with too much power over its citizens.
> 
> Tyranny is tyranny. Most start out as benevolent tyrannies - they are only looking out for your best interests. But once you give government such fundamental control over your life, how can you justify saying no when they take just a little more? Being free and being charitable and caring for your fellow men are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to imply. Having a system to help out those less fortunate is not possible through your system alone - a government take over of these services is not the sole solution to these problems. And the increasing insolvency problems in various European nations is showing that such programs simply aren't tenable for very long. As Margaret Thatcher very wisely said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of people to tax. And that is the problem we are approaching. Even if you taxed the millionaires and billionaires at 100%, you only gain an additional $400 billion. To afford all of these programs, you have to start significantly increasing the taxes on the middle and lower classes. There is simply no way of avoiding it.
> 
> The Tea Party has so much scorn heaped upon it. Because they charge that the government should be accountable and responsible with the money entrusted to it. And the opposition is left, essentially, with the argument of, "No, let us spend more and confiscate more from those nasty rich who should feel privileged to surrender more of their money. After all, they are only rich from exploiting the rest of us."
> 
> So in order to be compassionate, we have to run our economy into the ground. We have to tax ourselves into oblivion and incite class warfare, inspire envy of those who are successful. That is how we can truly show that we care for others.
> 
> France may be doing fine now, but like most western nations, their birthrate is dwindling, and soon there will be less paying into the system than are taking out. And then you will HAVE to ration care, or be forced to take more draconian measures.


While some of your arguments are solid (such as France not being able to sustain the current status quo forever), you're doing a bit of what you accuse me of doing - pushing my position to an extreme. I'm not for tyranny and total control by the government. I'm just for putting some necessary changes in place and telling people, "well, you really need to do this, but if you don't want to do it, then pay a fine." This is not fundamentally different from establishing speed limits. You say to people: "speeding is stupid and will put your life and the life of others at risk. You really shouldn't speed. But if you insist, then you'll pay a fine - a speeding ticket." I don't think a country qualifies as embracing tyranny for enforcing speed limits. Freedom is good to a certain degree but is not a free-for-all if you live in an organized society.


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## science

DrMike said:


> A Democrat governor
> What then?
> Wake up
> It is immoral. I don't care how compassionate you think you are. Compassion and charity is taking from your own pocket to help out the unfortunate, not reaching into mine.


I pay taxes and donate to charity, and I violently resent the implication that I don't.

I didn't make an argument from morality or compassion, and I never will.

Finally, explain what my understanding wealth is and how you knew it.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> While some of your arguments are solid (such as France not being able to sustain the current status quo forever), you're doing a bit of what you accuse me of doing - pushing my position to an extreme. I'm not for tyranny and total control by the government. I'm just for putting some necessary changes in place and telling people, "well, you really need to do this, but if you don't want to do it, then pay a fine." This is not fundamentally different from establishing speed limits. You say to people: "speeding is stupid and will put your life and the life of others at risk. You really shouldn't speed. But if you insist, then you'll pay a fine - a speeding ticket." I don't think a country qualifies as embracing tyranny for enforcing speed limits. Freedom is good to a certain degree but is not a free-for-all if you live in an organized society.


I didn't say you wanted tyranny. But I think that ultimately this is the direction that we, as a society, are headed. People don't want to have to take responsibility anymore - they want someone, somewhere, to take care of all their needs so they don't have to be bothered.

With all due respect, the comparison to driving and speed limits is inaccurate. Driving is not a necessity. I can both disregard speeding laws and not pay a fine - I can choose to not drive. If I choose to not drive - say I live close enough to work that I can walk or ride a bike - then I don't have to buy a car. If I don't own a car, I don't have to buy car insurance. You want to force people - and that is what it is. The fact that you think a fine is a relatively innocuous penalty is irrelevant, you are still using the law and the full force of government to make a person do something or face a penalty.

But where do you see it ending? Today it is healthcare that is causing the debate. And later, when it is determined that there is something else that the government decides everybody absolutely needs? Will government next be mandating the kinds of foods we buy and penalizing us for buying the wrong kinds? Will they force everybody to buy a hybrid or electric car or pay a fine if they don't? Will they force everybody to use CFL bulbs or pay a penalty if they don't? Can you please tell me at what level of government control over our lives you would draw the line? Is the "greater good" the ultimate trump card that government can use to demand we do whatever they say?

I don't care for tyrannies or dictatorships, regardless of how benevolent they are.


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## Guest

science said:


> I pay taxes and donate to charity, and I violently resent the implication that I don't.
> 
> I didn't make an argument from morality or compassion, and I never will.
> 
> Finally, explain what my understanding wealth is and how you knew it.


Okay, first you chop up my quote to make it completely incoherent, and then you misunderstood that I am using "you" in the generic, as I have in this entire discussion. Almaviva has clearly understood that I am talking in the abstract here. If you would rather, I can go back and edit my comments using the generic "one" instead. So the above statement would read, "It is immoral. I don't care how compassionate one thinks one is. Compassion and charity is taking from one's own pocket to help out the unfortunate, not reaching into another's."

And I said that the system is immoral, not you. The system that holds that you should take from one who has earned and give to one who has not earned is not a moral one. And in this discussion, there have been comments made about how unconscionable (now I am paraphrasing here) that a country as affluent as ours shouldn't care for the needs of its poor. That is essentially a moral argument, not a factual one.

If you want to be offended by my statement and think I was taking you on personally, I can't help that. I think the others involved in this discussion understand that I am debating the system, not individuals. And I have on numerous occasions stated that it is a fundamental difference in opinions on how the system should work.

I never said that you couldn't both pay taxes and donate to charity. I do it as well. But we aren't talking about charitable donations. We are talking about government-forced "charity" to help the unfortunate. We are talking about 50% of the population paying nothing in federal income taxes voting for politicians who promise to make the 50% who do pay pay even more, because supposedly they have not yet paid their "fair share," and somehow they are being selfish in not wanting to shoulder an even disproportionately greater burden. You may not have made the argument from morality or compassion, but that is essentially the general argument out there, that we have a moral obligation to help these people with these programs.

Personally, I believe that I have a moral obligation, because of my faith, to help those less fortunate than I am, and to give what I can. But I don't believe it is the role of government to force that upon me. Government is not compassionate, because government is not giving anything up. Government is taking from one person and giving to another. And it is threatening punishment on the one if it doesn't willingly surrender what it has. And I think that is immoral.

Lets not turn this into some sideshow of grievance over perceived sleights made in statements. These are heated topics, but I think if you go back and re-read my comments, you will see that I was speaking in the abstract, and not targeting your personal actions or behavior.


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## jhar26

DrMike said:


> Personally, I believe that I have a moral obligation, because of my faith, to help those less fortunate than I am, and to give what I can. But I don't believe it is the role of government to force that upon me.


You may help those less fortunate than yourself. The question is if the number of people who do that is sufficient to make a difference.


> Government is not compassionate, because government is not giving anything up. Government is taking from one person and giving to another. And it is threatening punishment on the one if it doesn't willingly surrender what it has. And I think that is immoral.


Personally I think it's immoral that one person earns a zillion while someone else has problems to make ends meet. Not that success has to be punished, but I don't think it's much of a punishment if Mr.Clark can only buy three rolls royces this year instead of four to ensure that the family of Mr.Smith who lives a few blocks away can at least have a roof over their heads.


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## science

DrMike said:


> Okay, first you chop up my quote to make it completely incoherent, and then you misunderstood that I am using "you" in the generic, as I have in this entire discussion. Almaviva has clearly understood that I am talking in the abstract here. If you would rather, I can go back and edit my comments using the generic "one" instead. So the above statement would read, "It is immoral. I don't care how compassionate one thinks one is. Compassion and charity is taking from one's own pocket to help out the unfortunate, not reaching into another's."
> 
> And I said that the system is immoral, not you. The system that holds that you should take from one who has earned and give to one who has not earned is not a moral one. And in this discussion, there have been comments made about how unconscionable (now I am paraphrasing here) that a country as affluent as ours shouldn't care for the needs of its poor. That is essentially a moral argument, not a factual one.
> 
> If you want to be offended by my statement and think I was taking you on personally, I can't help that. I think the others involved in this discussion understand that I am debating the system, not individuals. And I have on numerous occasions stated that it is a fundamental difference in opinions on how the system should work.
> 
> I never said that you couldn't both pay taxes and donate to charity. I do it as well. But we aren't talking about charitable donations. We are talking about government-forced "charity" to help the unfortunate. We are talking about 50% of the population paying nothing in federal income taxes voting for politicians who promise to make the 50% who do pay pay even more, because supposedly they have not yet paid their "fair share," and somehow they are being selfish in not wanting to shoulder an even disproportionately greater burden. You may not have made the argument from morality or compassion, but that is essentially the general argument out there, that we have a moral obligation to help these people with these programs.
> 
> Personally, I believe that I have a moral obligation, because of my faith, to help those less fortunate than I am, and to give what I can. But I don't believe it is the role of government to force that upon me. Government is not compassionate, because government is not giving anything up. Government is taking from one person and giving to another. And it is threatening punishment on the one if it doesn't willingly surrender what it has. And I think that is immoral.
> 
> Lets not turn this into some sideshow of grievance over perceived sleights made in statements. These are heated topics, but I think if you go back and re-read my comments, you will see that I was speaking in the abstract, and not targeting your personal actions or behavior.


I left in the important parts. Really, there's no need to quote the whole post. If you want to be civil, that's fine.

I am not persuaded that a system of gross inequality is moral, regardless of who has earned what or who has taken what. Yes, it's true that the beneficiaries of many public programs won't be able to pay their fair share, so the rich will have to make up the difference. Morally, I'm fine with that. The rich benefit disproportionately from our society, they can pay disporportionately to maintain it.

But I am not going to argue from morality, because I am not persuaded that it can be effective. I argue from force, both physical and electoral. You might have watertight moral arguments, but you aren't going to win elections taking health insurance from grandma and cutting taxes on billionaires. And I think the system isn't yet corrupt enough to enable it to be done in spite of or even without elections. And if it were done, I think we'd find that in reality the people still have the power.

They can reduce people to poverty and servitude, but they have to do it more slowly than this.


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## Almaviva

Dr. Mike, I do agree that you weren't being personal.
Science, let's not bee too sensitive.

With a little effort, we can all keep this discussion going without letting it slide into personal remarks, and so far, so good.


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## Almaviva

Dr. Mike, there are two things that are profoundly ingrained in our culture.

1. Government is some horrible thing that only exists to pester us.
2. If people are poor that's their fault. They should just work harder and they wouldn't be poor.

I know, the above is caricatural rather than factual, but in terms of the underlying culture, it does exist and causes effects. It comes from the fact that we are a country of explorers and pionneers and immigrants who came here to brave the vast new world and be a self-made people. It's all admirable. But it is also a bit extreme in this day and age.

Some of the things you say about big government seem to me to indicate a hint of number 1, as if the government is there to impose on the citizens, is always working against the citizens. I don't see government this way. I see it as necessary to run things in society; it is made of the people and it is for the people. I don't mind the fact that there are fines for speeding, and I believe that highway deaths would be much more numerous without them (as proven by how much they have declined after national speed limits were enforced). Yes, I do praise the common good, and this is what a government should be for. Government should not be for the rich, it should be for all of us.

Telling someone to purchase at least a minimum of health insurance or pay a fine is not taking from the rich to give to the poor, is actually stopping someone from recklessly imposing a burden on the system and forcing the system to provide free care in case of an emergency, and is very good advice. You're not taking from that person, because you're also providing services for that premium - better access to care results in better preventive medicine and lower costs down the road, which then benefit everybody, rich and poor alike. It's good advice and good policy, just like it is good advice and good policy to tell people that speeding to 125 miles per hour on highways is pretty reckless and stupid. In my views, a government that gives these two good pieces of advice to their citizens - don't speed, purchase a minimum of health insurance - is indeed looking after our interests and the common good, and shouldn't be vilified for it.

Where will it stop, say you? Not too far down the road, we do have our checks and balances and we do have the cultural tendency to limit government somehow, so, don't worry too much about the Big Brother and tyranny. Giving our citizens more access to health care and making our health care system more solvent, more efficient, more preventive, and less costly is a good thing, not tyranny.

Now, number 2. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Most poor people would love to come out of poverty and to do it with their own hands and from their own work. The way our capitalist society is organized, it isn't always easy. And this idea that the rich are to be praised for their success and the poor blamed for their lack thereof is not the right way to look into this. Society is a give-and-take, is a social compromise, is a social contract. The rich man needs the poor man to work in his factories, fix his Rolls Royce, mow his lawn, cook for him. The poor man needs the rich man to give him these jobs. But if the poor man makes just enough to feed his children and place a roof over their heads and can't afford to keep them healthy with the proper vaccinations, annual physicals, etc., or to keep himself healthy and able to continue to work by taking care of his diabetes and his hypertension, then it is fair that society extends to them some programs to help them get their basic needs met. Like jhar26 said, maybe one less Rolls Royce per year can do it.

As for charity, it is sorely insufficient to fix all the problems. I am a very active donor to UNICEF and the American Red Cross, but in my work I am in constant contact with situations in which non-governmental organizations and charities have failed to meet our citizens' needs, and people risk lives and limbs for not having more assistance. Good people. Not lazy parasites. Like I said, one gauges how civilized a society is by looking at how it takes care of its weakest and most vulnerable members.

Yes, it seems quite immoral to me that the greatest nation on earth (sorry for the patriotic twist, non-Americans), the number one economy in the world, has such an appaling track record in taking care of the health care needs of its poorest citizens. It's a low dirty shame.


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## Almaviva

Just bringing again people's attention to this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-bush-policies-deficits-2010-6

It looks like, contrary to what Dr. Mike and CTP said, that the Bush tax cuts are the major force driving up the deficit, together with the foreign wars and the economic downturn. TERP funds, bailouts, stimulus measures seem to be quite negligeable and reduced to almost no effect overtime. So, it's not too much spending (if you take away the wars) but rather too many tax cuts.

The same user also posted a link showing the truth about Obama's policies: they have resulted in tax cuts, not in tax increases, contrary to general perception.

Very interesting.


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## Guest

My question to all of you is this: since when do ends justify means? Okay, so lets accept that it isn't right that people should languish with untreated ailments if they aren't capable of paying. How much are you prepared to allow to right that wrong? Apparently it is fine to take more from "millionaires and billionaires." But the president is going beyond that. We are talking about people making $250,000/year and above. I'd be willing to bet those people don't have 1 Rolls Royce, let alone 3. But what happens when that isn't enough to fund all these programs? How much further down are you willing to define rich? Or will you just raise rates even higher on those rich people? 

How about before they dump this on the rest of America, some of these leaders lead by example. The President made close to $2 million last year, and paid nearly half a million in taxes. Does he really need more than $1 million to exist comfortably? After all, he has no cost of living expenses. Why not make a gift of his excess to the federal government? Anybody can do it. What about John Kerry? How many SUVs does he need? How many houses? Why not limit himself to only a couple of each, and dump everything else in the U.S. Treasury? Did John Edwards need his mega-mansion? Did Al Gore need his mansion? Surely that money could be better used providing for the poor? If it is such a good idea, these leading proponents of that idea shouldn't have to wait for government to come take it from them - they should be dumping it in already. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done it. As a former recipient of one of their grants to combat global health problems, I have seen firsthand a rich person leading by example, and not merely paying lip service and talking about what everybody else should be doing. Why does the Kennedy family have so much of its wealth tied up in offshore banks to shield it from the federal government when Ted Kennedy was one of the biggest proponents of a national healthcare system?

And if this is such a critical need, why is it too much to ask that we first look to where we can save money to pay for it before we start raising more taxes? Our deficit has been over $1 trillion/year since Obama came into office, and is looking to stay that way for some time to come. Democrats were brutal to Bush over his deficits, which were a fraction of what Obama has given us. We simply can't afford all of this, even with raising the taxes to the level that Democrats are proposing. You talk about how many poor people have no insurance now - how many more will there be when we have finally gone bankrupt? Do you think Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are content with their financial system now, knowing that at least they ruined their economies by being nice to poor people?


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Just bringing again people's attention to this:
> 
> http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-bush-policies-deficits-2010-6
> 
> It looks like, contrary to what Dr. Mike and CTP said, that the Bush tax cuts are the major force driving up the deficit, together with the foreign wars and the economic downturn. TERP funds, bailouts, stimulus measures seem to be quite negligeable and reduced to almost no effect overtime. So, it's not too much spending (if you take away the wars) but rather too many tax cuts.
> 
> The same user also posted a link showing the truth about Obama's policies: they have resulted in tax cuts, not in tax increases, contrary to general perception.
> 
> Very interesting.


No offense, but the one author is a regular contributor to MSNBC and the Huffington Post, and between the two of them, they have one degree in political science and 2 in journalism. I'm not sure that makes them experts in economics.

Again, a tax cut is not a government expense. When I make out my budget, I don't have an expense category for "money I think I deserve but my boss won't pay me." Does that not make sense to anybody? If I go out and buy one of these much talked about Rolls Royce cars, and drive myself into debt, do I credit that debt as money my boss isn't paying me, or money I spent that I didn't have?

This is the logic behind it all. I think I should be making twice as much as I currently am. In light of that, I'm going to go and spend like I am making twice as much as I am, and then blame the debt I incur on that heartless boss who just isn't paying me my fair share.

Government should not produce surpluses. If it does, then it is taxing too much. The government does not exist to create new programs and find new ways to spend more of my money. It has a very well defined role. I am not anti-government. I am opposed to a government that oversteps its bounds. That is the foundation of this country. We split from England because enough people here thought that the British government was over-stepping its bounds. Enough people thought that the government was going too far in their confiscation of property, doing it in ways it had no right to do. The system we are bringing upon ourselves now is coming perilously close to the one that the founding fathers fought to overthrow.

Because I don't like what our government is now doing does not mean that I am against any kind of government.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> My question to all of you is this: since when do ends justify means? Okay, so lets accept that it isn't right that people should languish with untreated ailments if they aren't capable of paying. How much are you prepared to allow to right that wrong? Apparently it is fine to take more from "millionaires and billionaires." But the president is going beyond that. We are talking about people making $250,000/year and above. I'd be willing to bet those people don't have 1 Rolls Royce, let alone 3. But what happens when that isn't enough to fund all these programs? How much further down are you willing to define rich? Or will you just raise rates even higher on those rich people?
> 
> How about before they dump this on the rest of America, some of these leaders lead by example. The President made close to $2 million last year, and paid nearly half a million in taxes. Does he really need more than $1 million to exist comfortably? After all, he has no cost of living expenses. Why not make a gift of his excess to the federal government? Anybody can do it. What about John Kerry? How many SUVs does he need? How many houses? Why not limit himself to only a couple of each, and dump everything else in the U.S. Treasury? Did John Edwards need his mega-mansion? Did Al Gore need his mansion? Surely that money could be better used providing for the poor? If it is such a good idea, these leading proponents of that idea shouldn't have to wait for government to come take it from them - they should be dumping it in already. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done it. As a former recipient of one of their grants to combat global health problems, I have seen firsthand a rich person leading by example, and not merely paying lip service and talking about what everybody else should be doing. Why does the Kennedy family have so much of its wealth tied up in offshore banks to shield it from the federal government when Ted Kennedy was one of the biggest proponents of a national healthcare system?
> 
> And if this is such a critical need, why is it too much to ask that we first look to where we can save money to pay for it before we start raising more taxes? Our deficit has been over $1 trillion/year since Obama came into office, and is looking to stay that way for some time to come. Democrats were brutal to Bush over his deficits, which were a fraction of what Obama has given us. We simply can't afford all of this, even with raising the taxes to the level that Democrats are proposing. You talk about how many poor people have no insurance now - how many more will there be when we have finally gone bankrupt? Do you think Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are content with their financial system now, knowing that at least they ruined their economies by being nice to poor people?


Why do you only quote Democrat millionaires? Wouldn't you include some GOP millionaires too?
President Obama made several donations to charity this year; just yesterday I heard of another one he made, of $100,000. But you're certainly not pretending that Obama is as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, right? So naturally he can't go as far as they went.

And who says that the new health care law will bring about more deficit (that's what you seem to imply when you say "pay for all these programs")? Unlike the GOP Medicare prescription plan, it is all paid for. Besides, the new law is *not* what you guys seem to imply: an entitlement program with the government as single payer. It is merely a reorganization of health insurance. Enough with Tea Party straw men like the Death Panels. The Tea Party has engaged in a thorough campaign of lies and misinformation about what the Health Care Act actually is, in my opinion, just because it was proposed by Obama. It's all political posturing, nobody seems to stop and think that stopping these middle men from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions is actually a good thing.

You say "our deficit has been over $1 trillion/year since Obama came into office - do you think that the day he came into office he suddenly created the deficit? He inherited the deficit from Bush, and like the above statistics say, his stimulus is the most negligeable part of it, and like I told you before a lot of his spending is coming back already.

Like the article about the Tea Party says, people just assume that since a Democrat is in power, he must have raised taxes and increased the deficit by overspending. Nope. He hasn't raised a single tax yet, and the bulk of the deficit wasn't caused by him, but rather by the GOP. Now he is proposing some measures to decrease the deficit, but not to the extent that it will destroy our safety net for the poor and the elderly.

When you say "the GOP controlled the White House and Congress from 2000 to 2007 and there was no Armageddon and the sky didn't fall," true, but we got a hell of a deficit.

Oh, and by the way, the president didn't make close to 2 million. He made 1.7 million. I don't know about you, but $300,000 for me - the difference between what you say and reality - is a lot of money, so let's not distort things.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Why do you only quote Democrat millionaires? Wouldn't you include some GOP millionaires too?
> President Obama made several donations to charity this year; just yesterday I heard of another one he made, of $100,000. But you're certainly not pretending that Obama is as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, right? So naturally he can't go as far as they went. . . .


I mentioned Democrat millionaires and billionaires because they are the ones claiming they aren't paying enough in taxes. So let them start by example. Obama made $100,000 in charitable donations. He earned 1.7 million (sorry for rounding). He paid about half a million in taxes. ~$500,000 + $100,000 means that he still netted over $1 million dollars. Now that doesn't make him a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett, but that certainly makes him a millionaire, and last year he made in the neighborhood of $5 million, mostly from book sales. He has no food, travel, housing expenses. Does he need $1 million? How many families could you get health insurance coverage for with that money?

No, Obama's health care program isn't all paid for. They applied some legislative sleight of hand to make it look like it was, but then passed a few other measures after the fact that then make it a net loss. The CBO itself has come out to say that this isn't all paid for.

As for the deficits, I myself forgot one important thing. The GOP lost the House and Senate in 2006. Any spending from 2007 onward had to be both proposed and passed by Democrats. The GOP had no say in legislation from 2007 onward. I'm sorry, but Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress from 2007 until 2011. And they controlled the White House from 2009 onward. Exactly when are Democrats going to start acknowledging some responsibility? Were Obama to have made good on his pledges to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan when he said he would, I would be more than happy to attribute all those costs to Bush. But Obama seems to be content to continue them. So now he owns anything that has happened since he took office. He even increased our presence in Afghanistan. And Tarp may be paid back, but that was Bush's program. Obama didn't enact that. He gave us the stimulus bill that has yet to stimulate. What happened to our summer of recovery? How many more years are you going to blame Bush? Funny - Democrats weren't blaming Clinton for the country's financial woes 3 years after he left office.


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## Chi_townPhilly

DrMike said:


> No offense, but the one author is a regular contributor to MSNBC and the Huffington Post, and between the two of them, they have one degree in political science and 2 in journalism. I'm not sure that makes them experts in economics.


O.K.: that explains _that_. Pre-determined positions don't front-load assertions much more thoroughly that THAT.

Searching in vain for opposite-aisle support for the Balanced Budget Amendment. I've sometimes thought that I might be willing to meet the Left half-way on the attenuation of the 'Military-Industrial Complex' if they meet the Right half-way on slenderizing the Great Society social-engineering stuff.

You can't tax a nation into prosperity. You can't place disincentives to achievement without getting less of it. Capital is portable. Treat producers like prey and they'll seek places where they are treated like the asset they are.

Galt's Gulch is calling...


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## Guest

Chi_townPhilly said:


> O.K.: that explains _that_. Pre-determined positions don't front-load assertions much more thoroughly that THAT.
> 
> Searching in vain for opposite-aisle support for the Balanced Budget Amendment. I've sometimes thought that I might be willing to meet the Left half-way on the attenuation of the 'Military-Industrial Complex' if they meet the Right half-way on slenderizing the Great Society social-engineering stuff.
> 
> You can't tax a nation into prosperity. You can't place disincentives to achievement without getting less of it. Capital is portable. Treat producers like prey and they'll seek places where they are treated like the asset they are.
> 
> Galt's Gulch is calling...


I might ask you if you know who John Galt is? And have you seen part 1? I admit that the book intrigued me - if only Rand hadn't filled it with so much verbose sermonizing. I nearly gave up half way through the final overly lengthy monologue from Galt himself. Still, I agree with much of the economic aspects of her objectivism, if not with much of the moral aspects.

I think that New York State and California have already gotten a small taste of what happens when Atlas starts to shrug.


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## science

DrMike said:


> My question to all of you is this: since when do ends justify means? Okay, so lets accept that it isn't right that people should languish with untreated ailments if they aren't capable of paying. How much are you prepared to allow to right that wrong? Apparently it is fine to take more from "millionaires and billionaires." But the president is going beyond that. We are talking about people making $250,000/year and above. I'd be willing to bet those people don't have 1 Rolls Royce, let alone 3. But what happens when that isn't enough to fund all these programs? How much further down are you willing to define rich? Or will you just raise rates even higher on those rich people?
> 
> How about before they dump this on the rest of America, some of these leaders lead by example. The President made close to $2 million last year, and paid nearly half a million in taxes. Does he really need more than $1 million to exist comfortably? After all, he has no cost of living expenses. Why not make a gift of his excess to the federal government? Anybody can do it. What about John Kerry? How many SUVs does he need? How many houses? Why not limit himself to only a couple of each, and dump everything else in the U.S. Treasury? Did John Edwards need his mega-mansion? Did Al Gore need his mansion? Surely that money could be better used providing for the poor? If it is such a good idea, these leading proponents of that idea shouldn't have to wait for government to come take it from them - they should be dumping it in already. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done it. As a former recipient of one of their grants to combat global health problems, I have seen firsthand a rich person leading by example, and not merely paying lip service and talking about what everybody else should be doing. Why does the Kennedy family have so much of its wealth tied up in offshore banks to shield it from the federal government when Ted Kennedy was one of the biggest proponents of a national healthcare system?
> 
> And if this is such a critical need, why is it too much to ask that we first look to where we can save money to pay for it before we start raising more taxes? Our deficit has been over $1 trillion/year since Obama came into office, and is looking to stay that way for some time to come. Democrats were brutal to Bush over his deficits, which were a fraction of what Obama has given us. We simply can't afford all of this, even with raising the taxes to the level that Democrats are proposing. You talk about how many poor people have no insurance now - how many more will there be when we have finally gone bankrupt? Do you think Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are content with their financial system now, knowing that at least they ruined their economies by being nice to poor people?


I didn't argue any of those things.

Anyway, anyone remember about 3 years ago when conservatives were holding up Ireland as an example of what the US ought to do?


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## emiellucifuge

Dr Mike, the fact that the USA was founded as a reaction to the big-governments in europe is fine. But why is that relevant today?
Surely public opinion changes considerably over such lengths in time.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Dr Mike, the fact that the USA was founded as a reaction to the big-governments in europe is fine. But why is that relevant today?
> Surely public opinion changes considerably over such lengths in time.


Governments should not be as changing as the fickle winds of public opinion. In order for governments to have credibility, they must have consistency.

There are already established means by which we can change the government - constitutional amendment. It has been used relatively frequently in this country, and to good effect. It is not meant to be fundamentally changed with every passing of power in Washington.


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## science

no change at all <------> fickle winds of public opinion, every passing of power in Washington

I'd bet there's reasonable middle there, which he might have been shooting for. I'd bet he didn't mean to argue that the government should "be fundamentally changed with every passing of power in Washington."

The USA was not founded as a reaction to a welfare state, so "big government" might be a misleading term.


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## Almaviva

"but Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress from 2007 until 2011. And they controlled the White House from 2009 onward."

This is very misleading, Dr. Mike. First of all because during the entire time when the Democrats held Congress under Bush, he vetoed everything that they passed. Everything but one little bill, if I remember correctly. So the Democrats didn't have control of anything since their majority wasn't enough to override the vetoes. Then, even when they were in control of Congress with a Democrat in the White House, there was the problem of filibusters. Supermajority was only present for a brief period and that's when the Health Care bill passed. They couldn't have done much more than that.

About Obama's charitable donations - I didn't say he only donated 100,000 during the entire tax year, I said just yesterday I heard of a donation of his worth $100,000 to one charity that builds schools for disadvantaged kids. I assume he has donated a lot more than that, although I don't know the numbers.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> "but Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress from 2007 until 2011. And they controlled the White House from 2009 onward."
> 
> This is very misleading, Dr. Mike. First of all because during the entire time when the Democrats held Congress under Bush, he vetoed everything that they passed. Everything but one little bill, if I remember correctly. So the Democrats didn't have control of anything since their majority wasn't enough to override the vetoes. Then, even when they were in control of Congress with a Democrat in the White House, there was the problem of filibusters. Supermajority was only present for a brief period and that's when the Health Care bill passed. They couldn't have done much more than that.
> 
> About Obama's charitable donations - I didn't say he only donated 100,000 during the entire tax year, I said just yesterday I heard of a donation of his worth $100,000 to one charity that builds schools for disadvantaged kids. I assume he has donated a lot more than that, although I don't know the numbers.


Okay, I found the actual numbers in an LA Times story. Obma made nearly $1.8 million. He paid $466,104 in taxes. They gave $245,075 to 36 different charities. That gives him a net of just shy of $1.1 million. Surely he could take another $500,000 and donate it to the U.S. Treasury and still be doing better than 95% of Americans.

Now come on - are you saying Democrats accomplished absolutely nothing in the time they held control of both houses of Congress? Oddly enough, it seems the only time they couldn't pass a budget was when they controlled Congress and the White House. As I recall, the GOP didn't have filibuster proof majorities from 2001 to 2007. Does that mean they aren't responsible for anything they passed? Please. Even when the Republicans are in the minority, you are still going to blame everything on them? So Democrats will only claim credit when it is good news? All bad news must be the fault of the Republicans? If Democrats can't be held responsible for things even when they have the majority, then why do you even want them to have the majority? They must be the most ineffective politicians ever if what you say is true, and they can't even get anything done when they control 2/3 of the federal government. Why vote for such incompetent fools?


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## Guest

science said:


> no change at all <------> fickle winds of public opinion, every passing of power in Washington
> 
> I'd bet there's reasonable middle there, which he might have been shooting for. I'd bet he didn't mean to argue that the government should "be fundamentally changed with every passing of power in Washington."
> 
> The USA was not founded as a reaction to a welfare state, so "big government" might be a misleading term.


I'll grant that I probably did overexaggerate his statement, but the phrase "public opinion" was his own.

No, the USA was not founded as a reaction to a welfare state, but it was founded in reaction to an over-reaching government that took more powers than it was granted. And what the founding fathers established was a limited government, where it could act within the restraints imposed by the constitution. Now, we do in fact have "big government" that certainly doesn't behave like a limited government.

And I also didn't state that there should be no change at all. If we are going to get specific about what everybody is saying. I said that there was a way to change the constitution - the amendment process. While I may not like all the amendments, at least people took the care to change things in the way they were meant to be changed, not by unconstitutional legislation and judicial activism.


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## Chi_townPhilly

DrMike said:


> Again, a tax cut is not a government expense.


I think this point deserves linear amplification. Or, as my wife often screams at the television when someone opines about the "unfunded" Bush tax cuts... "*IT'S OUR MONEY!!* One of the major American political commentators claimed that the Left views money as something that the government allows you to have, rather than something YOU yourself work for.


DrMike said:


> Government should not produce surpluses.


Unfortunately, this government will eventually HAVE to produce surpluses if it seeks to pay down the unbelieveable existential threat of massive debt. I'm not expecting that's gonna happen anytime soon...


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## Guest

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I think this point deserves linear amplification. Or, as my wife often screams at the television when someone opines about the "unfunded" Bush tax cuts... "*IT'S OUR MONEY!!* One of the major American political commentators claimed that the Left views money as something that the government allows you to have, rather than something YOU yourself work for.Unfortunately, this government will eventually HAVE to produce surpluses if it seeks to pay down the unbelieveable existential threat of massive debt. I'm not expecting that's gonna happen anytime soon...


If I knew for certain that the new revenue would specifically and exclusively go towards paying down the debt, then I could even be persuaded to endorse increased taxes. Just as I was willing to forego some of the niceties in life to pay down my own credit card debt. Unfortunately, I find that I have little confidence in politicians of any political party following through on promises. Lately, it seems to have been a choice between the party that will give you deficits in the hundreds of billions, or the party that will give you deficits in the trillions. But I am tired of choosing the lesser of two evils.


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## Aksel

*Clears throat*

I live in Norway, one of those socialist, communist (or something along those lines) dumps with great, big, huge taxes that apparently will cause the end of the world, or something, and last time I checked, we were doing completely fine. At least way better than the US. Honest.

That is all.


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## Guest

Aksel said:


> *Clears throat*
> 
> I live in Norway, one of those socialist, communist (or something along those lines) dumps with great, big, huge taxes that apparently will cause the end of the world, or something, and last time I checked, we were doing completely fine. At least way better than the US. Honest.
> 
> That is all.


No offense, but I'm sure that it is a lot easier to manage a country of 5 million and 385,000 square kilometers versus a country of 311 million and 9.8 million square kilometers. The U.S. also is one of the world's most diverse populations, and the world's leading economy (in 2009, the GDP was $14.3 trillion). Interestingly, I read that oil and gas exports constitute 20% of your GDP. That certainly is a boon to your economy. Would that our politicians would let us harvest our natural resources like yours do, and we might be more awash in revenue than we currently are. I am curious whether your ecosystem has been destroyed by all the harvesting of petroleum your country does. According to our politicians, were we to do more petroleum harvesting, we would do untold damage to our natural environment.


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## Aksel

DrMike said:


> No offense, but I'm sure that it is a lot easier to manage a country of 5 million and 385,000 square kilometers versus a country of 311 million and 9.8 million square kilometers. The U.S. also is one of the world's most diverse populations, and the world's leading economy (in 2009, the GDP was $14.3 trillion). Interestingly, I read that oil and gas exports constitute 20% of your GDP. That certainly is a boon to your economy. Would that our politicians would let us harvest our natural resources like yours do, and we might be more awash in revenue than we currently are. I am curious whether your ecosystem has been destroyed by all the harvesting of petroleum your country does. According to our politicians, were we to do more petroleum harvesting, we would do untold damage to our natural environment.


I do agree that a country the size of Norway is much easier to govern than the US. But it is important to remember that Norway is governed mostly on a state level, as in what gets decided in Oslo, the whole country does. The individual fylke (which is kind of the equivalent to a state in the US, but not quite (the way the US is split up does not translate well into how Norway is split up)) do not have much power. Most of the power lies with the Storting and the government.
EDIT: As I read this now after I've posted it, I realise that my point got lost somewhere around here. I did mean to say that I am against the US being such a big country. I like smaller countries. Or something. It's late and I'm tired. Blah. I hope you get what I'm trying to say here. I'll try to be more intelligent tomorrow.

The oil that is drilled in Norway happens way off shore and is regulated quite extensively. The main drilling company, Statoil/Hydro is owned by the government (not entirely, though) and is therefore regulated quite thoroughly. But there have been and are rather fierce protests going on at the moment to stop more wells and platforms from being opened, especially in the more vulnerable areas of Norway, like Lofoten and Vesterålen.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Okay, I found the actual numbers in an LA Times story. Obma made nearly $1.8 million. He paid $466,104 in taxes. They gave $245,075 to 36 different charities. That gives him a net of just shy of $1.1 million. Surely he could take another $500,000 and donate it to the U.S. Treasury and still be doing better than 95% of Americans.
> 
> Now come on - are you saying Democrats accomplished absolutely nothing in the time they held control of both houses of Congress? Oddly enough, it seems the only time they couldn't pass a budget was when they controlled Congress and the White House. As I recall, the GOP didn't have filibuster proof majorities from 2001 to 2007. Does that mean they aren't responsible for anything they passed? Please. Even when the Republicans are in the minority, you are still going to blame everything on them? So Democrats will only claim credit when it is good news? All bad news must be the fault of the Republicans? If Democrats can't be held responsible for things even when they have the majority, then why do you even want them to have the majority? They must be the most ineffective politicians ever if what you say is true, and they can't even get anything done when they control 2/3 of the federal government. Why vote for such incompetent fools?


No, the problem wasn't Democrats being incompetent, it was rather president Bush being stubborn and inflexible. Remember when he ran in 2000 saying that he was a "compassionate moderate" and would promote bi-partisanship? So much for that... one veto after the other!

Oh, come on, $245,000 is a lot of money for charitable donations. Aren't you saying that people should keep the product of their work? Maybe Obama is getting himself a head start to set up a law firm after he steps down, and then generate lots of jobs (like you said rich men do). Maybe he'll start a foundation. Maybe he wants to push his two kids through the best colleges. I find it strange that you're bashing Obama for donating "just" $245,000 while you so vehemently defend the right of the rich to keep their own money. He is certainly doing more than his share by paying half a million dollars in taxes and donating a quarter of a million to charity. I'd say that most well-off people don't give as much.

It's impressive how Obama in the eyes of the opposition can't do any good. The man donates a quarter of a million dollars to charity and you still find a way to bash him. Gee!


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> No offense, but I'm sure that it is a lot easier to manage a country of 5 million and 385,000 square kilometers versus a country of 311 million and 9.8 million square kilometers. The U.S. also is one of the world's most diverse populations, and the world's leading economy (in 2009, the GDP was $14.3 trillion). Interestingly, I read that oil and gas exports constitute 20% of your GDP. That certainly is a boon to your economy. Would that our politicians would let us harvest our natural resources like yours do, and we might be more awash in revenue than we currently are. I am curious whether your ecosystem has been destroyed by all the harvesting of petroleum your country does. According to our politicians, were we to do more petroleum harvesting, we would do untold damage to our natural environment.


Even if we explored in full our oil reserves, they'd account for just 2% of our needs. I thought people would have learned something from the BP fiasco. Apparently not.


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## Ravellian

It's so cute to see adults having a serious conversation on message boards. I didn't think they were aware of such new social technology before now


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## Almaviva

Ravellian said:


> It's so cute to see adults having a serious conversation on message boards. I didn't think they were aware of such new social media before now


I'm not an adult, I'm approaching my second childhood.:lol:


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## Huilunsoittaja

I think Americans, including myself, just have to accept the fact that Social Security and Medicare are going to run out, even with all the extra taxes we'll get soon. America has such a deficit, it's necessary.


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## Almaviva

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I think Americans, including myself, just have to accept the fact that Social Security and Medicare are going to run out, even with all the extra taxes we'll get soon. America has such a deficit, it's necessary.


That's not necessarily true. I heard on the radio a couple of days ago that Medicare should stay solvent for another 34 years at the current rates (and by then, maybe other fixes will have appeared). If we stopped getting involved in futile wars and stopped giving billions to dictators (e.g., 70 billion given to Mubarak) maybe we wouldn't need to gut Medicare.


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## mmsbls

I'm late to this discussion so before making specific comments I want to make some general ones.

First, wonderful thread. Almaviva and DrMike, it's great to see such a heated debate without almost any off target comments.

I read all the comments albeit somewhat quickly. Hopefully I won't post about something that was dealt with much earlier. If so, just tell me.



DrMike said:


> If I knew for certain that the new revenue would specifically and exclusively go towards paying down the debt, then I could even be persuaded to endorse increased taxes. Just as I was willing to forego some of the niceties in life to pay down my own credit card debt. Unfortunately, I find that I have little confidence in politicians of any political party following through on promises.


I have VERY little confidence in either party. Here's a link to an interesting paper showing how rare (impossible?) politicians in the US reduce spending after taxes cut legislation.

http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/seminars/romer.pdf

After examining 4 periods of post WWII tax cuts, the paper basically concludes that "government spending in fact rises slightly (though insignificantly) relative to normal" after tax cut legislation. Also they conclude that "it appears that in the wake of tax cuts, budget balance is restored mainly on the tax side rather than the spending side. Second, there is suggestive evidence that tax cuts cause a shift in the composition of government expenditures toward defense spending."

I'm not thrilled with Tea Party politicians, but after watching budget proposals and discussion over the past week, I wonder if the Tea Party rhetoric might cause a change in the near term. The Tea Party seems extreme (in the sense of not compromising) in their demands, and that posture might cause Democrats to react to ensure that they do not lose any independents. There might actually be REAL proposals to reduce the deficit. I hope that we will first create jobs, but then take the deficit very seriously.

Personally, I felt that deficit spending was a must to jump start the economy. I based this on what I understood to be a consensus of macroeconomists (both conservative and liberal) who suggested a range of $800 billion to $1.3 trillion when Obama took office. My feeling is that there are some periods where government must use tax cuts (mild to moderate recessions) or deficit spending (larger recessions) to start the economy. Both tax cuts and deficit spending will lead to larger short term deficits, but once the economy is back on its feet, the deficit ought to be controlled.

Unfortunately, even in good times politicians love to spend over their heads. I have seen that both in the US after 2000 and in California during the 1990's (we had a huge tax income, but did not use the money wisely).


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## Almaviva

Thanks mmsbls for your kind words.
You are right; both parties have had plenty of opportunities to reduce the deficit and instead engaged in spending sprees.
You are also right about politicians not being reliable. After all, it's spending that gets them re-elected, and I firmly believe that the primary goal of any and all politicians of any and all parties is first and foremost to be re-elected. That's when we get the earmarks and the bridges to nowhere.


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## science

Chi_townPhilly said:


> One of the major American political commentators claimed that the Left views money as something that the government allows you to have, rather than something YOU yourself work for


This is just not true. I challenge you to find an American liberal that says that.


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## science

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I think Americans, including myself, just have to accept the fact that Social Security and Medicare are going to run out, even with all the extra taxes we'll get soon. America has such a deficit, it's necessary.


We had this big of a deficit at the end of WWII, and we paid it down, and prospered throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with much higher taxes than we have now.

The deficit began growing in the 1980s, after a certain set of tax cuts, and not in the 1960s, after any certain set of new entitlements.


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## mmsbls

Almaviva said:


> That's not necessarily true. I heard on the radio a couple of days ago that Medicare should stay solvent for another 34 years at the current rates (and by then, maybe other fixes will have appeared). If we stopped getting involved in futile wars and stopped giving billions to dictators (e.g., 70 billion given to Mubarak) maybe we wouldn't need to gut Medicare.


I hear about Medicare and Social Security being solvent for many more years, but there are 2 definitions of being solvent. The first is that projected revenue specifically for these programs (social security and medicare payroll taxes) can pay for projected expenditures. The second is that past payroll tax revenue excess will be "used" to pay future expenditures. This has always seemed a simple accounting trick to me. Yes, I know that the US has an obligation and very likely will not default, but that still means that the money must come from somewhere. I don't think of this situation as being solvent.

I'm not sure what the latest accounting shows in terms of both definitions of solvency, but I thought at least one program would not be solvent through 2030. Does anyone know what the actual situation is?


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## dmg

We need significant cuts to defense spending, but the military worship created in this country by the business interests involved will prevent that from happening.


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## science

dmg said:


> We need significant cuts to defense spending, but the military worship created in this country by the business interests involved will prevent that from happening.


I believe there are going to be fundamental changes over the next 10-15 years. Too many things are going on for us to just kind of patch things up and muddle along. As soon as Medicare and Social Security start to get cut, all kinds of things are going to come out of the woodwork, and with all that other stuff going on it's really hard to say what directions things will go. Other than predicting a liberal resurgence in the US in about 5-10 years, who knows?

Military cuts could well be on the table at some point. I think the military realizes that the biggest long-term threat to our security is our fiscal health.

How are things going to change when Latinos make up 1/4 of the voters? Will they turn Texas purple and then blue? Will we liberalize immigration to try to bring in more workers to help pay the bills? Will they support neo-colonialist policy?

The generation following the boomers, born late '60s and early '70s and coming of age during Reagan, appear to be much more conservative on fiscal issues, but not social issues. Meanwhile the Evangelicals seem to be growing more liberal, beginning to embrace environmentalism and even the welfare state. (See Huckabee.) What kind of leadership is going to emerge from these changes?

The working and now even the middle class are gradually being impoverished, which could be significantly accelerated by entitlement reform. The true middle class is shrinking. How is this going to affect things?

China will soon be a rival power in the Pacific, and will probably remain an essential economic partner. This might spur us to some self-sacrifice in a competitive spirit; it might continue to enrich the top quarter or so of the top percent of our society. Possibly chaos will erupt in China with no good economic consequences here, or perhaps mercantilist tendencies on both sides will lead to a trade war and Cold War style proxy conflicts. (BTW, Syria may currently be turning into a proxy conflict bt the US and Iran.)

The Middle Eastern oil supply may decline for political as well as physical reasons, and/or perhaps practical alternatives will emerge. Perhaps we beat China to an energy revolution and re-assert our economic strength for another decade or so, or perhaps they beat us, or Europe. How does all this change the geopolitical calculations?

I think the future will surprise us in a lot of ways, and considering all this, I can imagine the American voter/government doubling down on the military and devoting far more resources to it, and I can imagine us shrugging some of it off.


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## emiellucifuge

If land were to be opened up to drilling in America there would be no guarantee for safety. Unlike in Norway where its strictly controlled and regulated, american right-wing politicians are so afraid of regulation. After the gulf of mexico spell not a single bill has been passed in order to 'learn from these mistakes' and to avoid future repeats.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> If land were to be opened up to drilling in America there would be no guarantee for safety. Unlike in Norway where its strictly controlled and regulated, american right-wing politicians are so afraid of regulation. After the gulf of mexico spell not a single bill has been passed in order to 'learn from these mistakes' and to avoid future repeats.


 Would that people were to hold our government to the same standards as they do the oil companies. With all the oil rigs off of our coasts, and we have one freak accident - a terrible one, no doubt, but still an anomaly, rather than a rule - and suddenly we need to reform the entire system. And yet we have years and years of examples of government malfeasance and ineptitude, and what is the solution? Just dump more money into it and give government even more control.


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## Guest

science said:


> We had this big of a deficit at the end of WWII, and we paid it down, and prospered throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with much higher taxes than we have now.
> 
> The deficit began growing in the 1980s, after a certain set of tax cuts, and not in the 1960s, after any certain set of new entitlements.


The economy started booming after WWII, and the burden of entitlement programs was not yet what it is now, so America was bound to boom. We emerged as the dominant economy. So much of Europe had been decimated - the war was actually fought on their soil. In contrast, our infrastructure, with the exception of what little was destroyed in Hawaii, was virtually untouched. We had loans being repaid from foreign countries.

The real burden of entitlement programs didn't come into full swing until LBJ and beyond. And as the baby boomer generation starts to retire, and we have a lower worker to retiree ratio, the problem of entitlements will only loom larger. But look at more than the deficit - the economy really started booming in the '80's and onward. Look also at our debt as a percentage of GDP - in the 80's and 90's, it never rose any higher than we had seen from the Eisenhower administration onward - you know, in the 1950's and 1960's, when you talked about how we were prospering.


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## science

DrMike said:


> The economy started booming after WWII, and the burden of entitlement programs was not yet what it is now, so America was bound to boom. We emerged as the dominant economy. So much of Europe had been decimated - the war was actually fought on their soil. In contrast, our infrastructure, with the exception of what little was destroyed in Hawaii, was virtually untouched. We had loans being repaid from foreign countries.
> 
> The real burden of entitlement programs didn't come into full swing until LBJ and beyond. And as the baby boomer generation starts to retire, and we have a lower worker to retiree ratio, the problem of entitlements will only loom larger. But look at more than the deficit - the economy really started booming in the '80's and onward. Look also at our debt as a percentage of GDP - in the 80's and 90's, it never rose any higher than we had seen from the Eisenhower administration onward - you know, in the 1950's and 1960's, when you talked about how we were prospering.
> 
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...deral_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg


The ideas you want to communicate haven't come across clearly to me. I can't promise an intelligent response in any case, but right now I certainly can't give one because there's so much that I don't understand about you rpost.

Does the first sentence mean that without entitlements the economy was bound to boom?

When you talk about the US as the dominant economy, that seems to be in relative terms, not absolute GDP. Are you saying that conditions in post-war Europe contributed significantly to the US' GDP growth? If it's just relative terms, I don't understand how that's relevant.

You say we had loans being repaid from foreign countries. In this case the subject seems to be not the Federal government, but our economy. Weren't we still a net creditor nation? I've heard we were until the 1980s. Is that wrong?

It seems like you're attributing the rising deficiit from the 1980s to the "burden of entitlement programs." Is that right?

You say the economy was booming in the 1980s and yet our debt/GDP ratio ballooned, is that due to the entitlement burden?

The phrasing of your final sentence implies that you don't agree that we were prospering in the 1950s, but earlier you said we were "bound to" prosper after WWII. You also imply that I've argued that debt is incompatible with prosperity, which I haven't.

As far as I can tell, you haven't replied to the first sentence that you quoted, and the only thing here relevant to the second is the claim that the debt grew in 1980s because of the growth of the entitlement burden. If that can be shown, I'll have to rethinki my position.


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## Guest

science said:


> The ideas you want to communicate haven't come across clearly to me. I can't promise an intelligent response in any case, but right now I certainly can't give one because there's so much that I don't understand about you rpost. . . .


The economy was bound to boom post WWII because our infrastructure was intact, unlike most of Europe, and we were well positioned to become an industrial giant that could sell to the world. Japan and China were not yet what they now are. Europe was rebuilding. The war had been a huge boon to our economy. We were the arsenal of freedom. The allies bought what they needed from us. All of those businesses then easily transitioned to the post-war economic boom. We were the dominant economy in the world post-WWII. When conditions are that favorable to an economy, then it can easily withstand higher taxes - profits are ripe for the picking. That was also what blessed the Clinton administration. In the wake of the end of the cold war, and with new businesses booming, the economy was so robust that it could stand the modest increase in taxes he implemented. But it was the actions of Reagan that had gotten the economy up and running again after the slump it had been in for most of the 70's (and I will equally blame the Nixon/Ford administrations along with Carter).

Entitlement programs have grown exponentially since the late 60's, since the advent of the war on poverty. That is not a biased statement, that is simply a fact. And everybody acknowledges that entitlement spending, along with defense, comprise the biggest expenses of this government. Any serious attempt to curb spending needs to look at those areas.

I said we were prospering in the 1950s. And during that time, our debt as a percent of GDP was about the same as it was at the highest levels from 1980 until just a few years ago. And then, beginning in the end of the Bush administration and continuing throughout Obama's administration, it started to jump. No longer were we in the 60-70% range - we are now approaching 100%. Yes, we could sustain that during the WWII years, because the economy was ramping up. The economy isn't exactly in that position now. And while then there were prospects of paying down the debt, what are our current prospects? These aren't temporary war expenses that are exploding our debt. These are long-term entitlement promises. How will we cover that? Simply tax people more? As I mentioned earlier, there isn't enough money to do that, even if you were to completely confiscate the wealth of the rich.

This path of entitlement promises is unsustainable. How is that so hard to believe? We are making too many promises we can't keep, all in the name of some nebulous concept of fairness and compassion. We want to look good to other countries. It is all well and good that countries like France have "free" universal health care - but how long can they afford it? And the solution is to strangle the only people that can possibly generate the type of wealth needed to fund these programs. Government can't create wealth to fund these programs. They are dependent on a robust economy to provide the money they need to function. Rob that economy of the tools needed to succeed, and it doesn't matter how many wonderful programs you want to promise people - you just won't be able to afford them - not for very long, at least.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


>


How interesting. Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton all decreased the debt. Obama just continued Bush's trend but his presidency is not over so he may still reverse it like Clinton did (initially going up, then down). It's looking to me like since 1961 the party of fiscal responsibility has been the Democratic party, huh? Go figure, if we listen to the Tea Party! Since 1961 only Nixon decreased the debt among the Republicans. Look at how Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all increased the debt, unlike the four above mentioned Democratic presidents during the same time span!!! It reminds me of the mantra about family values. The GOP wants to have the monopoly of those, but the FACT is that Republican politicians have a higher index of sex scandals, affairs, and messy divorces than Democratic politicians (who also have their share, but less). It is interesting to see how perception is far from reality sometimes.

CTP has dismissed one of the articles posted by another member as coming from a Huffington Post contributor, implying that this affiliation makes the report untrue. Regardless of affiliation, it is a FACT that President Obama so far has only cut taxes - please, anyone, point to a single federal tax that Obama has increased - which was the point of the article unlike what the Tea Party members assume. So the article was factual regardless of who wrote it. Federal taxes are now lower than when he took office, and this FACT can't be dismissed just because the person saying it is a leftist.

If we want examples of factual distortions, we don't need to go look in the Huffington Post, we can just listen to the Tea Party and their Death Panels which were widely publicized but have never existed in the law, not even in its draft - it was just a talking point used by fear mongers in a deliberate campaign of misinformation.

Oh, and now the GOP wants to gut Medicare. Maybe that's their way to make absolutely sure that there will be no death panels (in spite of the fact that they know very well that the law never proposed them in the first place). "Nice, we won't need death panels because the seniors will just drop dead before they even get to the death panel."  "This will save us lots on health costs associated with terminal care, without Medicare the seniors will just die sooner." But hey, people may be forgetting that they'll all be seniors at some point.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Would that people were to hold our government to the same standards as they do the oil companies. With all the oil rigs off of our coasts, and we have one freak accident - a terrible one, no doubt, but still an anomaly, rather than a rule - and suddenly we need to reform the entire system. And yet we have years and years of examples of government malfeasance and ineptitude, and what is the solution? Just dump more money into it and give government even more control.


Anomaly rather than rule? I'd rather that we keep it this way, then. Please read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_abandoned_wells


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> This path of entitlement promises is unsustainable. How is that so hard to believe? We are making too many promises we can't keep, all in the name of some nebulous concept of fairness and compassion. We want to look good to other countries. It is all well and good that countries like France have "free" universal health care - but how long can they afford it? And the solution is to strangle the only people that can possibly generate the type of wealth needed to fund these programs. Government can't create wealth to fund these programs. They are dependent on a robust economy to provide the money they need to function. Rob that economy of the tools needed to succeed, and it doesn't matter how many wonderful programs you want to promise people - you just won't be able to afford them - not for very long, at least.


Then, maybe we should cut defense spending rather than the entitlement programs. What is hard to believe, is that the richest nation on earth can't provide decent health care to its citizens, when many others do. And by the way, France is not bankrupt, they are far from being in the same case of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Iceland - so tell me, why can France afford this and we can't? Because we have provided defense for them after WWII? But wasn't WWII a boom for us like you're saying? France also has a robust defense arsenal with those Mirages and those nuclear weapons. I just can't believe that France can have the number 1 health system in the world and we're condemned to having to put up with the 37th - and we'll fall lower still, if we cut Medicaid and Medicare.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> How interesting. Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton all decreased the debt. Obama just continued Bush's trend but his presidency is not over so he may still reverse it like Clinton did (initially going up, then down). It's looking to me like since 1961 the party of fiscal responsibility has been the Democratic party, huh? Go figure, if we listen to the Tea Party! Since 1961 only Nixon decreased the debt among the Republicans. Look at how Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all increased the debt, unlike the four above mentioned Democratic presidents during the same time span!!! It reminds me of the mantra about family values. The GOP wants to have the monopoly of those, but the FACT is that Republican politicians have a higher index of sex scandals, affairs, and messy divorces than Democratic politicians (who also have their share, but less). It is interesting to see how perception is far from reality sometimes. . .


Nope - look at the axis. This isn't total debt, this is debt as a % of GDP. This is the debt:








As you can see, it was fairly flat until the mid 80's. Then it rose pretty steadily, except for a small blip at the end of Clinton's 2nd term (but you will notice he still added a hefty chunk to it). Then it started rising again under Bush II. Interestingly, in the last couple of years, the rate of increase in the debt (the slope of the line) appears to be much steeper. That would coincide with the Democrats retaking Congress and Obama gaining the White House. But that doesn't count, does it? That's all just Bush's fault. I suppose we'll also blame the increase in the debt under Clinton to Reagan and Bush I?

Oh, and taking Obama's last budget at face value, it is still predicting deficits beyond his administration (even if he wins a 2nd term) at least as high as Bush II. So his own projections won't give him surpluses and a flattening of the debt like Clinton had.


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## mmsbls

Here's a bit more debt and spending information.

This chart is a slightly expanded debt as a function of GDP (1900 to present) showing the recent rise and very recent plateau (?).










This shows the CBO long term spending estimates, but it also includes spending back to 1970.










Here's detailed data (spending as a percentage of GDP) for the 1980s:

SS Health Other
1980 4.3 1.8 13.7
1981 4.5 1.9 13.5
1982 4.8 2.1 13.7
1983 4.9 2.2 13.8
1984 4.6 2.1 12.6
1985 4.5 2.2 13.0
1986 4.5 2.3 12.7
1987 4.4 2.3 11.9
1988 4.3 2.3 11.6
1989 4.3 2.4 11.4
1990 4.3 2.6 11.8

Spending went down significantly (as a function of GDP) over the 1980s. Social security was flat, and health spending went up. It would seem that loss of revenue must have been the major factor in rising debt.

The real issue, as seen from this chart, is health spending (mostly medicare I assume) over the next 50 years or so. Interestingly social security seems relatively flat. There's a bit of a rise to 2030, but it's flat after that.

I'm not sure what assumptions went into the projections. The CBO has to assume what congress tells it to assume. I'm not at all convinced that "Other" spending will go from almost 13% of GDP in 2010 to roughly 7% by 2080. The only way to get those reductions is to reduce military spending significantly. I would love that, but I'm not expecting it to happen.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Almaviva said:


> ...France is not bankrupt...


That's technically true- (today).... but here's the live scoreboard for France-- 
so I expect they won't be able to keep it up, either.


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> That's technically true- (today).... but here's the live scoreboard for France--
> so I expect they won't be able to keep it up, either.


This kind of raw data doesn't say much.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Then, maybe we should cut defense spending rather than the entitlement programs. What is hard to believe, is that the richest nation on earth can't provide decent health care to its citizens, when many others do. And by the way, France is not bankrupt, they are far from being in the same case of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Iceland - so tell me, why can France afford this and we can't? Because we have provided defense for them after WWII? But wasn't WWII a boom for us like you're saying? France also has a robust defense arsenal with those Mirages and those nuclear weapons. I just can't believe that France can have the number 1 health system in the world and we're condemned to having to put up with the 37th - and we'll fall lower still, if we cut Medicaid and Medicare.


Well, aside from the fact that national defense is constitutionally mandated while Medicare and Medicaid are not, I can think of multiple reasons.

Like it or not, the world is always going to be a dangerous place. I am willing to agree that we are probably overextended globally. But if you will look back just 100 years in our history, you will see that there is a definite need for a robust defense program. No, we may not face another Nazi Germany, but prior to the 1st World War, the world really hadn't expected that kind of devastation. Prior to both world wars we were caught very unprepared. We had the liberal dream then - low defense spending. And we paid for it. Like it or not, NATO and UN operations don't amount to jack squat without U.S. involvement. The Europeans couldn't even handle the Balkans without the U.S. stepping in. North Korea has nuclear weapons, Iran is on the way, and both are hostile to this nation. We could hide our heads in the sand and say the only reason they don't like us is because Bush was so mean to them, but it seems that Obama's style of "Can't we all just get along" diplomacy is achieving bumpkus. So yes, in the face of increasing global threats and nuclear weapons in the hands of madmen, let's cut our spending to fund programs that we have done so well managing up until now.

France has a robust arsenal? How long do you think they would last if attacked? Do you think that this time it will take more or less than the little over a month it took for them to fall in WWII? France has a robust defense because they know that they have the strength of the U.S. military to call upon should they need it. Mirages and nuclear weapons won't cut it. The Maginot Line was also supposed to be a robust defense.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:



> France has a robust arsenal? How long do you think they would last if attacked? Do you think that this time it will take more or less than the little over a month it took for them to fall in WWII? France has a robust defense because they know that they have the strength of the U.S. military to call upon should they need it. Mirages and nuclear weapons won't cut it. The Maginot Line was also supposed to be a robust defense.


Fact check:

French armed forces:
Third highest military expenditure in the world (62.7 billion USD without the gendarmerie)
Third largest nuclear arsenal in the world behind the USA and Russia

Army:
254,000 active troops
419,000 reserves
101,666 gendarmes
11,262,661 young men fit for military service (2005 numbers)
1,015 tanks
7,685 armored vehicles
19,000 unarmored vehicles
838 pieces of heavy artillery
599 attack helicopters
94 reconnaissance airplanes
15 large troop-transporting airplanes

Navy:
Action force: 115 ships, 12,000 persons
Submarine force: 10 ships, 3,300 persons
Navy Aviation: 147 aircrafts, 7,300 persons
Navy Marines: 16 units, 2,000 persons
24 Naval bases

Airforce: 
33 domestic bases, 10 bases overseas
874 combat airplanes
57,400 persons

Force de Frappe (the French nuclear strike force):
300 operational nuclear warheads (third largest in the world)
Nuclear-powered carrier Charles de Gaule with nuclear-capable fighter aircraft Rafale F3 armed with ASMP-A nuclear missiles
18 land-based silo intermediate range nuclear ballistic missiles
Six nuclear submarines Le Redoutable-class with 18 intermediate range nuclear ballistic missiles each
One nuclear submarine Le Terrible armed with 16 M51 nuclear missiles
Three Triomphe-class SSBNs, each armed with 16 M45 nuclear missiles
50 Mirage fighter jets equipped with nuclear missiles
10 Super-Etendard fighter jets equipped with nuclear missiles
A brand new squadron of Rafale-N (N for nuclear) fighter jets armed with nuclear missiles, undisclosed capacities
This nuclear strike force roams the world at various points with undisclosed locations at any given time, and is capable of attacking with massive nuclear weapons any point in the planet.

Looks pretty robust and formidable to me. How long would they last if attacked? Long enough to completely anihilate the attacker and make of the attacker's land a glassy radioactive desert.

French is *very far* from Maginot Line-like weakness these days, my friend. Don't mess with the French, now.

By the way, the French government since 2006 has made public that France will retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked by terrorists, and has instructed their armed forces to draw contingency plans for this. This may be why Spain and England have suffered major terrorist attacks lately, but not France.

And also please note that France is a NATO member, so they're not only protected by their formidable army, but also by other allied armies. French however reserves to itself the right to strike nuclearly at any point in the world independently of NATO action and even against NATO countries, and has this wording entered on their agreements and treaties with other NATO countries.

I don't think the French are weaklings any longer.


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## Guest

In looking up this information, I found something interesting concerning our defense spending. Again, this is percent of GDP, not total numbers:









And even more interesting, when you look at actual dollar amounts in spending (I think this is adjusted to 2003 dollars), you see that since WWII, there really hasn't been that much change in the average amount spent. 








So it begs the question - if defense spending as a % of GDP has been steadily on the decline since the 1950s, and if actual total dollars spent has not varied that much over that same time period, is that really what is driving our record deficits and sending our debt to unsustainable levels? Especially when you compare it to the growth of entitlement program spending?


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## Chi_townPhilly

*Sorry! Can't resist!*



Almaviva said:


> I don't think the French are weaklings any longer.


The French have one of the crack elite military units on the planet, right up there with the Spetznaz, the Green Berets and the US Army Rangers.

Unsurprisingly (to me), they are made up of non-Frenchmen.

Légion étrangère


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> And who says that the new health care law will bring about more deficit (that's what you seem to imply when you say "pay for all these programs")? Unlike the GOP Medicare prescription plan, it is all paid for. . .


I had meant to get back to this point, but forgot. Now seems like a good time. But rather than type it all out myself, I would direct you to this op-ed in the NY Times from a former CBO director explaining why it is that the health care act actually will add more to the deficit. One major point - when they talk about it lowering the deficit, notice they only talk about that going out 10 years. That is because the legilsation is set up to draw in the revenues first for several years before any of the benefits start to roll out. And so for 10 years, it is all revenue in with little paid out. So it looks like it is good for the deficit. But the 10 years of revenue collection will then only pay for about 6 years of benefits, so the deficits kick in later. They defer the downside until after anybody responsible for this bill is long gone (i.e. Obama). Read the article - it details other tricks and half-truths used to sell this as deficit-reducing.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> In looking up this information, I found something interesting concerning our defense spending. Again, this is percent of GDP, not total numbers:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And even more interesting, when you look at actual dollar amounts in spending (I think this is adjusted to 2003 dollars), you see that since WWII, there really hasn't been that much change in the average amount spent.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So it begs the question - if defense spending as a % of GDP has been steadily on the decline since the 1950s, and if actual total dollars spent has not varied that much over that same time period, is that really what is driving our record deficits and sending our debt to unsustainable levels? Especially when you compare it to the growth of entitlement program spending?


Dr.Mike, being a scientist, you know very well that you can say anything you want with stats and graphs, depending on how you calculate your numbers and what you're trying to prove. For example, look at your last one. It supposes that revenue will remain stable. How do they know it will? The country will grow, hopefully the economy will recover, population base will grow... maybe revenue will grow as well. Not to forget that if true health care reform is implemented and thrives, maybe health costs will go down as well. Your graph talks about "risks" but there is no certainty that these risks will materialize the way it shows there.

Then, you show military spending as percentage of GDP (which also grows) but it is hard to believe that with the two foreign wars (and a third front now) our military spending is going to remain stable.

My point with the report about the flexible, modern, and powerful French military is that if you can destroy the world 3 times over like they can, for deterrence purposes you don't need to be able to destroy the world 20 times over like we and the Russians can. You must know that a lot of military spending comes from special interests and some costly projects that were proven wrong and obsolete, and too many commitments around the world, some of them quite unnecessary, not to forget futile wars.

All that I'm saying is that I'd rather cut on that and simplify our approach to foreign policy (and cut on some sponsorship of rogue regimes as well) *before* I'd start cutting on entitlements for our own citizen. Who would you rather help, Mubarak with a free ride of 70 billion dollars that ended up in his private accounts, or our seniors and our poor?


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> I had meant to get back to this point, but forgot. Now seems like a good time. But rather than type it all out myself, I would direct you to this op-ed in the NY Times from a former CBO director explaining why it is that the health care act actually will add more to the deficit. One major point - when they talk about it lowering the deficit, notice they only talk about that going out 10 years. That is because the legilsation is set up to draw in the revenues first for several years before any of the benefits start to roll out. And so for 10 years, it is all revenue in with little paid out. So it looks like it is good for the deficit. But the 10 years of revenue collection will then only pay for about 6 years of benefits, so the deficits kick in later. They defer the downside until after anybody responsible for this bill is long gone (i.e. Obama). Read the article - it details other tricks and half-truths used to sell this as deficit-reducing.


You didn't post a link to the article.


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> The French have one of the crack elite military units on the planet, right up there with the Spetznaz, the Green Berets and the US Army Rangers.
> 
> Unsurprisingly (to me), they are made up of non-Frenchmen.
> 
> Légion étrangère


Sure, the so-called capitulation-prone French have been tradionally the butt of many jokes, but I do think that Sarkozy has more cojones than many heads of state, these days. And now that they're armed to their teeth and have the third most powerful military in the world in spite of being populationally and territorially a fraction of the USA and Russia, indicates that they're aren't likely to be the butt of this kind of joke any longer.

By the way, have you noticed how many foreigners our professional armed forces now employ, with this being for many a path to US citizenship? The concept is not that different from that of the Légion Étrangère.

You may be thinking of me as a francophile leftie. You know, it's not that I'm totally in love with France, and certainly not that I love it more than the United States. I talk more about France when I'm giving examples of how other countries run things because I lived there for 5 years so it's the European country I know the most, even better than Italy (in spite of my being also an Italian citizen, my French is better than my Italian and even though I have visited Italy many times, I've never lived there).

But yes, modern France is a very interesting society and they do run many things there very well, such as health care, superior education, and defense. Instead of the ridiculous anti-French sentiment that Bush tried to foster with his infamous Freedom Fries - just because they rightly opposed his futile war in Iraq - I think we have actually some things to learn from the French.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> You didn't post a link to the article.


Sorry, I was in a hurry. Here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html


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## science

DrMike said:


> The economy was bound to boom post WWII because our infrastructure was intact, unlike most of Europe, and we were well positioned to become an industrial giant that could sell to the world. Japan and China were not yet what they now are. Europe was rebuilding. The war had been a huge boon to our economy. We were the arsenal of freedom. The allies bought what they needed from us. All of those businesses then easily transitioned to the post-war economic boom. We were the dominant economy in the world post-WWII. When conditions are that favorable to an economy, then it can easily withstand higher taxes - profits are ripe for the picking. That was also what blessed the Clinton administration. In the wake of the end of the cold war, and with new businesses booming, the economy was so robust that it could stand the modest increase in taxes he implemented. But it was the actions of Reagan that had gotten the economy up and running again after the slump it had been in for most of the 70's (and I will equally blame the Nixon/Ford administrations along with Carter).
> 
> Entitlement programs have grown exponentially since the late 60's, since the advent of the war on poverty. That is not a biased statement, that is simply a fact. And everybody acknowledges that entitlement spending, along with defense, comprise the biggest expenses of this government. Any serious attempt to curb spending needs to look at those areas.
> 
> I said we were prospering in the 1950s. And during that time, our debt as a percent of GDP was about the same as it was at the highest levels from 1980 until just a few years ago. And then, beginning in the end of the Bush administration and continuing throughout Obama's administration, it started to jump. No longer were we in the 60-70% range - we are now approaching 100%. Yes, we could sustain that during the WWII years, because the economy was ramping up. The economy isn't exactly in that position now. And while then there were prospects of paying down the debt, what are our current prospects? These aren't temporary war expenses that are exploding our debt. These are long-term entitlement promises. How will we cover that? Simply tax people more? As I mentioned earlier, there isn't enough money to do that, even if you were to completely confiscate the wealth of the rich.
> 
> This path of entitlement promises is unsustainable. How is that so hard to believe? We are making too many promises we can't keep, all in the name of some nebulous concept of fairness and compassion. We want to look good to other countries. It is all well and good that countries like France have "free" universal health care - but how long can they afford it? And the solution is to strangle the only people that can possibly generate the type of wealth needed to fund these programs. Government can't create wealth to fund these programs. They are dependent on a robust economy to provide the money they need to function. Rob that economy of the tools needed to succeed, and it doesn't matter how many wonderful programs you want to promise people - you just won't be able to afford them - not for very long, at least.


Don't misunderstand my position. I know that Medicare has to be reformed so that we can control costs. That has to be done. You cannot honestly deny that both sides are aware of that. To continue to pay for Social Security - which has a gigantic surplus for some time to come, which the government has borrowed rather than collect taxes - we might need to import more labor. We might even need to increase the retirement age. But if we restructure the collection so that it's a progressive rather than a regressive tax, then there is plenty of money for Social Security.

I know that high taxes in certain conditions hurt the economy, but I'm not persuaded that we're in that position. We are a low-tax country, we have consistently moved the burden of taxation from the rich to the middle class, and partly as a result of that the rich have gotten much, much, much richer while the middle class has suffered and is gradually being impoverished.

And even if we are in a condition where higher taxes on the rich will hurt the economy, it doesn't matter - we are going to reduce the deficit, and we are not going to do it by ending Social Security or Medicare. We are not going to throw the old people back into poverty, decrease life expectancy by a decade. The people won't have it. In the end, after some really vicious fighting, we might cut defense, we will restructure Medicare and maybe Social Security, but we are going to raise taxes on the rich and continue to provide Medicare and Social Security.

Whether you think that is moral or not is a moot point: the rich are a tiny minority, they don't have the votes, and if they try to do in non-democratically - that is, with mercenary force - I don't think that will work either.

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

*IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*

Get that through your head because I'm sick of reading it over and over again and having my points completely ignored.

It has everything to do with force.

Force.

Votes in the first place, but if you bring violence, you will lose that too.

Force.


----------



## Almaviva

science said:


> Don't misunderstand my position. I know that Medicare has to be reformed so that we can control costs. That has to be done. You cannot honestly deny that both sides are aware of that. To continue to pay for Social Security - which has a gigantic surplus for some time to come, which the government has borrowed rather than collect taxes - we might need to import more labor. We might even need to increase the retirement age. But if we restructure the collection so that it's a progressive rather than a regressive tax, then there is plenty of money for Social Security.
> 
> I know that high taxes in certain conditions hurt the economy, but I'm not persuaded that we're in that position. We are a low-tax country, we have consistently moved the burden of taxation from the rich to the middle class, and partly as a result of that the rich have gotten much, much, much richer while the middle class has suffered and is gradually being impoverished.
> 
> And even if we are in a condition where higher taxes on the rich will hurt the economy, it doesn't matter - we are going to reduce the deficit, and we are not going to do it by ending Social Security or Medicare. We are not going to throw the old people back into poverty, decrease life expectancy by a decade. The people won't have it. In the end, after some really vicious fighting, we might cut defense, we will restructure Medicare and maybe Social Security, but we are going to raise taxes on the rich and continue to provide Medicare and Social Security.
> 
> Whether you think that is moral or not is a moot point: the rich are a tiny minority, they don't have the votes, and if they try to do in non-democratically - that is, with mercenary force - I don't think that will work either.
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> Get that through your head because I'm sick of reading it over and over again and having my points completely ignored.
> 
> It has everything to do with force.
> 
> Force.
> 
> Votes in the first place, but if you bring violence, you will lose that too.
> 
> Force.


This was an incredibly insightful post!!!:clap:


----------



## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Sorry, I was in a hurry. Here you go:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html


Wow. Impressive. It may indeed be that you're right and I'm wrong. Scary!


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Whether you think that is moral or not is a moot point: the rich are a tiny minority, they don't have the votes, and if they try to do in non-democratically - that is, with mercenary force - I don't think that will work either.
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> Get that through your head because I'm sick of reading it over and over again and having my points completely ignored.
> 
> It has everything to do with force.
> 
> Force.
> 
> Votes in the first place, but if you bring violence, you will lose that too.
> 
> Force.


Wow - the tyranny of the entitled. Your vision of how this all works is really quite scary. The type of government you envision is a scary one indeed. A government that forces a group to surrender its wealth because they are a voting minority. A scary thought indeed. Yes, we do live by majority rule, but the constitution was put into place to ensure that there were certain bounds that the majority could not step over. You seem to think that is irrelevant.

And in case you haven't noticed, I'm for the most part responding to everybody here, so if I don't happen to respond to your every comment, well, tough. Maybe I just don't find anything I want to respond to. The thing that is nice about these forums is that you can't make me respond. I can pick and choose. And with all the different things that people are posting, I think I'm doing a pretty good job responding to as many as I have. So if you feel I haven't paid as much attention to you as to others - well, tough. Just as I don't think you are entitled to my money, I also don't think you are entitled to my undivided and rapt attention.


----------



## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Wow. Impressive. It may indeed be that you're right and I'm wrong. Scary!


Yeah, I'm used to that. I'm also very humble!


----------



## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Wow - the tyranny of the entitled. Your vision of how this all works is really quite scary. The type of government you envision is a scary one indeed. A government that forces a group to surrender its wealth because they are a voting minority. A scary thought indeed. Yes, we do live by majority rule, but the constitution was put into place to ensure that there were certain bounds that the majority could not step over. You seem to think that is irrelevant.
> 
> And in case you haven't noticed, I'm for the most part responding to everybody here, so if I don't happen to respond to your every comment, well, tough. Maybe I just don't find anything I want to respond to. The thing that is nice about these forums is that you can't make me respond. I can pick and choose. And with all the different things that people are posting, I think I'm doing a pretty good job responding to as many as I have. So if you feel I haven't paid as much attention to you as to others - well, tough. Just as I don't think you are entitled to my money, I also don't think you are entitled to my undivided and rapt attention.


Now it's your turn to read it in a too personal way, Dr. Mike. I had asked Science to be less sensitive when he took what you said personally, but you seem to be doing a bit of the same, here. I think Science is not really advocating for this, but rather, describing a reality (and this is why I said it was insightful) and when he says "whether you think it's moral or not it's a moot point" he is talking about how social forces move on in spite of what certain groups or individuals think. I wouldn't take it personally.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

I haven't been reading this interesting thread but just came in to see what the juice of it is. It appears to be the usual big economic issues, which inevitably involves taxation.

Now, there is a wonderful one-liner, which I think originated from former British Prime Minister (1979-1990), Margaret Thatcher. Regardless, without writing 1,000 thousands explaining why I largely agree with it, here it is: _you don't make the poor rich by making the rich poor_. In other words, as far as redistribution of wealth is concerned by way of fiscal policy (taxation), social welfare does not often lend itself efficiently in the _long run_ at the expense of the sectors of the economy generating production.


----------



## Almaviva

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I haven't been reading this interesting thread but just came in to see what the juice of it is. It appears to be the usual big economic issues, which inevitably involves taxation.
> 
> Now, there is a wonderful one-liner, which I think originated from former British Prime Minister (1979-1990), Margaret Thatcher. Regardless, without writing 1,000 thousands explaining why I largely agree with it, here it is: _you don't make the poor rich by making the rich poor_. In other words, as far as redistribution of wealth is concerned by way of fiscal policy (taxation), social welfare does not often lend itself efficiently in the _long run_ at the expense of the sectors of the economy generating production.


Increasing a little bit the taxation on the rich to levels before the Bush tax cuts is not really going to make them poor.


----------



## science

DrMike said:


> Wow - the tyranny of the entitled. Your vision of how this all works is really quite scary. The type of government you envision is a scary one indeed. A government that forces a group to surrender its wealth because they are a voting minority. A scary thought indeed. Yes, we do live by majority rule, but the constitution was put into place to ensure that there were certain bounds that the majority could not step over. You seem to think that is irrelevant.
> 
> And in case you haven't noticed, I'm for the most part responding to everybody here, so if I don't happen to respond to your every comment, well, tough. Maybe I just don't find anything I want to respond to. The thing that is nice about these forums is that you can't make me respond. I can pick and choose. And with all the different things that people are posting, I think I'm doing a pretty good job responding to as many as I have. So if you feel I haven't paid as much attention to you as to others - well, tough. Just as I don't think you are entitled to my money, I also don't think you are entitled to my undivided and rapt attention.


I didn't mean that you hadn't replied. I meant that you continued to bring up "fairness and compassion" in your responses to me after I'd clearly said that my position has nothing to do with them.

I'm not aware that my post advocated anything that violates the Constitution.


----------



## science

Almaviva said:


> Increasing a little bit the taxation on the rich to levels before the Bush tax cuts is not really going to make them poor.


Or for that matter, to levels before the Reagan tax cuts.

It's funny that we jump from raising taxes to imagining a communist revolution.


----------



## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> In looking up this information, I found something interesting concerning our defense spending.
> 
> And even more interesting, when you look at actual dollar amounts in spending (I think this is adjusted to 2003 dollars), you see that since WWII, there really hasn't been that much change in the average amount spent.
> 
> So it begs the question - if defense spending as a % of GDP has been steadily on the decline since the 1950s, and if actual total dollars spent has not varied that much over that same time period, is that really what is driving our record deficits and sending our debt to unsustainable levels? Especially when you compare it to the growth of entitlement program spending?


Defense spending has been relatively flat since 1950, but it has shown fluctuations. There was significant growth between the late 1970s and late 1980s. Also there was significant growth since 2000. Your graph shows out to maybe 2005. This link (from the CBO) states that defense spending has increased roughly 9% annually from 2000 - 2009.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10640/10-2009-MBR.pdf Presumably the wars had a significant effect on the budget increase.

Another interesting issue is that the defense budget does not include expenses that clearly reflect defense - counter terrorism, DOE defense research, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, veterans pensions, etc. According to this estimate,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States, these other expenses add roughly 30% to defense spending.

There's no question that several things added to the recent debt increase - tax cuts, military spending, and increases in entitlements.

The question is what should be done about these factors. Military spending will come down if we exit Iran and Afghanistan (and now Libya). We'll still have enormous increases due to veterans expenses from these wars, but over time they will be contained. I think ultimately we ought to reduce defense spending even more than this, but in the long run further reductions won't have very significant effects.

Social Security is a problem, but I think there are 2 possible changes to control these expenses. First we can extend the age when benefits become available. Unfortunately this will penalize those in fields which reduce longevity, and these people often need the benefits most. Probably the best answer will be means testing. We can increase the limit on taxable income for payroll taxes, and that might help as well. This of course is the same as raising taxes.

I think taxes will have to be raised to help the other partial solutions.

To me the real issue is health spending (medicare and medicaid). The graph I posted a few pages ago is pretty frightening. We have to control these costs somehow. Health care is rather complicated, and although I've read a lot on this issue, I still have little idea of how to proceed in this area.


----------



## science

mmsbls said:


> To me the real issue is health spending (medicare and medicaid). The graph I posted a few pages ago is pretty frightening. We have to control these costs somehow. Health care is rather complicated, and although I've read a lot on this issue, I still have little idea of how to proceed in this area.


I think so too.

It's not going to be easy, because some cost-control measures are going to have to be taken, and politically speaking there'll have to be a balance of the health industry (especially the insurance industry) lobbyists against the budget against the votes. It'll be easier, I believe, when there is a Republican (and white) president. I doubt the next one will be as fiscally irresponsible as Bush. We'll do something to make ourselves feel tough, and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and probably cut back a bit on some aspects of defense.

We have to let Medicare negotiate prices. That'll help a lot. Also, I suspect that when we stop paying for some expensive treatments, researchers will be motivated to develop cheaper ones.

But in the end, there will be treatments that we can't cover. That's just the reality of finite resources against amazing but expensive medical technology.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Almaviva said:


> Increasing a little bit the taxation on the rich to levels before the Bush tax cuts is not really going to make them poor.


There is often much subjective comments in threads of this nature. Objectively, tax policy should be a tool of government macroeconomic management, formulated by treasury/economics/finance departments of governments, with clear long term objectives, which is far easier stated than done, and then there is the political hurdle, which parliaments need to pass. Many taxes are effectively political tools for the government to appease voters with, framed with short term objectives in mind when the election in on the horizon within a couple of years.

We had a natural disaster up north in the tropics a few months ago, where many properties were flooded, in the state of Queensland. Majority of properties had no flood insurance because either flood coverage was not provided as part of their existing home insurance or people actively chose not to buy flood insurance because that would jack up their premiums. After the flood, everyone affected in Queensland cried foul because their properties were damaged and had no flood insurance. Queensland is currently a polictically marginal state for the current federal government. So what did it do just recently? Passed a flood levy on the rest of the country to raise monies to help victims of floods - a redistribution of wealth from other states and a subsidy on the construction industry. Knowing that many parts of Queensland were exposed to flood, despite historic event losses every so often, it needed a "large" event for the government to impose a quick-fix-levy on the rest of us. Classic case of government distortionary legislation, to suit short term political goals. The shabby shacks get a booze, as do the million dollar properties by the water; any properties affected by the flood.  (I live in a different state, further south). And how would those sensible people in Queensland who did the extra homework and forked out the extra premium to buy flood coverage now feel, whereas his/her neighbour did not? Unfortunately, they were the small minority.

The point is we need to be extra careful when arguing for taxation, because a tax by itself is already distortionary, let alone the clarity of the ultimate purpose as legislated by government.


----------



## Ralfy

DrMike said:


> No offense, but the one author is a regular contributor to MSNBC and the Huffington Post, and between the two of them, they have one degree in political science and 2 in journalism. I'm not sure that makes them experts in economics.
> 
> Again, a tax cut is not a government expense. When I make out my budget, I don't have an expense category for "money I think I deserve but my boss won't pay me." Does that not make sense to anybody? If I go out and buy one of these much talked about Rolls Royce cars, and drive myself into debt, do I credit that debt as money my boss isn't paying me, or money I spent that I didn't have?
> 
> This is the logic behind it all. I think I should be making twice as much as I currently am. In light of that, I'm going to go and spend like I am making twice as much as I am, and then blame the debt I incur on that heartless boss who just isn't paying me my fair share.
> 
> Government should not produce surpluses. If it does, then it is taxing too much. The government does not exist to create new programs and find new ways to spend more of my money. It has a very well defined role. I am not anti-government. I am opposed to a government that oversteps its bounds. That is the foundation of this country. We split from England because enough people here thought that the British government was over-stepping its bounds. Enough people thought that the government was going too far in their confiscation of property, doing it in ways it had no right to do. The system we are bringing upon ourselves now is coming perilously close to the one that the founding fathers fought to overthrow.
> 
> Because I don't like what our government is now doing does not mean that I am against any kind of government.


The article refers to this:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

which is linked in the same article. The report was not written by journalists.

Just so that I'm sure that you know how to read news articles: when you read, for example, an article that reports on the findings of a study, keep in mind that the study was not written by the journalist who wrote the article. There are cases where the journalist incorrectly describes the findings but such inaccuracies are usually corrected by the editors.


----------



## science

Here's a pot-stirring blog from Paul Krugman, who is considered a good economist by people without politics at stake:



> *Patients Are Not Consumers*
> 
> I keep encountering discussions of health economics in which patients are referred to as "consumers", after which the usual mantra of freedom of choice is invoked on behalf of voucherizing Medicare, or whatever.
> 
> We used to know better than this.
> 
> Medical care is an area in which crucial decisions - life and death decisions - must be made; yet making those decisions intelligently requires a vast amount of specialized knowledge; and often those decisions must also be made under conditions in which the patient is incapacitated, under severe stress, or needs action immediately, with no time for discussion, let alone comparison shopping.
> 
> That's why we have medical ethics. That's why doctors have traditionally both been viewed as something special and been expected to behave according to higher standards than the average professional. There's a reason we have TV series about heroic doctors, while we don't have TV series about heroic middle managers or heroic economists.
> 
> The idea that all this can be reduced to money - that doctors are just people selling services to consumers of health care - is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society's values.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/patients-are-not-consumers/


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Here's a pot-stirring blog from Paul Krugman, who is considered a good economist by people without politics at stake:


:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
I'm sorry, you need to warn me before you make statements like that. Please forgive me, here, but maybe if you think that MSNBC is an unbiased news source you might believe this, but I think most objective people will concede the Krugman represents the liberal view on most economic issues. Until recently, he has been one of Pres. Obama's biggest cheerleaders.


----------



## Guest

Ralfy said:


> The article refers to this:
> 
> http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036
> 
> which is linked in the same article. The report was not written by journalists.
> 
> Just so that I'm sure that you know how to read news articles: when you read, for example, an article that reports on the findings of a study, keep in mind that the study was not written by the journalist who wrote the article. There are cases where the journalist incorrectly describes the findings but such inaccuracies are usually corrected by the editors.


Yes, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is recognized as a liberal-leaning think tank that likes to describe conservative ideas as "radical" and likes to demagogue conservative policies. Will you give as much credence to conservative analyses were I to cite for you a Heritage Foundation study?


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Here's a pot-stirring blog from Paul Krugman, who is considered a good economist by people without politics at stake:
> 
> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/patients-are-not-consumers/


I am a scientist who is doing research into treatments for chronic viral infections that can be crippling to the health of hundreds of millions of people around the world, and I drive to and from work every day in my used Mitsubishi that has needed a tune-up for a long time. When I am passed by my doctor driving home in the latest model BMW, I find it hard to believe what Mr. Krugman is saying. Sure, there are heroic doctors, but let us not romanticize the profession. Since when did it become dirty to admit that one wants to make a profit? How is the profession of a doctor more important than that of a scientist who makes the medical discoveries necessary for the doctor to work? Or the farmer who provides the food that gives the people their daily sustenance? Or the manager that give the person the job to afford all those things?

And how often in life are we faced with catastrophic medical needs? Most people visit their doctors for routine illnesses and wellness visits. There is already a system in place for catastrophic care - you are taken by ambulance where they will treat you, and then afterwards address payment issues. But anyplace else, you are more than capable of shopping around and comparing. I have done it numerous times. I have changed doctors because I was not satisfied with my level of care. I had a doctor that didn't want to refer me to an endocrinologist to treat my diabetes. After finding out quickly that my doctor was ill-suited to managing my diabetes, I found another doctor who would refer me - and it was the best thing I ever did, because the endocrinologist that I was referred to was able to get me off of insulin, manage my diabetes better, and save me in co-pays and medication expenses.


----------



## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> When I am passed by my doctor driving home in the latest model BMW, I find it hard to believe what Mr. Krugman is saying. Sure, there are heroic doctors, but let us not romanticize the profession. Since when did it become dirty to admit that one wants to make a profit?


I believe the Krugman blog is making a different, and very important point. Patients are not consumers in the sense that people who buy groceries, TVs, cars, and other commodities are consumers. When I buy a TV, I understand price differences between TVs, know something about the value of different brands, and can choose not to purchase the TV. None of this is true about medical purchases. I may be mistaken, but I thought Krugman was simply pointing out that health services do not really exist in anything like a free market.


----------



## science

DrMike said:


> :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
> I'm sorry, you need to warn me before you make statements like that. Please forgive me, here, but maybe if you think that MSNBC is an unbiased news source you might believe this, but I think most objective people will concede the Krugman represents the liberal view on most economic issues. Until recently, he has been one of Pres. Obama's biggest cheerleaders.


No, he is actually widely recognized as a good economist. It doesn't matter when he starts expressing his opinion on non-economic issues, of course, like whether we can equate "patients" with "customers."

I didn't say anything about MSNBC, and I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Krugman has been critical of Obama - until recently. For instance, he was critical of the stimulus bill, and of the health care reform. He is considerably more liberal than Obama governs.



DrMike said:


> I am a scientist who is doing research into treatments for chronic viral infections that can be crippling to the health of hundreds of millions of people around the world, and I drive to and from work every day in my used Mitsubishi that has needed a tune-up for a long time. When I am passed by my doctor driving home in the latest model BMW, I find it hard to believe what Mr. Krugman is saying. Sure, there are heroic doctors, but let us not romanticize the profession. Since when did it become dirty to admit that one wants to make a profit? How is the profession of a doctor more important than that of a scientist who makes the medical discoveries necessary for the doctor to work? Or the farmer who provides the food that gives the people their daily sustenance? Or the manager that give the person the job to afford all those things?
> 
> And how often in life are we faced with catastrophic medical needs? Most people visit their doctors for routine illnesses and wellness visits. There is already a system in place for catastrophic care - you are taken by ambulance where they will treat you, and then afterwards address payment issues. But anyplace else, you are more than capable of shopping around and comparing. I have done it numerous times. I have changed doctors because I was not satisfied with my level of care. I had a doctor that didn't want to refer me to an endocrinologist to treat my diabetes. After finding out quickly that my doctor was ill-suited to managing my diabetes, I found another doctor who would refer me - and it was the best thing I ever did, because the endocrinologist that I was referred to was able to get me off of insulin, manage my diabetes better, and save me in co-pays and medication expenses.


I don't think he meant to denigrate researchers; he's an academic, after all. I don't know why you think Krugman thinks it's dirty to admit one wants to make a profit. I'd bet he's familiar with the passage of Adam Smith that you might have been alluding to.

I guess it doesn't matter how often we're faced with catastrophic medical needs - when we are, it's usually a situation we'd consider "really important," and at that time we'd like advice from someone who has our best interest in mind. I don't think we care how much doctors make.

I don't know, this all seems obvious to me. I don't see any conflict between exercising choice in routine medical care and wanting good advice in an emergency.

I do wonder, however, whether it's a good thing for all relationships to be merely economic. I think trust is breaking down in our society, and that will have negative economic and political consequences. The ideal of a responsible citizenship has been discarded as naive, greed is good greed is normal me me me me me me mine, and as a result we're all now reduced to customers and sellers, employees and employers.


----------



## jhar26

DrMike said:


> :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
> I'm sorry, you need to warn me before you make statements like that. Please forgive me, here, but maybe if you think that MSNBC is an unbiased news source you might believe this, but I think most objective people will concede the Krugman represents the liberal view on most economic issues.


As a European I don't have a clue about the media in the US, but something that I've noticed on any forum where this political stuff is discussed (and is kinda amusing to an outsider) is that all conservatives hate MSNBC and all lefties hate FOX. Seems to me that depending on where ones loyalties are that one watches one or the other to hear his/her version of the truth while one automatically dismisses whatever the other station is saying.


----------



## science

jhar26 said:


> As a European I don't have a clue about the media in the US, but something that I've noticed on any forum where this political stuff is discussed (and is kinda amusing to an outsider) is that all conservatives hate MSNBC and all lefties hate FOX. Seems to me that depending on where ones loyalties are that one watches one or the other to hear his/her version of the truth while one automatically dismisses whatever the other station is saying.


I think it is healthy for us to have some blatantly partisan media. As long as both sides are out there, people can hear/watch/read whatever they want.


----------



## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> Yes, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is recognized as a liberal-leaning think tank that likes to describe conservative ideas as "radical" and likes to demagogue conservative policies. Will you give as much credence to conservative analyses were I to cite for you a Heritage Foundation study?


I agree on this. In some sense this is too bad. Analyses by non-profits are usually fairly good, but they have two problems. Their bias does not allow them to publish something that does not fall directly in line with their stated views. Also the analyses are generally more simplistic than work done at universities or national labs. Some analysis is just garbage, and it is very hard for a non-expert to know the difference.

For a short time awhile ago I split work between the university where I work and the non-profit, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS has a pretty good reputation as being scientifically strong and not overly biased. Personally I feel this is deserved. I wrote a paper that included a discussion of emissions of electric vehicles (EVs). I made the statement that EV emissions from the vehicle are zero but upstream emissions from power plants that produce electricity are not zero _unless the power plant is for example hydroelectric or nuclear_. The editors removed "nuclear". UCS has a major nuclear power initiative which is critical of new power plants due to safety reasons. Their position on nuclear power is reasonable, but to remove the nuclear reference in an article on EVs shows their bias.

Anyway, I'm always much happier to read research papers from universities. Everyone has biases, but in my experience university research has less than I've found elsewhere. The problem is that non-profits write for the public and work hard to make their analysis understandable and relevant. University research papers generally don't worry about that so it's harder to extract the information you're looking for.


----------



## Almaviva

Dr. Mike: "When I am passed by my doctor driving home in the latest model BMW, I find it hard to believe what Mr. Krugman is saying."

Your doctor has most likely worked very hard for his/her BMW, with 4 years of college during which he/she spent countless hours studying after hours and on weekends (while other students were partying) to qualify for pre-med tests and earn entrance to a highly selective medical school, 4 years of medical school involving expensive student loans of about $200,000, 1 year of internship being on call every 3 days or in night-float of 7 nights in a row, 3-5 years of residency training, countless overnight and week-end calls, a work schedule that is often between 60 and 80 hours per week when you factor in the calls, and the burden of carrying a pager 24/7 and being available to his/her patients for all sorts of phone calls, demands, and real or perceived emergencies after hours and on weekends; so next time you see your doctor driving his/her BMW you may feel that the dear creature may deserve a little bit of driving comfort and a relaxing moment after all this accumulated stress.

I thought that before, you were advocating for hardworking people to keep and enjoy the fruits of their hard work so I don't see why you're suddenly bringing up your doctor's BMW.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Chi_townPhilly said:


> That's technically true- (today).... but here's the live scoreboard for France--
> so I expect they won't be able to keep it up, either.
> 
> 
> Almaviva said:
> 
> 
> 
> This kind of raw data doesn't say much.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with your last sentence- but I submit that that which it DOES say is worth taking note- that is, France (like 90+% of historically left-of-center governed countries in the developed world [the exceptions are countries with a high ratio of natural-resource wealth to population, typically in the form of petro-capital e.g.: Norway]) are achieving their apparent impressive results by _spending money that they don't have_, and have been worrying about how to pay the bill later. (Though there are signs that the country might be getting around to doing a 're-think' on this pattern.)

If they're taking steps on a path towards solvency (or, at the very least, considering applying the time-honored wisdom that "when you find yourself in a hole- first, stop digging"), I wish them well. If they (or any other country) violates one of the 'Ten Cannots' by attempting to establish security on borrowed money, then things aren't likely to land in a happy place.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Dr. Mike: "When I am passed by my doctor driving home in the latest model BMW, I find it hard to believe what Mr. Krugman is saying."
> 
> Your doctor has most likely worked very hard for his/her BMW, with 4 years of college during which he/she spent countless hours studying after hours and on weekends (while other students were partying) to qualify for pre-med tests and earn entrance to a highly selective medical school, 4 years of medical school involving expensive student loans of about $200,000, 1 year of internship being on call every 3 days or in night-float of 7 nights in a row, 3-5 years of residency training, countless overnight and week-end calls, a work schedule that is often between 60 and 80 hours per week when you factor in the calls, and the burden of carrying a pager 24/7 and being available to his/her patients for all sorts of phone calls, demands, and real or perceived emergencies after hours and on weekends; so next time you see your doctor driving his/her BMW you may feel that the dear creature may deserve a little bit of driving comfort and a relaxing moment after all this accumulated stress.
> 
> I thought that before, you were advocating for hardworking people to keep and enjoy the fruits of their hard work so I don't see why you're suddenly bringing up your doctor's BMW.


You misunderstood my point. I am fine with doctors doing well. I have no problem with it. I just disagree with Krugman's idea of taking the idea of profit out of the realm of healthcare, and that patients being viewed as consumers is not wrong. Too frequently, the way that the government steps in to take over something is by first deeming something a right.

We are constantly told that health care is a right. How so? Free speech is a right. I can go and say whatever I wish, and it is independent of anybody else. How is health a right? Certainly I have right to not have another deprive me of health. But what if I have a health problem? What does it mean that I have a right to health care? Unless I am a physician, I am dependent on the services of another to provide me with that health care. So to say that it is a right is to say that another is obligated to provide it to me. But I reject the notion that anybody is obligated to provide anything to me that I am not willing to compensate them for. When we talk about health care, we aren't talking about some natural resource that simply exists, that we should all have equal, unfettered access to. We are talking about the skills that someone invested a lot of time and money to develop. We are talking about facilities that people spent money to build. We are talking about medications that took years and large amounts of money and effort to develop. To then simply say that someone has a right to all of those things simply because they exist is wrong. Now, if we as a society were to decide that we should want to help out those who can't afford such things, then that is fine. But when government intervenes and dictates such things, and then artificially manipulates costs and compensations (part of what Medicare and Medicaid do to the system), this is not synonymous with the purported goals of a social program to protect the health of the less fortunate.

We hear much of how much better European countries are on these matters - especially France. What has been lost in this debate is the reminder that France and the UK have recently had to implement austerity measures to help protect their economies from going the way of Greece and Portugal. They have come to the realization that they can't go on forever providing for every potential need of their citizenry, that at some point we must realize that it simply isn't possible to provide some utopian society of cradle-to-grave welfare. When a society has more than half of its population not paying income taxes into the system that provides them with so many benefits, we have to start questioning how that system can continue. We are talking about a society here where people are "allowed" to prosper so long as the government thinks that they should. As soon as the politicians decide they want to promise some new program that, then suddenly it is determined that a certain subset of people are not entitled to as much of their wealth as they once were, that instead it should be confiscated to pay for a program most likely intended to benefit a certain political constituency. There is nothing fair in any of it - why else do certain politicians get paid off to get their votes (e.g. the "Cornhusker Kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase" inserted initially in the health care bill to gain the support of on the fence Democratic senators, or waivers for certain companies to opt out of parts of the bill who were nice donors to the president).

If this is all about doing the right thing and making people pay their fair share, why are some of the major movers supporting these things tax cheats? Tim Geithner - the treasury secretary - had to be nominated to a cabinet level position before he bothered to pay back taxes. The same with Eric Holder. Tom Daschle had to be passed over for a cabinet nomination because he hadn't paid his taxes. GE - a major contributor to the Obama administration and partner in its green measures - paid no taxes last year. If Warren Buffett is so certain that his tax burden should go up, why does he shelter so much of his assets and protect them from the very tax laws that he thinks don't go far enough? How about we first gut some of the tax loopholes that are making such things possible and actually get companies like GE and people like Warren Buffett to pay at their actual current tax rate, instead of them paying a lower percentage than I do?


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## jhar26

DrMike said:


> We hear much of how much better European countries are on these matters - especially France. What has been lost in this debate is the reminder that France and the UK have recently had to implement austerity measures to help protect their economies from going the way of Greece and Portugal.


Because they have to answer to the European union whereas when it comes down to it the US only has to answer to itself. But the US too accumulates huge debts (as much - even more, much more in fact than most European countries) and has in contrast to Europe virtually nothing to show for it in terms of taking care of the less fortunate of it's citizens.


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## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> If this is all about doing the right thing and making people pay their fair share, why are some of the major movers supporting these things tax cheats? Tim Geithner - the treasury secretary - had to be nominated to a cabinet level position before he bothered to pay back taxes. The same with Eric Holder. Tom Daschle had to be passed over for a cabinet nomination because he hadn't paid his taxes. GE - a major contributor to the Obama administration and partner in its green measures - paid no taxes last year. If Warren Buffett is so certain that his tax burden should go up, why does he shelter so much of his assets and protect them from the very tax laws that he thinks don't go far enough? How about we first gut some of the tax loopholes that are making such things possible and actually get companies like GE and people like Warren Buffett to pay at their actual current tax rate, instead of them paying a lower percentage than I do?


The tax code should be vastly simplified. I have yet to hear a good argument for any deductions besides children. I am tempted to include charitable donations, but I'd like to see good studies estimating the effect of tax exemptions from such donations. There may be a small number of other deductions that are good for everyone, but I'm skeptical of that now. The games people play with wealth to save taxes do not benefit society.

I do not feel that health is a right. Like infrastructure, fire departments, clean water, a military, and other government funded things, I believe society benefits from some level of health care for its citizens. The big questions are how much health care should the government provide and how should citizens pay for it. Those identical questions must be asked for all of the other government funded activities.

Presently I believe the US places vastly too much emphasis on defense compared to health care. As a society, we would benefit far more if much of defense spending were switched to health care. I have never read anything demonstrating a clear danger from cutting our military spending in half (for example). Obviously, people have argued that the world is a complex, potentially dangerous place and threats could (and do) arise, but the case for present funding makes use of too many hypothetical possibilities. The case for increased health care does not have to resort to those hypothetical arguments. Better care would save lives and reduce sickness every year.

I understand that our constitution mandates a military and not health care. It does not mandate $1 trillion dollars spent on defense. It also does not require infrastructure, but no one, I hope, would argue that the government should not build roads and bridges.


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## Almaviva

mmsbls said:


> The tax code should be vastly simplified. I have yet to hear a good argument for any deductions besides children. I am tempted to include charitable donations, but I'd like to see good studies estimating the effect of tax exemptions from such donations. There may be a small number of other deductions that are good for everyone, but I'm skeptical of that now. The games people play with wealth to save taxes do not benefit society.
> 
> I do not feel that health is a right. Like infrastructure, fire departments, clean water, a military, and other government funded things, I believe society benefits from some level of health care for its citizens. The big questions are how much health care should the government provide and how should citizens pay for it. Those identical questions must be asked for all of the other government funded activities.
> 
> Presently I believe the US places vastly too much emphasis on defense compared to health care. As a society, we would benefit far more if much of defense spending were switched to health care. I have never read anything demonstrating a clear danger from cutting our military spending in half (for example). Obviously, people have argued that the world is a complex, potentially dangerous place and threats could (and do) arise, but the case for present funding makes use of too many hypothetical possibilities. The case for increased health care does not have to resort to those hypothetical arguments. Better care would save lives and reduce sickness every year.
> 
> I understand that our constitution mandates a military and not health care. It does not mandate $1 trillion dollars spent on defense. It also does not require infrastructure, but no one, I hope, would argue that the government should not build roads and bridges.


This is such a good reply to Dr.Mike's post that I feel I can't add much to it, except to say that I also would like tax loopholes to be closed, and think that GE and Mr. Buffett should indeed pay their share.


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## Almaviva

Some further thoughts about items that have been discussed in this thread:

Why do conservatives care so much for you while you're a fetus, but stop caring after you're born? Are they only pro-life when said life is unborn, but once it is born, they don't want to preserve that life any longer? If we cut Medicaid, many poor children will be left without preventive medical care and screenings, and then may die from undiagnosed diseases (such as childhood leukemia). Was all the fight to make sure they were born and not aborted, worth it then, if later you abandon any advocacy for them?

If the hold-up is because mandating health insurance participation versus a fine is unconstitutional, where is the respect for the constitution when conservatives try to approach Church and State to each other, which is expressly forbidden by our constitution? Is it that respect for the constitution is only good when it suits their interests?

If health care is not a right and people shouldn't impose on providers who built a hospital and made expensive drugs available, etc., why are the conservatives against the notion that people should purchase health insurance (or else pay a fine) so that they don't go uninsured to an emergency room and force the doctors to treat them for free?

I'm left with the impression that their arguments are twisted to fit whatever is the talking point or the agenda, but don't keep internal coherence.

Some of the conservative arguments about deficit and taxation in this discussion are solid and did influence my thoughts on the matter, and I have acknowledged it twice (I believe I'm the only one here so far who has been giving credit to the "other side").

But then, if I decided to be influenced by these solid arguments and were to vote Republican in the next elections, who then should I trust? The last Republican president had no fiscal responsibility whatsoever and pushed our deficit up, squandered the good will of the world for us, engaged in a futile war, sat down and watched while a major economic crisis was brewing in a deregulated, pro-business market, and had one of the most disastrous two terms in the history of this nation. 

Then I look at the prospective candidates for 2012. One is that idiot Sarah Palin. Another one is that religious fundamentalist Mike Huckabee (see above for separation between Church and State). Then there is that clown Donald Trump who keeps yelling out lout that the president wasn't born in the United Stated (come on, a birther???). There is two-faced Mitt Romney who says he is against the Health Care Law after implementing and championing the exact same thing in Massachusetts. 

And whose company would I keep? I've just heard in the radio that 47% of Republican voters believe that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. Whaaaat??? Is that party being overtaken by the crazy fringe???

Thanks, but no, thanks. I'll have to continue to vote Democrat.


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## mmsbls

Almaviva said:


> Why do conservatives care so much for you while you're a fetus, but stop caring after you're born? Are they only pro-life when said life is unborn, but once it is born, they don't want to preserve that life any longer? If we cut Medicaid, many poor children will be left without preventive medical care and screenings, and then may die from undiagnosed diseases (such as childhood leukemia). Was all the fight to make sure they were born and not aborted, worth it then, if later you abandon any advocacy for them?


I have always been pro-choice, but I do understand the pro-life position. People who are pro-life believe abortion is equivalent to murder. If I truly believed that, my position would change on abortion. I do know people who believe abortion is murder but also feel the mother's right to decide what's right for her body is more fundamental. Abortion is a very, very tough issue because murder is so fundamentally wrong.



Almaviva said:


> If health care is not a right and people shouldn't impose on providers who built a hospital and made expensive drugs available, etc., why are the conservatives against the notion that people should purchase health care (or else pay a fine) so that they don't go uninsured to an emergency room and force the doctors to treat them for free?


The issue here is the requirement to purchase health care. I'm uncomfortable with that aspect of the Obama plan. In practice it's similar to the car insurance requirement, but in theory no one is required to purchase a car and drive so no one is required to buy car insurance. Everyone is absolutely required to purchase health insurance. I understand the economic reasoning, but I still feel there's something slightly wrong with the requirement. I would vastly favor single payer. Of course, in one sense single payer means that everyone who is able must pay taxes to fund the system, but everyone must pay taxes for a large number of social goods.



Almaviva said:


> Then I look at the prospective candidates for 2012. One is that idiot Sarah Palin. Another one is that religious fundamentalist Mike Huckabee (see above for separation between Church and State). Then there is that clown Donald Trump who keeps yelling out lout that the president wasn't born in the United Stated (come on, a birther???). There is two-faced Mitt Romney who says he is against the Health Care Law after implementing and championing the exact same thing in Massachusetts.


The Republican primary seems straightforward to me, but I have never felt I understood politics well. Palin has no chance because she quit as governor, her old staffer reported too many negative things she said, and she'd rather make lots of money than do the hard job of president (that's why she quit as governor). Trump has no desire to really run. His campaign is a PR stunt. He "ran" in 1987 for PR reasons as well. I'd LOVE him to run to hear him in debates. Normally I wouldn't watch, but I might pay to watch him. Romney should be the front runner, but he initiated Obama care for Massachusetts. The entire Republican party will be running on a platform against him. Huckabee has run before and apparently doesn't meet with voters approval. I think it's Pawlenty in a landslide, but we'll see.


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## Almaviva

There's also The Naked Cowboy. He is running. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

I'm not saying that I don't understand the pro-life position. What I'm saying is that the pro-life argument is not internally coherent if the same person who advocates for it then abandons any advocacy for that same live being once he/she is born, and is against measures that will preserve that life (such as screenings for leukemia paid for by Medicaid). If that child is killed in utero as a fetus or is allowed to die of a treatable disease (when caught in due time), the result is the same: the loss of a human life. Why is it so sacred in utero, but not so once it is born???

I'd also prefer the single payer, but the second best alternative if this won't do, is to insure everybody through a pool. However, just like speed limits, healthy people will insist in not complying with it unless there is a fine, defeating the whole system. I think that implementing this fine is a small price to pay (literally) for the much bigger goal of extending health care coverage to our entire population like most other developed nations on Earth do. Yes, the common good counts, which is why we have speed limits in our roads.

To tell you the truth, I think it's a no brainer, and I think that opposition to the idea comes from misguided notions about freedom and the constitution that make no sense in such a simple equation:

- Going about life without health insurance: unwise, stupid, and puts a burden on the system making others pay for your reckless behavior, and threatens to derail the entire system since an insurance pool only works if people at low risk also participate so that care for those at risk can be funded. It's not only stupid and unwise, but also selfish and short-sighted as hell.

- Going about life with health insurance thus having access to preventive care and acute care in case of emergencies: obviously the right and wise thing to do.

How come such a simple truth gets lost in this crazy ideological debate?

To tell you the truth, I think that most people who are against this simple equation are only against it because it came from a Democrat. Mitt Romney, a Republican governor, had the same idea in Massachusetts and I didn't see anybody throwing tea into the sea to protest his idea.
If a Republican president had had this idea, we might be seeing applause everywhere by the same conservatives who are crying foul now. I'd not be surprised if they said - "good, now those leftist profiteers won't impose on us the costs for their free care in emergency rooms!"

But if it's Obama proposing it, it must be some sort of communist no-good plan. After all, the man can do no good and has even been criticized here in this very thread for donating "just" a quarter of a million dollars to charity!!!


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Some further thoughts about items that have been discussed in this thread:
> 
> Why do conservatives care so much for you while you're a fetus, but stop caring after you're born? Are they only pro-life when said life is unborn, but once it is born, they don't want to preserve that life any longer? If we cut Medicaid, many poor children will be left without preventive medical care and screenings, and then may die from undiagnosed diseases (such as childhood leukemia). Was all the fight to make sure they were born and not aborted, worth it then, if later you abandon any advocacy for them?
> 
> If the hold-up is because mandating health insurance participation versus a fine is unconstitutional, where is the respect for the constitution when conservatives try to approach Church and State to each other, which is expressly forbidden by our constitution? Is it that respect for the constitution is only good when it suits their interests?
> 
> If health care is not a right and people shouldn't impose on providers who built a hospital and made expensive drugs available, etc., why are the conservatives against the notion that people should purchase health insurance (or else pay a fine) so that they don't go uninsured to an emergency room and force the doctors to treat them for free?
> 
> I'm left with the impression that their arguments are twisted to fit whatever is the talking point or the agenda, but don't keep internal coherence.
> 
> Some of the conservative arguments about deficit and taxation in this discussion are solid and did influence my thoughts on the matter, and I have acknowledged it twice (I believe I'm the only one here so far who has been giving credit to the "other side").
> 
> But then, if I decided to be influenced by these solid arguments and were to vote Republican in the next elections, who then should I trust? The last Republican president had no fiscal responsibility whatsoever and pushed our deficit up, squandered the good will of the world for us, engaged in a futile war, sat down and watched while a major economic crisis was brewing in a deregulated, pro-business market, and had one of the most disastrous two terms in the history of this nation.
> 
> Then I look at the prospective candidates for 2012. One is that idiot Sarah Palin. Another one is that religious fundamentalist Mike Huckabee (see above for separation between Church and State). Then there is that clown Donald Trump who keeps yelling out lout that the president wasn't born in the United Stated (come on, a birther???). There is two-faced Mitt Romney who says he is against the Health Care Law after implementing and championing the exact same thing in Massachusetts.
> 
> And whose company would I keep? I've just heard in the radio that 47% of Republican voters believe that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. Whaaaat??? Is that party being overtaken by the crazy fringe???
> 
> Thanks, but no, thanks. I'll have to continue to vote Democrat.


Alma, you lost me when you gave that tired line about an inconsistency in being against killing unborn children and opposing a cradle to grave welfare state. I don't even really feel like taking the time to respond to it - there simply is no moral equivalence. I am also against the genocide in Darfur, while at the same time not thinking I should financially prop up various African countries. Explain to me why military intervention to oust a dictator was bad in Iraq, but good in Libya?


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## mmsbls

Almaviva said:


> I'm not saying that I don't understand the pro-life position. What I'm saying is that the pro-life argument is not internally coherent if the same person who advocates for it then abandons any advocacy for that same live being once he/she is born, and is against measures that will preserve that life (such as screenings for leukemia paid for by Medicaid).


It's the philosophical and psychological issue of direct cause. If someone directly causes a death (abortion), they are directly responsible. If a death is caused indirectly (no one helps), there is no blame. Rationally they are the same, but humans don't view them that way.



Almaviva said:


> To tell you the truth, I think that most people who are against this simple equation are only against it because it came from a Democrat. Mitt Romney, a Republican governor, had the same idea in Massachusetts and I didn't see anybody throwing tea into the sea to protest his idea.


I heard that years before Romney initiated his health care in Massachusetts other Republicans proposed a similar health plan. I agree that anything Obama does takes criticism from Republicans whether it makes sense or not. Politics is just lovely.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Alma, you lost me when you gave that tired line about an inconsistency in being against killing unborn children and opposing a cradle to grave welfare state. I don't even really feel like taking the time to respond to it - there simply is no moral equivalence. I am also against the genocide in Darfur, while at the same time not thinking I should financially prop up various African countries. Explain to me why military intervention to oust a dictator was bad in Iraq, but good in Libya?


I'm sorry if the line is tired. It holds true to me. I'm a big defender of human life and have made of it the entire meaning of my life and career. I think it is as bad to deny needed care to an innocent child as it is to abort that child in-utero. Tired or not, that's what I believe, and if you have no answer to this or can't be bothered to answer, that's your choice.

Who says I think that the intervention in Libya is good? Do you think that I endorse everything that Obama does as good? I'm not that naïve or blind. I'm against all sorts of wars - except in clear cases of defense against foreign invasion - and I'm for self determination of nations. Libya is in a state of civil war and we have no clue about the other side (the insurgents). We know that Gadhafi is crazy and cruel, but we have no idea about the people we're supporting, who they are, what their intentions are. For all I know, they may be much worse than Gadhafi. Remember Ayatollah Khomeini? He was heralded by French liberal media as a liberator. We know how *that* turned out. I think that what is happening in Libya is none of our business and we're over-extended enough as it is. The thing is, we either take care of all genocides - with the help of the international community - or we take care of none. Do you think I approve of our role as the police of the world? I think other countries have been too comfortable because we've been doing it, and should step up if they truly want to stop genocides (especially in non-oil rich areas).


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> I'm sorry if the line is tired. It holds true to me. I'm a big defender of human life and have made of it the entire meaning of my life and career. I think it is as bad to deny needed care to an innocent child as it is to abort that child in-utero. Tired or not, that's what I believe, and if you have no answer to this or can't be bothered to answer, that's your choice.
> 
> Who says I think that the intervention in Libya is good? Do you think that I endorse everything that Obama does as good? I'm not that naïve or blind. I'm against all sorts of wars - except in clear cases of defense against foreign invasion - and I'm for self determination of nations. Libya is in a state of civil war and we have no clue about the other side (the insurgents). We know that Gadhafi is crazy and cruel, but we have no idea about the people we're supporting, who they are, what their intentions are. For all I know, they may be much worse than Gadhafi. Remember Ayatollah Khomeini? He was heralded by French liberal media as a liberator. We know how *that* turned out. I think that what is happening in Libya is none of our business and we're over-extended enough as it is. The thing is, we either take care of all genocides - with the help of the international community - or we take care of none. Do you think I approve of our role as the police of the world? I think other countries have been too comfortable because we've been doing it, and should step up if they truly want to stop genocides (especially in non-oil rich areas).


The consistency in my position is this - I don't think one should force others to bear the responsibilities for one's own actions. In the case of abortion (with the exception of rape, incest, and for the safety of the mother), it is forcing a life form to be punished for another's actions. A child has to die in this case. With the incessant welfare programs, it is forcing people above a certain income to subsidize those who won't pay, for whatever reason.

And just because a person doesn't believe in funding never-ending entitlement programs, how is that synonymous with not caring for others? I'm tired of the flimsy mantra that failing to support entitlement programs means you don't care about others. Are you trying to tell me that the only people who care about the lives of innocent children are those who support socialized medicine programs? Because I defy you to logically prove that. My life and my profession are focused on trying to help treat people with debilitating chronic infections. I think that people should help out others if they can. But I don't think force should play a part.


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## Guest

Alma,
My criticism of Obama's contributions is not against how much he spent. My criticism is that he, and other Democrats, claim that rich people should pay more. Okay. So why doesn't he? There is already a mechanism in place by which people can make donations to the U.S. Treasury. So why doesn't he do that? He can set the example.

As to the "unfairness" of criticism of Obama's policies - well, considering we heard comparisons of Bush to Hitler, and vitriol and hatred spewed against him for 8 years, I find it hard to be outraged here. How much was Bush harangued over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and warrantless wiretaps? And Obama has continued every single one of those! Yet where is the constant criticism from the left? When Bush did it, it was horrible and the downfall of our way of life! When Obama does it, it goes unnoticed by all but the most strident of leftists. I'm sorry, but don't expect sympathy regarding the "unfairness" of criticism. It is the same game that both parties play. It is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.


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## science

DrMike said:


> How much was Bush harangued over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and warrantless wiretaps? And Obama has continued every single one of those! Yet where is the constant criticism from the left? When Bush did it, it was horrible and the downfall of our way of life! When Obama does it, it goes unnoticed by all but the most strident of leftists. I'm sorry, but don't expect sympathy regarding the "unfairness" of criticism. It is the same game that both parties play. It is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.


This is a good point.

Behind the hypocrisy lies trust: there are people who trusted Bush not to be a tyrant, because to them he seemed like a good man trying to do a hard job. There are people that trust Obama for the same reason. But they are not the same set of people. The difference is prejudice. One acts like a southern *******, a good ol' boy, a typical Southern Baptist fundamentalist, and there are a lot of people who trust that act, and there are a lot of people who don't. The other acts like an Ivy League intellectual, and there are a lot of people who trust that and others who don't. At least some of the anti-Obama passion is motivated by race as well. But in either case, it's prejudice.

If you're actually concerned about executive power, both presidents have been bad.

Thing is, I'd do it too. Both Bush and Obama calculate that Americans value protection from terrorists more than we value freedom, that a terrorist attack would hurt their popularity more than un-Constitutional abuse of executive power. I'd make that calculation too, especially if a quarter of the country believed I were a crypto-Muslim. Until the American people value freedom more than we fear terrorism, probably all presidents will make that calculation - and by then it might be too late.


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## science

Almaviva said:


> I'm sorry if the line is tired. It holds true to me. I'm a big defender of human life and have made of it the entire meaning of my life and career. I think it is as bad to deny needed care to an innocent child as it is to abort that child in-utero. Tired or not, that's what I believe, and if you have no answer to this or can't be bothered to answer, that's your choice.


I agree, and I think there is an answer, and it has to do with the empowerment of women, the relative dis-empowerment of men.


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## Ralfy

DrMike said:


> Yes, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is recognized as a liberal-leaning think tank that likes to describe conservative ideas as "radical" and likes to demagogue conservative policies. Will you give as much credence to conservative analyses were I to cite for you a Heritage Foundation study?


Well, the report actually questions Heritage arguments. See for yourself.

Your argument also implies that we must look at a source that is not "recognized" as "leaning" towards one political view or another. Can you name one such group that looks at this issue?

Finally, that's a odd way of arguing, i.e., starting your message with "yes" (i.e., tacitly admitting that you did err in referring to the journalists' academic credentials) and then looking for another excuse, i.e., the source is "liberal-leaning".


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## Ralfy

DrMike said:


> Alma,
> My criticism of Obama's contributions is not against how much he spent. My criticism is that he, and other Democrats, claim that rich people should pay more. Okay. So why doesn't he? There is already a mechanism in place by which people can make donations to the U.S. Treasury. So why doesn't he do that? He can set the example.
> 
> As to the "unfairness" of criticism of Obama's policies - well, considering we heard comparisons of Bush to Hitler, and vitriol and hatred spewed against him for 8 years, I find it hard to be outraged here. How much was Bush harangued over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and warrantless wiretaps? And Obama has continued every single one of those! Yet where is the constant criticism from the left? When Bush did it, it was horrible and the downfall of our way of life! When Obama does it, it goes unnoticed by all but the most strident of leftists. I'm sorry, but don't expect sympathy regarding the "unfairness" of criticism. It is the same game that both parties play. It is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.


Bush and Obama, together with previous Presidents, are Reagan clones.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> The consistency in my position is this - I don't think one should force others to bear the responsibilities for one's own actions. In the case of abortion (with the exception of rape, incest, and for the safety of the mother), it is forcing a life form to be punished for another's actions. A child has to die in this case. With the incessant welfare programs, it is forcing people above a certain income to subsidize those who won't pay, for whatever reason.
> 
> And just because a person doesn't believe in funding never-ending entitlement programs, how is that synonymous with not caring for others? I'm tired of the flimsy mantra that failing to support entitlement programs means you don't care about others. Are you trying to tell me that the only people who care about the lives of innocent children are those who support socialized medicine programs? Because I defy you to logically prove that. My life and my profession are focused on trying to help treat people with debilitating chronic infections. I think that people should help out others if they can. But I don't think force should play a part.


Dr. Mike, a very insightful post above made mention of philosophical and psychological differences as being behind the horror against abortion, and the cold acceptance of a poor child's death for lack of timely diagnosis and treatment of childhood leukemia.
But it *is* the same loss of human life. Actually the child who dies from leukemia suffers a lot more. I don't know about you, you seem to be involved in lab virology research. Great, I value your expertise and your contribution. But I've been a part of the frontline, and children with leukemia have died in my arms. I'd invite you to spend a week in a Hematology-Oncology pediatric intensive care unit, and you might get out of the experience with some of your views shaken and changed. That a single of these young lives is lost to a treatable disease because our country - the richest in the world - doesn't provide access to health care to all its citizens, is a low dirty shame. It is easy to be against what you call "socialized medicine programs," "endless entitlement programs" and "cradle to grave welfare state" when you don't get attached to Johnny after fighting a good fight with him for one month, and then you get there in the morning, see a naked bed being cleaned up and sterilized, and you ask the nurse, what happened to Johnny? The answer is, he passed away one hour ago. Then you have to go and break the news to the parents. Do this, and you may see what I'm saying in a more concrete way. I don't know if this is good enough logical proof, maybe not. But maybe I would be able to prove it to you emotionally, if you had this kind of experience.

What you and other conservatives denounce out loud as communism, governmental interference, use of force, and a way for all these parasites to try and extract from the rich their hard earned money, I call a civilized rich nation caring for its citizens and keeping the Johnnys of this world alive. Our perspectives won't ever be the same. You'll be looking at electronic microscopes in your viral research (and I thank you for it), while I'll be holding Johnny's hands while he is bleeding from his gums and struggling to breathe, then I'll be closing his eyes and pronouncing him dead, and will break the news to the devastated parents, knowing that if this US citizen, this young innocent citizen of the richest nation on Earth had been diagnosed 3 months earlier by a simple CBC with differential that costs 10 bucks but he didn't have because his parents were uninsured, he'd be alive and well. The point of how abortion is much more horrible than this, is totally and completely lost on me.

Bravo, Dr. Mike. You and your conservative friends can keep thinking that abortion is a monstrosity (I agree) while future baby Johnny is in his mom's uterus, but once Johnny is born, we don't really need to help him out because doing so would be some sort of horrible communist plot to exploit the rich and redistribute wealth. Go say so to Johnny's mother in his funeral. I bet she will understand you.


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> Dr. Mike, a very insightful post above made mention of philosophical and psychological differences as being behind the horror against abortion, and the cold acceptance of a poor child's death for lack of timely diagnosis and treatment of childhood leukemia.
> But it *is* the same loss of human life. Actually the child who dies from leukemia suffers a lot more. I don't know about you, you seem to be involved in lab virology research. Great, I value your expertise and your contribution. But I've been a part of the frontline, and children with leukemia have died in my arms. I'd invite you to spend a week in a Hematology-Oncology pediatric intensive care unit, and you might get out of the experience with some of your views shaken and changed. That a single of these young lives is lost to a treatable disease because our country - the richest in the world - doesn't provide access to health care to all its citizens, is a low dirty shame. It is easy to be against what you call "socialized medicine programs," "endless entitlement programs" and "cradle to grave welfare state" when you don't get attached to Johnny after fighting a good fight with him for one month, and then you get there in the morning, see a naked bed being cleaned up and sterilized, and you ask the nurse, what happened to Johnny? The answer is, he passed away one hour ago. Then you have to go and break the news to the parents. Do this, and you may see what I'm saying in a more concrete way. I don't know if I have proved it logically to you, maybe not. But maybe I would be able to prove it to you emotionally, if you had this kind of experience.
> 
> What you and other conservatives denounce out loud as communism, governmental interference, use of force, and a way for all these parasites to try and extract from the rich their hard earned money, I call a civilized rich nation caring for its citizens and keeping the Johnnys of this world alive. Our perspectives won't ever be the same. You'll be looking at electronic microscopes in your viral research (and I thank you for it), while I'll be holding Johnny's hands while he is bleeding from his gums and struggling to breathe, then I'll be closing his eyes and pronouncing him dead, and will break the news to the devastated parents, knowing that if this US citizen, this young innocent citizen of the richest nation on Earth had been diagnosed 3 months earlier by a simple CBC with differential that costs 10 bucks but he didn't have because his parents were uninsured, he'd be alive and well. The point of how abortion is much more horrible than this, is totally and completely lost on me.
> 
> Bravo, Dr. Mike. You and your conservative friends can keep thinking that abortion is a monstrosity (I agree) while future baby Johnny is in his mom's uterus, but once Johnny is born, we don't really need to help him out because doing so would be some sort of horrible communist plot to exploit the rich and redistribute wealth. Go say so to Johnny's mother in his funeral. I bet she will understand you.


Don't take this the wrong way, Alma, because I generally like discussing things with you. But if that wasn't the most blatant example of demagoguery I have seen in I don't know how many of these discussions I've participated in, I don't know what is. You have managed to paint me as some kind of uncaring monster for holding the position I do. Did you know that cancer survival rates in the U.S. are about even, if not slightly higher, than most of your prized European countries? So your unspoken assertion that Johnny would be alive were we to follow their example, while emotionally appealing, doesn't match up with any facts that you could provide. But it sure made me look horrible for what I believe, now didn't it, and that is more important.

You know, I participate in a lot of these types of threads, but I defy any of you to find a post of mine on any of them that uses demagoguery as blatantly as the above quoted post. What is it, like 4 or 5 on 1, and you still have to stoop to such nasty postings? Johnny is dead because evil, uncaring people like Dr. Mike think that Obama's health care plan is bad for the country. Screw you.

Yeah, Alma, you are more emotionally invested in what you do. Do you know why I got into studying immunity to chronic viral infections? Because I held my dad in my arms at the age of 16 as he died from complications from a liver transplant that was necessary due to his being completely cirrhotic, the long-term effect of a combination of hemochromatosis and a blood transfusion-acquired hepatitis C virus infection he acquired earlier in life. So don't pretend like you are the only one who gives a damn. And I am now through with this thread. Congratulations, you pissed me off enough to bow out of this thread - you win, I lose. I'm heartless and uncaring. I'll see you later - I need to go see how many people I can let die in the streets.


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## science

Dr. Mike, I wish you'd stay long enough to explain to us how your position has been misrepresented. Denying healthcare means people die. That's precisely what's at stake.


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> Don't take this the wrong way, Alma, because I generally like discussing things with you. But if that wasn't the most blatant example of demagoguery I have seen in I don't know how many of these discussions I've participated in, I don't know what is. You have managed to paint me as some kind of uncaring monster for holding the position I do. Did you know that cancer survival rates in the U.S. are about even, if not slightly higher, than most of your prized European countries? So your unspoken assertion that Johnny would be alive were we to follow their example, while emotionally appealing, doesn't match up with any facts that you could provide. But it sure made me look horrible for what I believe, now didn't it, and that is more important.
> 
> You know, I participate in a lot of these types of threads, but I defy any of you to find a post of mine on any of them that uses demagoguery as blatantly as the above quoted post. What is it, like 4 or 5 on 1, and you still have to stoop to such nasty postings? Johnny is dead because evil, uncaring people like Dr. Mike think that Obama's health care plan is bad for the country. Screw you.
> 
> Yeah, Alma, you are more emotionally invested in what you do. Do you know why I got into studying immunity to chronic viral infections? Because I held my dad in my arms at the age of 16 as he died from complications from a liver transplant that was necessary due to his being completely cirrhotic, the long-term effect of a combination of hemochromatosis and a blood transfusion-acquired hepatitis C virus infection he acquired earlier in life. So don't pretend like you are the only one who gives a damn. And I am now through with this thread. Congratulations, you pissed me off enough to bow out of this thread - you win, I lose. I'm heartless and uncaring. I'll see you later - I need to go see how many people I can let die in the streets.


While I understand how I pissed you off, what you call demagoguery is real life experience. I *have* worked in a Hematology-Oncology pediatric intensive care unit and *have* had a number of kids diagnosed too late to be saved due to lack of insurance, and they *have* died in my hands. I *have* broken the news to devastated parents. My passion about this comes from having witnessed too many deaths that could have been avoided, especially in the donut hole of the working poor who aren't poor enough to have Medicaid but aren't rich enough to purchase good health insurance. Conservatives will say, well, we'll fix these cases through charity. No, you won't. They'll continue to die. Charity doesn't cover the 40 million uninsured citizens we have in this country. We do well in cancer survival rates? Sure, we still have some 85% of our citizens covered, and we concentrate so much on end of life care that we boost those numbers by prolonging the life of some elderly cancer victims (through Medicare, mind you), and cancer strikes preferentially the elderly. But go look at the same numbers when you isolate the uninsured from the rest of the population, and you'll see what I mean. Oh, cut Medicare and you'll see what will happen to our nice cancer survival rates.

For me, one lost life is one too many, if it can be avoided by good preventive medicine and good screening thanks to universal coverage of our population. You guys call it communism. I call it good practice, and what a rich country should do. Like I said, we see it so differently that you may be right about quitting the discussion because I doubt you'll see it how I see it if you haven't had the career experiences that I have had. It's a lot easier to deal with numbers in an abstract discussion about taxes and entitlements, than to hold dying Johnny's hands, as much as you call it demagoguery. I hadn't introduced such a lively picture (of, I repeat, real life events) before, but you asked me for logical proof. I told you, I don't have logical proof, but i do have emotional proof. You couldn't handle it (although like I said, it's not a hypothetical case, it's stuff I've been through in my real life/career). Too bad. If you guys can't handle what happens *in real life* when you scream "communism" at an attempt to provide health care to all of our citizens, then maybe you shouldn't be screaming "communism" in the first place. Choices have consequences. I showed you one, and you couldn't handle it. Nice.

Oh, thanks for the "screw you." I thought we were grown men here who were able to keep it civil and refrain from personal attacks. Guess not. How do you open your post with "don't take this the wrong way" and then go ahead and say "screw you?" How am I supposed to take it, the right way? Should I then go and indeed screw myself, is this the right way to take it? I'm at a loss here, I'm not sure what is the wrong or the right way to take this, please clarify, if you're still reading this.

Sorry to hear about your father, and like I said before, thanks for your work and expertise in virology and immunology.

-----------

For others who are still in this discussion:

Interesting, the newspaper today has on its front page "CEOs urge deficit action" - and we learn that business leaders - more than 100 CEOs from major companies - urged Congress to - guess what? Increase taxes. "We do not seek sacrifice for its own sake. But we - and we believe all Americans - are prepared to contribute our fair share to make our country sound, secure and strong again. What is good for America is good for American business." I guess I was right after all. The rich guys themselves see it, while the conservatives scream "Communism! Redistribution of wealth!"

-----------

About genocides and civil wars:

Let's be honest. The major Western countries intervene when it suits their interests. Look at the Ivory Coast. Why is it that the US and NATO didn't move a finger when they got involved in a civil war very similar to the one in Libya? You guessed it. No oil. They do have cocoa, though. It looks like the price of chocolate is going up. So who went in alone? France. They did put troops on the ground and helped the rebels in order to put an end to the civil war and bring about stability (although then, immediately the winning side, the rebels, started to rape and kill and loot and commit other crimes against humanity, just as bad as the dictator being ousted was doing). Why France? Oh well, they didn't want to put up with a wave of political refuges and illegal immigrants from their ex-colony. They were the only European country that had an interest in stabilizing the conflict - not because of chocolate (the Belgians might be more interested), but because they were the ideal destination for millions of poor Africans fleeing the conflict. So, they went in, alone. Quite interesting. So much hypocrisy in the world!


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## science

Almaviva said:


> So much hypocrisy in the world!


A long post and a good one - I look forward to seeing whether the CEOs gain any traction - but I love this sentence at the end.

What we all need to realize is that moral debate is inherently hypocritical most of the time. People almost always seek to justify the actions that they want to take; we almost never disinterestedly try to figure out what is just so that we'll know what actions to take. It might even be psychologically impossible to do so; at least it's difficult.

For a large organization, like a state, it's probably impossible. So hypocrisy is unavoidable. Ethical claims are usually mere marketing--and one of the most important skills a citizen of the modern world can have is the ability to see through marketing.

So the key is for us to create institutions within which self-seeking individuals flourish in productive ways, no matter what their motives actually are or what they say they are. Capitalism, democracy and science work pretty well because they generally align the interests of self-seeking individuals with the rest of society. The media works fairly well because it often does this.

That's why I almost never discuss ethics. If I think X is right and you think it's wrong, there is no way for us to objectively settle the question. It's not a field of pure reason like mathematics, it's not empirical, it's basically ad hoc arguments and differing intuitions on both sides. (If you believe there's a god that defines right and wrong for us, that's fine with me, you might be right, but that god has evidently not given us a decisive way to find out the definitions.)

On the other hand, realizing this puts a huge burden on anyone who dares aspire to morality. The traditional Christians of yore had a great insight: in a real sense, if we want to live holy lives, we must be at war with a part of ourselves. It's not necessarily the sexual part of ourselves, as that was too often reduced to, but must crucially the self-deceiving parts of ourselves. Our pride - our desire to confirm that our opinions have been correct, our desire to confirm that our choices have been correct, our desire to impress other people - is our worst enemy. I doubt that many of us can win this battle consistently - but the struggle, I think, is worthwhile.

One of the main reasons that I wish Christianity were true is that I wish the grace of God were available to help us in this struggle. We need it!


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## mmsbls

science said:


> That's why I almost never discuss ethics. If I think X is right and you think it's wrong, there is no way for us to objectively settle the question. It's not a field of pure reason like mathematics, it's not empirical, it's basically ad hoc arguments and differing intuitions on both sides.


The disagreement between DrMike and Almaviva was not over compassion. Both would vastly prefer people in need helped. The difference was over a fundamental principle of liberty. DrMike believes it is wrong to force individuals to assist others. He clearly believes that assisting others is a very good thing, but government should not require that of citizens. If I read his posts correctly, he mostly feels the US government has gone too far in requiring citizens to subsidize other citizens (i.e. entitlement programs are too expensive and are hurting the US too much).

Liberals generally subvert some personal liberties for the good of the group. We are OK with entitlement programs because they lower suffering, and we are happier to give up more of our personal choices to benefit society as a whole.

I think DrMike might feel just as strongly as Almaviva about giving of his time and money to help others, but he resents government forcing him to do it their way. Some conservatives believe individuals would do a better job than government at distributing resources.

Personally, I favor government programs for a practical (and part ideological) reason. I think there are not enough people like DrMike and Almaviva to help all the needy voluntarily. Many would fall through the cracks, and I feel we as a country should try to prevent that. So I believe that the government ought to partially reduce our liberty so that others might have a better life.

At a very fundamental level I do not value liberty as much as I suppose conservatives in general do. Given that, I can see how some would accuse me of being socialist, and hence, partly evil (i.e. in taking their liberty, which is a fundamental right).


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## science

mmsbls said:


> The disagreement between DrMike and Almaviva was not over compassion. Both would vastly prefer people in need helped. The difference was over a fundamental principle of liberty. DrMike believes it is wrong to force individuals to assist others. He clearly believes that assisting others is a very good thing, but government should not require that of citizens. If I read his posts correctly, he mostly feels the US government has gone too far in requiring citizens to subsidize other citizens (i.e. entitlement programs are too expensive and are hurting the US too much).
> 
> Liberals generally subvert some personal liberties for the good of the group. We are OK with entitlement programs because they lower suffering, and we are happier to give up more of our personal choices to benefit society as a whole.
> 
> I think DrMike might feel just as strongly as Almaviva about giving of his time and money to help others, but he resents government forcing him to do it their way. Some conservatives believe individuals would do a better job than government at distributing resources.
> 
> Personally, I favor government programs for a practical (and part ideological) reason. I think there are not enough people like DrMike and Almaviva to help all the needy voluntarily. Many would fall through the cracks, and I feel we as a country should try to prevent that. So I believe that the government ought to partially reduce our liberty so that others might have a better life.
> 
> At a very fundamental level I do not value liberty as much as I suppose conservatives in general do. Given that, I can see how some would accuse me of being socialist, and hence, partly evil (i.e. in taking their liberty, which is a fundamental right).


I hope you didn't think I meant, suggested, or implied that Dr. Mike wasn't compassionate. It really doesn't matter to me whether he is or isn't. In the part that you quoted, or in the entire post, I didn't mean to address that issue at all.


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## Almaviva

While this entire point made me angry and angry people say stupid things, I want to correct my statements to indicate that I don't think that Dr.Mike himself is not compassionate or doesn't see the morality of helping people in need. I do believe that he personally tries his best. I was rather aiming at the conservative mantra. I do feel that there is a sort of conservative ideology that blames the poor for being poor and think it is outrageous that we as a society might want to extend some meager programs to help the poor and the lower middle class (the working poor) with affording their medical care. This ideology, yes, is *not compassionate,* and rarely takes into account the collateral damage that it causes, of which I have provided a real-life example. The excuse is always that of considering preferable that private citizens provide this assistance through donations and charities and non-governmental organizations and foundations, rather than being forced to do it by the government. While this argument sounds attractive, I know very well (exactly by having worked all my life in the healthcare field) that charity is badly insufficient to catch all these cases, and will never provide a full solution without governmental action.


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## Almaviva

mmsbls said:


> The disagreement between DrMike and Almaviva was not over compassion. Both would vastly prefer people in need helped. The difference was over a fundamental principle of liberty. DrMike believes it is wrong to force individuals to assist others. He clearly believes that assisting others is a very good thing, but government should not require that of citizens. If I read his posts correctly, he mostly feels the US government has gone too far in requiring citizens to subsidize other citizens (i.e. entitlement programs are too expensive and are hurting the US too much).
> 
> Liberals generally subvert some personal liberties for the good of the group. We are OK with entitlement programs because they lower suffering, and we are happier to give up more of our personal choices to benefit society as a whole.
> 
> I think DrMike might feel just as strongly as Almaviva about giving of his time and money to help others, but he resents government forcing him to do it their way. Some conservatives believe individuals would do a better job than government at distributing resources.
> 
> Personally, I favor government programs for a practical (and part ideological) reason. I think there are not enough people like DrMike and Almaviva to help all the needy voluntarily. Many would fall through the cracks, and I feel we as a country should try to prevent that. So I believe that the government ought to partially reduce our liberty so that others might have a better life.
> 
> At a very fundamental level I do not value liberty as much as I suppose conservatives in general do. Given that, I can see how some would accuse me of being socialist, and hence, partly evil (i.e. in taking their liberty, which is a fundamental right).


Thanks for restoring the calm and doing the "moderation" that I've been unable to do given that this issue pushes too many of my personal buttons.


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## starthrower

Interesting discussion so far! I see things a bit different than Dr. Mike when comparing the level of freedoms enjoyed by Americans verses the European socialist model. I don't see the average American enjoying a great amount of freedom in everyday practical terms. Most people are slaves to their jobs enjoying very little paid vacation, low pay, and insufficient or no health care benefits. I work in the air freight industry, and my employer offers no paid sick days. That's right! Not one paid sick day for the entire year and it's perfectly legal. I think this stinks! 

The freedoms that so called conservatives and republicans hold dear are the right to go on exploiting the working class, bribing politicians (sorry, money is not speech) trashing the environment without having to deal with those pesky regulatory laws and agencies, and pretending to be pro-life while supporting endless warfare. And yes, many democrats are guilty as well. And there's those Wall St. crooks accepting free money from that corporate welfare institution called the Federal Reserve while espousing the virtues of the free market economy. Yes, there seems to be plenty of money to go around except for the people who really need it. Why are criminal banking institutions and insurance companies entitled to hundreds of billions of free dollars, while millions are denied health care or a living wage? Is this because America is a free capitalist/democratic society? 

I'm still waiting for civilization to come to the USA because I don't believe this is a civilized society. Americans have warped values. Jocks and entertainers are paid millions, while health care workers looking after the sick and elderly don't get paid a living wage. And now the republicans want to privatize Medicare which will result in sick, vulnerable, elderly Americans being swindled by insurance companies. Is this what I have to look forward to after paying taxes for 32 years?


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## mmsbls

science said:


> I hope you didn't think I meant, suggested, or implied that Dr. Mike wasn't compassionate. It really doesn't matter to me whether he is or isn't. In the part that you quoted, or in the entire post, I didn't mean to address that issue at all.


I was not thinking of you. You made that point perfectly clear...



science said:


> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*
> 
> *IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS OR COMPASSION.*


These discussions often push people to say things that are probably not exactly what they believe because they are so emotionally invested in a particular feeling or belief.

It is rare that I get to discuss politics with a conservative so thoughtful, consistent, and knowledgeable as DrMike. Almost everyone I work with is quite liberal (university in a rather liberal town). The conservatives I do meet generally don't want to talk politics, don't know many details of either position, and react emotionally rather than rationally (this is presumably true of most liberals as well, but in the university it is less true).

My wife's family occasionally has political discussions. Some are conservative and some are liberal. What is amazing from my perspective is how little of substance is said. Most arguments are irrelevant, and they in general do not have a sense of what data is important to understand a given issue. It does not surprise me that relatively quickly they react strongly emotionally (and negatively).

Although I'd love to see rational arguments on critical issues between conservatives and liberals at the national level (like in Congress where it's supposed to happen), that's probably asking too much. An interesting question is whether rational arguments would lead to significantly different policy legislation. Perhaps the present method results in roughly the same overall compromises that might ensue from a rational national discussion.


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## Almaviva

"It is rare that I get to discuss politics with a conservative so thoughtful, consistent, and knowledgeable as DrMike."

I actually agree. Oh well, now I feel bad for my behavior with Dr.Mike. I sent him a PM apologizing, and asking him, if possible, to come back to the discussion.


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## Almaviva

starthrower said:


> Interesting discussion so far! I see things a bit different than Dr. Mike when comparing the level of freedoms enjoyed by Americans verses the European socialist model. I don't see the average American enjoying a great amount of freedom in everyday practical terms. Most people are slaves to their jobs enjoying very little paid vacation, low pay, and insufficient or no health care benefits. I work in the air freight industry, and my employer offers no paid sick days. That's right! Not one paid sick day for the entire year and it's perfectly legal. I think this stinks!
> 
> The freedoms that so called conservatives and republicans hold dear are the right to go on exploiting the working class, bribing politicians (sorry, money is not speech) trashing the environment without having to deal with those pesky regulatory laws and agencies, and pretending to be pro-life while supporting endless warfare. And yes, many democrats are guilty as well. And there's those Wall St. crooks accepting free money from that corporate welfare institution called the Federal Reserve while espousing the virtues of the free market economy. Yes, there seems to be plenty of money to go around except for the people who really need it. Why are criminal banking institutions and insurance companies entitled to hundreds of billions of free dollars, while millions are denied health care or a living wage? Is this because America is a free capitalist/democratic society?
> 
> I'm still waiting for civilization to come to the USA because I don't believe this is a civilized society. Americans have warped values. Jocks and entertainers are paid millions, while health care workers looking after the sick and elderly don't get paid a living wage. And now the republicans want to privatize Medicare which will result in sick, vulnerable, elderly Americans being swindled by insurance companies. Is this what I have to look forward to after paying taxes for 32 years?


Absolutely.

It's been well expressed here:


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## Almaviva

Oh well, Dr.Mike has accepted my apologies, but still said he has no desire to come back. I think this actually kills this thread.
We'll do better next time.:wave:


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## science

Bu-bu-bu-buuuuuuuuuuuuump

for the People's Budget.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...rich-saves-social-security/?cid=hp:mainpromo7


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## graaf

Robin Williams said it best:
_And if the whole healthcare debate - If you want to know how your congressman and senators are gonna vote, we should actually... maybe they should be like NASCAR drivers. They should actually have to have jackets with the names of all the people who are sponsoring them. Wouldn't that be cool? F**kin'-a! Yeah, baby. 
Then you might have a clue to why the **** they voted that way. (showing sign on chest) "big drug company." got it! Thank you._


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## samurai

This has been a very interesting and thought provoking discussion, no matter which "side of the fence" one finds himself or herself. Timely too, in light of all the flak that President Obama has had to endure for even daring--and, I'm sorry to say, not really suceeding--in trying to make our health care/delivery system somewhat more equitable {public option, anyone?}.
Like Hal Holbrook {"Deep Throat"} in "All The President's Men", I say just follow the money. Ask any member of Congress--especially the Tea Party "patriots", if they would be willing to give up their health coverage--after all, it is provided by the government. God forefend that any regular citizens such as you or I should be entitled to this "Cadillac Coverage"; then it's "Socialized Medicine" and is unacceptable. Just as when the big banks and corporations got bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars with the taxpayers' money, that's fine with the so called Republicans {Lincoln must be turning over in his grave!}. That's not welfare or socialism, oh no. And the banks are still holding onto that money instead of investing it in jobs, infra-structure etc. etc. and extending it for loans so maybe a lot of people wouldn't have to go into foreclosures, losing their homes. But I guess when the hoi polloi need financial assistance, we are merely lazy, no-good radicals. What a system!


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## mmsbls

The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget ("People's Budget") is fairly interesting. In general I strongly favor the policies outlined in the budget - ending our present wars, reducing defense spending, letting Bush tax cuts expire, treating capital gains as regular income, increasing estate tax, adding a public option for health insurance, and significant job creation programs.

More details of the Budget are here (http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf). There are some nice graphs which compare the Obama, the GOP, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus Budgets in terms of the budget deficit and the public debt as a function of the GDP out to 2021. The clear winner, as determined by a straight CBO analysis, to reduce the debt is the Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget.

I don't know how much economic theory the CBO analysis includes. For example, each budget has varying debt reduction, job creation, and tax levels. Economic output will presumably be affected by those differences. Does the CBO analysis try to take any of that into account? In other words, does the CBO analysis try to determine the effect of taxation on economic output, and therefore, future tax receipts?

As far as I can tell, the major differences among the 3 budgets are: Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget raises taxes significantly to reduce debt, the GOP budget reduces debt by having states or individuals pay for services (or forgo them), and the Obama plan doesn't really try to reduce the debt (very little tax increase and very modest spending cuts). There are other differences, but these seem to be the main ones that strongly affect the deficit.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget has several seemingly clear non-starters as far as republicans are concerned - public option, estate tax increase, Bush taxes expire, capital gains = income, reductions in corporate welfare for oil and gas companies, and possibly the defense reductions. I'm unfortunately not hopeful that meaningful deficit reduction will take place.


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## Almaviva

mmsbls said:


> I'm unfortunately not hopeful that meaningful deficit reduction will take place.


It won't. Political posturing, bickering, earmarks, spending orgies, warmongering will continue until our nation finishes its free fall by hitting bottom. Then we'll have riots, looting...

Welcome to the Third World USA.

It's been all predicted here:


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## Chi_townPhilly

If the attitude that many people have concerning medical care were extended to (for instance) housing, there would be people who would consider it their birthright to be ensconced in a McMansion (at the minimum), with said lodging underwritten at the expense of others, if they deemed it necessary.

Think about it.


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## dmg

Two things need to happen:

1. Constitutional Amendment defining for-profit organizations as non-persons; and

2. Constitutional Amendment defining the giving of money and other assets as non-speech.

Once this happens, and after the ensuing legislation, our elected officials will have to answer to their constituents and their constituents ONLY. No more greased palms on Capitol Hill.


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## Aksel

Chi_townPhilly said:


> If the attitude that many people have concerning medical care were extended to (for instance) housing, there would be people who would consider it their birthright to be ensconced in a McMansion (at the minimum), with said lodging underwritten at the expense of others, if they deemed it necessary.
> 
> Think about it.


Do you need to live in a mansion in order to survive? No.
Do you need medical help if you are seriously ill? Yes.


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## science

Chi_townPhilly said:


> If the attitude that many people have concerning medical care were extended to (for instance) housing, there would be people who would consider it their birthright to be ensconced in a McMansion (at the minimum), with said lodging underwritten at the expense of others, if they deemed it necessary.
> 
> Think about it.


If the attitude the rest of us have toward health care were extended to housing, there could be 50 million homeless people, 7 million of them children, and we still wouldn't do anything about it.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Most people think "quality health care" is a _right_. 
Therefore, it's not logically inconsistent to suppose that "quality 
domeciles" are also a "right," according to this line of thought.
O.K.: then, how about "quality food?" Maybe "quality clothing?"

Where do I stop? Or should I keep going??


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## dmg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope_fallacy#The_slippery_slope_as_fallacy


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## Aksel

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Most people think "quality health care" is a _right_.
> Therefore, it's not logically inconsistent to suppose that "quality
> domeciles" are also a "right," according to this line of thought.
> O.K.: then, how about "quality food?" Maybe "quality clothing?"
> 
> Where do I stop? Or should I keep going??


Depends how you define quality. Should everyone be able to eat beluga caviar and truffles every day? Of course not.

And following that logic of yours, with the danger of going rather off topic looming ominously on the horizon, will the legalisation of gay marriage lead to marriages between adults and children finally getting allowed? Or animals and humans, for that matter.


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## science

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Most people think "quality health care" is a _right_.
> Therefore, it's not logically inconsistent to suppose that "quality
> domeciles" are also a "right," according to this line of thought.
> O.K.: then, how about "quality food?" Maybe "quality clothing?"
> 
> Where do I stop? Or should I keep going??


Seriously?

If you're going to troll, then we should be allowed to ignore moderators.


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## Almaviva

Yes, I think that health care should be a right. There is right to life and pursuit of happiness. A sick person is not happy and may have his/her life threatened. Saying that health care is the same as quality housing, quality clothing, and quality food misses the point of the value of a human life. Someone can have modest clothes, eat nutritious but non-gourmet food, and live in a trailer, and be happy and alive. I believe that a sick citizen with a life-threatening condition for which he/she is receiving no treatment due to not being able to afford health insurance is a low dirty shame in the consciousness of any developed nation, much much worse than less-than-ideal food, clothing, and housing, and pretending that providing the former would lead to an escalation of rights is a fallacy.

I perfectly understand that the writing in the Declaration of Independence doesn't imply the right to health care; the wording is more linked to the fact that someone has the right to be alive as in not being killed. What I'm saying is that I'd think that a civilized rich nation could perfectly have on its citizens' bill of rights words such as "the right to life (including the right to stay alive if possible through needed health care)" etc. By the way, ours says in its 9th amendment, "_The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." _These rights only exist on paper because some citizens in the past (the Founding Fathers, Congress) have decided that they were the appropriate rights to write down there. They are not written in stone, though. They are the *current* official rights. A people could perfectly evolve to include other rights there, as the 9th amendment implies. If the people want the right to health care, then the people's representatives should vote for laws ensuring this right like other countries have done, and it would be perfectly fine to do so.

I'd like to add something to all the whining about the Affordable Care Act. I'm not implying that anybody here is whining, much the opposite, this has been an enlightened debate and I have learned some stuff from my conservative friends here (I did admit to it a couple of times, in posts above). But yes, there's been a lot of whining in the media, the Tea Party, etc. Here is what I have to say about this.

Obama campaigned, among other things, on the clear statement that he would propose a health care reform that would extend benefits to hopefully all Americans or at least most Americans. He was elected with 52% of the votes. He got a mandate from the voters. With much difficulty given fierce opposition from the right (the party that had been defeated in the elections), he has managed to pass what he could, with many concessions.

He won the elections. He is our president. Elections have consequences. His party won, the party of the conservatives lost.

If people are not happy with the Affordable Care Act, they can unseat Obama in the next election and vote in a filibuster-proof majority to repeal the law. But while this is not done, and supposing that the Supreme Court doesn't strike it down, it's the law of the land, and it won't be brought down by the current Congress due to the Democrats still having the majority in the Senate.

So, people need to respect the democratic process, and stop trying to revert the results of fair and fraud-free elections. We've just seen a recent example of Tea Party members trying to revert the result of Obama's election by claiming that he wasn't born in Hawaii, and we all saw the complete failure of this attempt, and the ridicule attached to it.

Do you guys want to change these things? Well, gather enough voters and change them if you can (don't think that we liberals won't fight back and try to stop you from doing it by trying to gather votes for our side - it's called democracy). But while you don't do this, Obama is our president, and the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. Period.


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## Almaviva

science said:


> Seriously?
> 
> If you're going to troll, then we should be allowed to ignore moderators.


I don't think CTP is trolling. He is engaging in a fallacy, sure, but this is allowed in debates, no? We can point it out to him that it is a fallacy, just like he has - accurately, I must say - pointed to the occasion when I introduced a straw man.

Fallacies are part of debates. CTP is not attacking anybody here personally, and is not posting to be inflammatory or to derail the discussion. He is posting to express his conservative opinions, to which he is entitled.

I don't think CTP is trolling at all.

By the way, CTP as a member has the right to post his opinions. If you haven't noticed, CTP often changes his font to red color when he is downing the moderator hat. His posting as a member shouldn't me mixed up with his status as a moderator. Moderators are people too, and have opinions too.


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## Almaviva

Aksel said:


> Depends how you define quality. Should everyone be able to eat beluga caviar and truffles every day? Of course not.
> 
> And following that logic of yours, with the danger of going rather off topic looming ominously on the horizon, will the legalisation of gay marriage lead to marriages between adults and children finally getting allowed? Or animals and humans, for that matter.


Hehehe, hilarious. And the blonde chick is really cute.
By the way, I'd love to eat beluga caviar and truffles every day. Can I?


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## graaf

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Most people think "quality health care" is a _right_.
> Therefore, it's not logically inconsistent to suppose that "quality
> domeciles" are also a "right," according to this line of thought.
> O.K.: then, how about "quality food?" Maybe "quality clothing?"
> 
> Where do I stop? Or should I keep going??


How about Second Bill of Rights? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights
* Employment, with a living wage,
* Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies,
* Housing,
* * Medical care,
* Education,* and,
* Social security

The irony is that, until 1990s and collapse of communism, even East Europe had better health care and free universities. No free speech, but no fear of being left without medical treatment. After all, if Western Europe (no to mention Northern Europe) can take care of the people and have free society at the same time - why not USA? My country plunged into Third World, so I can't really preach to Americans - I just wonder.


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## Aksel

Almaviva said:


> Hehehe, hilarious. And the blonde chick is really cute.
> By the way, I'd love to eat beluga caviar and truffles every day. Can I?


Sure, you _can_. Although I'm not too sure about the nutritional content of truffles ...


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## Almaviva

Aksel said:


> Sure, you _can_. Although I'm not too sure about the nutritional content of truffles ...


Truffles are good for you. You know, fibers. My mom told me I should eat my vegetables. I guess truffles can be called vegetables in a sense, although they are fungi.


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## Aksel

Almaviva said:


> Truffles are good for you. You know, fibers. My mom told me I should eat my vegetables. I guess truffles can be called vegetables in a sense, although they are fungi.


Why did the mushroom go to the party?

- Because he was a fungi.


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## Chi_townPhilly

The biggest problem with Western health-care, _anywhere_, is that people have the _expectation_ of being insulated from its costs, and the financial ramifications of their own decisions- the government should provide for me- my employer should provide for me... somebody other than me should provide for me---

Of course, eventually government develops an interest in taking steps to mitigate their costs, and this leads to measures such as one found in Japan, where the citizenry line up for waist-measurements- and incur surcharges for not meeting the official standards.

The peculiar American problem with health-care costs is tort (legal liabilities associated with the lawyer-cash-cow of malpractice suits). The 2000+ pages of the Bill Obama signed made no attempt to address this...


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## mmsbls

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Most people think "quality health care" is a _right_.
> Therefore, it's not logically inconsistent to suppose that "quality
> domeciles" are also a "right," according to this line of thought.
> O.K.: then, how about "quality food?" Maybe "quality clothing?"




Unlike many I don't think people have fundamental rights. The fact that the Declaration of Independence states all "men" are created with certain rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means little to me. First what does the right to life mean? As far as I can tell, it means others can't kill you (unless society deems you've committed a serious enough crime). Well murder has been illegal almost everywhere for a long time. I have no idea what the right to the pursuit of happiness can mean. Ignoring for the moment that the founders thought so little of liberty that they allowed slaves, our liberties are constrained in many ways due to the law. Apparently we have the right not to liberty in general but to a lot of liberties. These "rights" are really a set of practical laws that US society has chosen.

I think society should carefully evaluate what is in the best interest of its citizens and work toward that. Is the US (i.e. citizens in general) better off raising revenue to supply universal health care? That should be the question. Clearly the next question is how much health care should the US provide to everyone?

Most people feel we should have a military (and yes the constitution demands that we do), but the big question is how much we should pay for one. My answer would be vastly less than we presently do. There are many reasons to have a social safety net made up of services such as social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc. Some may say that the "net" is a right, but I would say that the country is better off without a significant number of citizens suffering from poor health and poverty.


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## Almaviva

Chi_townPhilly said:


> The biggest problem with Western health-care, _anywhere_, is that people have the _expectation_ of being insulated from its costs, and the financial ramifications of their own decisions- the government should provide for me- my employer should provide for me... somebody other than me should provide for me---
> 
> Of course, eventually government develops an interest in taking steps to mitigate their costs, and this leads to measures such as one found in Japan, where the citizenry line up for waist-measurements- and incur surcharges for not meeting the official standards.
> 
> The peculiar American problem with health-care costs is tort (legal liabilities associated with the lawyer-cash-cow of malpractice suits). The 2000+ pages of the Bill Obama signed made no attempt to address this...


My question to you, CTP, is why not? If a developed country can afford to provide to its citizens universal access to health care, what exactly is the downside in doing so? Don't you want your fellow citizens to be healthier? Isn't it good for the country to have healthy citizens (at the very least, for the sake of a more capable workforce)?

As for tort reform, sure, it's needed, but it won't contain costs as much as people may imagine. By the way, the Republicans have always campaigned on promises that they will implement tort reform, but somehow they never seem to do it. I wonder if those lawyer lobbies are getting to them too.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Almaviva said:


> My question to you, CTP, is why not? If a developed country can afford to provide to its citizens universal access to health care, what exactly is the downside in doing so?


That's a good and fair question. I think this sort of dialog gives us a chance, if not (ever) to agree, then at least arrive at a mutual understanding. My answer, in brief (which has been hinted elsewhere) is that we _can't_ afford it. We're spending our grandchildren's money doing it. Much has been made of the supposed moral shortcoming of "not providing health-care for our 'neediest,'" but I'd submit that spending money that will wind up being earned by people in the future is, as a moral shortcoming, more serious still.


Almaviva said:


> As for tort reform, sure, it's needed, but it won't contain costs as much as people may imagine.


That might be so- but I still think it trails only people's sense of being _owed_ health-care as America's biggest medical care cost-control problem.


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## Aksel

Chi_townPhilly said:


> That's a good and fair question. I think this sort of dialog gives us a chance, if not (ever) to agree, then at least arrive at a mutual understanding. My answer, in brief (which has been hinted elsewhere) is that we _can't_ afford it. We're spending our grandchildren's money doing it. Much has been made of the supposed moral shortcoming of "not providing health-care for our 'neediest,'" but I'd submit that spending money that will wind up being earned by people in the future is, as a moral shortcoming, more serious still.That might be so- but I still think it trails only people's sense of being _owed_ health-care as America's biggest medical care cost-control problem.


Well, there are always priorities. Why can't the US prioritize to take care of its neediest citizens through providing healthcare by for instance taxing corporations and rich people?


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## mmsbls

Chi_townPhilly said:


> That's a good and fair question. I think this sort of dialog gives us a chance, if not (ever) to agree, then at least arrive at a mutual understanding. My answer, in brief (which has been hinted elsewhere) is that we _can't_ afford it.


I agree that given the present trends (see graph on page 6 of this thread) we cannot afford the present system extrapolated through the next several decades. I would argue that we should keep the general system and work to keep costs down. I consider keeping costs down to be by far the biggest budget related issue the US has. I have heard many views on budgetary reform especially for social security, but I have not heard good solutions for lowering health costs (at least ones I understand and think have any chance of working).

If we can't afford health care, do you believe we can afford our defense spending? One huge difference is that presently health spending is guaranteed to increase significantly whereas defense spending is not. Do you feel spending roughly $1 trillion for defense is affordable with our current debt problems?



Chi_townPhilly said:


> That might be so- but I still think it trails only people's sense of being _owed_ health-care as America's biggest medical care cost-control problem.


My understanding is that tort reform (legal liabilities associated with the lawyer-cash-cow of malpractice suits) is actually a minor part of the cost issue. I agree that we could relatively easily lower the cost associated with legal costs, and there's no good reason why we should not so that now. The CBO did a study showing a certain package of reforms could reduce spending by roughly 0.5% (0.2% from lower medical liability premiums and 0.3% from slightly less utilization of health care services). They estimate a reduction of $41 billion over 10 years. They said indirect effects would decrease spending another $13 billion over 10 years (by increasing federal revenue). The total is only $54 billion over 10 years. A summary is given here:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10641/10-09-Tort_Reform.pdf

We should perhaps do that, but I don't see that as playing a significant role in cost containment.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Aksel said:


> Why can't the US prioritize to take care of its neediest citizens through providing healthcare by for instance taxing corporations and rich people?


The United States (contrary to whatever free-wheeling _laissez-faire_ capitalist images people have formed about this land) has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the Northern Hemisphere. It's why (back when Iacocca stepped away and America's third automaker partnered with Mercedes) the concern was called Daimler-Chrysler and headquartered in Germany, and not Chrysler-Daimler and headquartered in the U.S.

It's understood that this arrangement worked to the benefit of German employment- but it kind of worked against American employment. [Remember one of my previously-cited maxims... 'Capital is Portable!'] With still-higher corporate tax rates, the U.S. would get more of the same of this kind of stuff...


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## science

Chi_townPhilly said:


> The United States (contrary to whatever free-wheeling _laissez-faire_ capitalist images people have formed about this land) has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the Northern Hemisphere. It's why (back when Iacocca stepped away and America's third automaker partnered with Mercedes) the concern was called Daimler-Chrysler and headquartered in Germany, and not Chrysler-Daimler and headquartered in the U.S.
> 
> It's understood that this arrangement worked to the benefit of German employment- but it kind of worked against American employment. [Remember one of my previously-cited maxims... 'Capital is Portable!'] With still-higher corporate tax rates, the U.S. would get more of the same of this kind of stuff...


Is that after the loopholes?

Anyway, we also have some of the lowest income taxes. I'd be very, very happy to switch.


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## science

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html



> What The Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes
> Christopher Helman
> How can it be that you pay more to the IRS than General Electric?
> 
> HOUSTON -- As you work on your taxes this month, here's something to raise your hackles: Some of the world's biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do--that is, if they pay taxes at all.
> 
> The most egregious example is General Electric. Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.
> 
> Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%.
> 
> How did this happen? It's complicated. GE's tax return is the largest the IRS deals with each year--some 24,000 pages if printed out. Its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission weighs in at more than 700 pages.
> 
> Inside you'll find that GE in effect consists of two divisions: General Electric Capital and everything else. The everything else--maker of engines, power plants, TV shows and the like--would have paid a 22% tax rate if it was a standalone company.
> 
> It's GE Capital that keeps the overall tax bill so low. Over the last two years, GE Capital has displayed an uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the U.S. (posting a $6.5 billion loss in 2009), and make lots of money overseas (a $4.3 billion gain). Not only do the U.S. losses balance out the overseas gains, but GE can defer taxes on that overseas income indefinitely. The timing of big deductions for depreciation in GE Capital's equipment leasing business also provides a tax benefit, as will loan losses left over from the credit crunch.
> 
> But it's the tax benefit of overseas operations that is the biggest reason why multinationals end up with lower tax rates than the rest of us. It only makes sense that multinationals "put costs in high-tax countries and profits in low-tax countries," says Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. Those low-tax countries are almost anywhere but the U.S. "When you add in state taxes, the U.S. has the highest tax burden among industrialized countries," says Hodge. In contrast, China's rate is just 25%; Ireland's is 12.5%.
> 
> Corporations are getting smarter, not just about doing more business in low-tax countries, but in moving their more valuable assets there as well. That means setting up overseas subsidiaries, then transferring to them ownership of long-lived, often intangible but highly profitable assets, like patents and software.
> 
> As a result, figures tax economist Martin Sullivan, companies are keeping some $28 billion a year out of the clutches of the U.S. Treasury by engaging in so-called transfer pricing arrangements, where, say, Microsoft's overseas subsidiaries license software to its U.S. parent company in return for handsome royalties (that get taxed at those lower overseas rates).
> 
> "Corporations are paying lower amounts of their profits in taxes now than in the past," says Douglas Shackelford, who teaches tax law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Other countries have been lowering their rates, but not the U.S."
> 
> Mind you, not all global megacorps enjoy such low tax rates. Try to muster some pity for Big Oil. ExxonMobil in its 2009 annual report to the SEC, recorded a larger income tax expense than any other U.S. company last year, some $17.6 billion, or 47% of pretax earnings. Exxon's peers Chevron and ConocoPhillips likewise recorded similarly high effective tax rates. The oil companies are oddities among the multinationals because many of the oil-rich countries where they do business levy even higher taxes than the U.S.
> 
> Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. Exxon has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84 billion in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the U.S.
> 
> Though Exxon's financial statement's don't show any net income tax liability owed to Uncle Sam, a company spokesman insists that once its final tax bill is figured, Exxon will owe a "substantial 2009 tax liability." How substantial? "That's not something we're required to disclose, nor do we."
> 
> Naturally the Obama administration wants to put an end to this. It has proposed doing away with tax deferrals on overseas income. If the plan passes, a U.S. company that pays a 25% tax on profits in China would have to pay an additional 10% income tax to Uncle Sam to bring it up to the 35% corporate rate. "Eliminating deferrals would put U.S. companies on an unlevel playing field," says the Tax Foundation's Hodge, "especially if competing with the likes of Germany, which only taxes companies on domestic operations."
> 
> Hewlett-Packard and others among the top 25 state in their annual reports that if Obama's tax measures pass it would mean a certain tax hike, probably amounting to billions of dollars.
> 
> Would no more tax holiday for GE really end up helping Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer? Doubtful. "The average Joe should be in favor of lower corporate taxes," says Hodge, "because ultimately they are paying the corporate income tax. Either as workers, getting lower wages and fewer jobs, or as consumers, paying higher prices, or as retirees, getting lower dividends and earnings on their investments."
> 
> In the same vein, JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has spoken out against an Obama proposal to levy a special tax on banks to recoup bailout costs. "Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea," said Dimon. "All businesses tend to pass costs on to customers."


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