Well, the good news is that
Kennedy's seat went to Brown. That breaks the democratic super majority. I suspect regardless of when they swear
Brown in, the health care bill is DOA.
A very liberal state voting in a republican is a sure message from
voters. The message being that we are fed up and their jobs are at stake.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
The handwriting on the wall will
be how the Dems handle their reaction to Brown's win. Push back with dirty tricks and there might be a revolution.
Back off, and they'll lose fewer seats in November.
Interesting Mass. demographic: It stacks up with I think
around 36% Dem, 12% Rep, with the rest being Independent, or whatever that state's word for them. Brown had to
take almost all Independent voters to win, and this is a State which BO took by 26 points.
Obama has not even
made his first state of the union address, and his constituency has fallen apart.
Just as an aside, I'd like to
express one opinion.
There is a difference between "Health Insurance" and a "Health Plan." Too often these two
items are lumped together.
Health Insurance is for *unexpected catastrophic accident or illness* IMO.
A
Health Plan is day to day wellness care. Prescriptions, doctor visits, etc.
Where I think one problem is, is
that they tried to do it all at once, in one swell foop. Not a good idea. If they'd stuck to one or the other, kept
it simple (and understandable) they may have had better success. And if they had set things up to phase in over
time, slowly, step by step, everyone could see where things were going, where the problems were, what *needed* to be
done next. If anything really needed to be done at all.
The health care in this country does suck. It needs
help. But they're approaching it like the politicians they are. People so out of touch with the *real* "average
American" it's scary. We need a better way to do things, but at this rate, it'll never happen, at least in my
lifetime. Not sure if that is good or bad...
Last edited by Rbt; 01-21-2010 at 05:22 PM.
The opposite of love isn't hate.
It's apathy.
Your right, they are completely
out of touch. They also think our pockets are bottomless. If they would stop trying to find ways to reach deeper
into them and do things to improve the employment picture, things would be better.
That's very generalized, I
agree. NAFTA, excessive regulation and taxation drove many companies offshore. They need to be attracted back to the
US by providing a climate where they can earn a profit while paying a decent wage. Punishing the large corporations
for being large corporations is self destructive. Entice well paying jobs back to the US and many things will
improve right away, including the ability of millions to afford health care.
Taxation is a problem at the
individual level as well. The government does not create jobs, consumerism creates jobs. Every dollar the government
takes is that much less for the economy and it is strangling our ability to compete on the world stage. Look at even
something as small as my business. A 35% reduction in my tax burden would allow me to hire another person, that
would be a salesperson. Because other companies would also have more money they would also be hiring and buying
technology services from people like me. In the end, it would mean more products bought and sold and more people put
to work. Tax revenue would actually increase!
Not that I think the government needs more money. In reality, our
government has become too large and sucks too much money for entitlement programs both at the individual level and
the corporate level. I do not believe any business should be bailed out. Let them fail. It may hurt on the short
term but the well run companies would be that much stronger in the long term. It also would reduce our tax burden,
putting more money into the economy. People should not believe they have a right to indefinate support. They need to
realize it is a helping hand to get them back on their feet. And it should only come with requirements for job
training and hunting.
All that would lower unemployment and contribute to the ability of more people to pay
their own way. Then we can talk about who really needs help and who doesn't. It takes too long, right? Wrong! The
democrats were going to start taxing us right away, which would have slowed the economy more, but not provide
services for several years. My way would not add taxes, which would reduce jobs, it would increase jobs by cutting
taxes. The time we could start providing medical services would come a lot sooner and be better funded.
I don't
believe the government should be in control of our health care, they have demonstrated their incompetence too many
times already. That's another detail to work out later.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
I mostly agree with you Rbt,
with some additions. IMO the whole Health Care Reform thing is more ideological than otherwise. In the same way
that the Left is using AGW to control energy policy/consumption, they're using Health Care as a power grab. The
authoritarian elitism of this administration is not satisfied with simple and effective reform, they're pushing a
far reaching agenda which will ultimately establish gov't control over every aspect of life.
Of course they
don't say this, but follow the policies and over-arching agenda to their logical conclusion and you'll see
coercion to be far more operative than freedom to choose. This is only one of the reasons why the Dems are pushing
this through in secret.
Our health care system does not suck if you look at what it accomplishes. The reform
necessary to correct its inherent flaws could be addressed in two simple ways: 1) Allow us to buy insurance across
state lines and 2) tort reform. There are other things as well, but these two would bring down both insurance and
delivery costs.
Addressing the fraud and waste in current entitlement programs should have been Obama's first
play if he was serious about HC reform. I agree with Bel on this point, what we do NOT need is another huge,
expensive, inefficient bureaucracy controlling 1/6 of our economy.
"Out of touch" to be sure.
I
wonder if this administration even wants to be in touch. Or, if they do, or give lip service to such, they
completely ignore what they hear.
Obama:
"People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of
what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."
[URL]http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/president-obama-scott-brown-massachusetts-victory/story?id=9611222[/U
RL]
So, even as O recognizes citizen anger, he blames Bush in the same breath. In his ideological arrogance he
simply cannot accept the fact that the people of this country do not want, and will not accept, his brand of
"Change".
Under Bush, I don't recall any Tea Party movements, angry town hall protesters or Democrat Scott Brown
type election victories.
And finally, from SEIU Pres Andy Stern:
"The reason Ted Kennedy's seat is no longer
controlled by a Democrat is clear: Washington's inability to deliver the change voters demanded in November
2008. Make no mistake, political paralysis resulted in electoral failure." (emphasis
mine)
I almost hope this kind of delusion persists. Keep in mind that Andy Stern is a frequent
visitor to the WH, and SEIU was recently given a pass on paying the "Cadillac Plan" tax on high end insurance
policies.
Just as an aside. I got my W-2 from
where I have been working this year.
It was interesting to note that according to Federal figures I am under
"poverty" level.
Fortunately I really don't need the income as much as I need SS credits. My stint in a Federal
Goverment job that was not covered under SS meant no credits... so now I need to catch up. But the main point is
that I suspect a large number of people in the US fall into the same "underemployed" status as I would. In fact I
have heard (granted I don't have figures to back it up) that if one takes into account the "underemployed" the real
"unemployed/underemployment" figures are closer to 20% rather than the 10% you hear quoted. Which of course also
does not include those who have given up.
The other sad thing is, and again this is possibly not fully true, is
that I saw an article about someone who has been living in "Section 8" housing for something like 57 of her 58
years. But I can believe that once someone gets into that "entitlement" rut, there is little or no incentive to get
out of it.
Sad.
The opposite of love isn't hate.
It's apathy.
You're right not true,
Section 8 hasn't been around that long.
One
can look at the history of the federal government's involvement in housing in three broad phases – the Depression
era through 1949; the 1960s and 1970s; and the Reagan years to the present. The Section 8 programs were created
during the second of these periods, in 1974, but to more fully appreciate the recent changes and current policy
dilemmas involving Section 8, it is useful to understand the overall context – what came before and what has
followed since the enactment of these programs.
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
--Lazarus Long
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks