Media ridicules "pay-go" rhetoric

[Nik]

tell me what I eat, drink or smoke has to do with roads, military, firefighters and cops.

It doesn't. He referenced healthcare. Next?

you used firefighters, cops and roads in your answer not health care

I was comparing them to healthcare, genius.

 

[Skull Pilot]

It doesn't. He referenced healthcare. Next?

you used firefighters, cops and roads in your answer not health care

I was comparing them to healthcare, genius.

and there is no comparison moron.

 

[sealybobo]

Oh....the ol' strawman defense, that won't work here sonny. You see, there are good prudent taxes that we do need for infrastructure, that we all use. I'm not against paying taxes, it's just all the bullshit that is being shoved down yours and my thoats that I'm against. Syn taxing is a start, but it won't just stop there...like you might believe. Then there is the VAT tax that will be following, and if Barry has his way, we will have the CAP & TRADE that will be shoved on us, oh yeah, let's not forget the next stimulus bill that might be in the pipeline for this fall. You see that's not the team I'm on board with. Of course, a socialist wouldn't have any issues with it.

I don't use roads, actually, I live in a city and don't drive. So why am I paying for them again?

And no, nothing I said was a strawman. There is no difference between healthcare and roads and firefighters and police, etc, etc.
Your not against taxes...just any new taxes

By the way...a public plan will save money.[/QUOTE]

To a socialist there would be no difference, but to capitalist there is a difference. We don't have a private sector for roads, military, firefighters, and police...but we do with healthcare coverage, in fact we have a menu of types of coverage.
The public plan would cost me more....because I would be paying for my coverage, and helping pay for your coverage...no savings there. The public plan would eventually push out my private coverage through mandates, and then I would not have choice. To me, that would be one of my liberties lost through your socialism.
So do you walk everywhere you go, or do you take some form of public transportation highlighted by the Dept. of Transportation?

Single Payer is in Congress right now debunking all your false claims.

And remember, governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government.

And, most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government. Any sports fan can tell you that football, baseball, or hockey without rules and referees would be a mess. Similarly, business without rules won't work.

Which explains why conservative economics wiped out the middle class during the period from 1880 to 1932, and why, when Reagan again began applying conservative economics, the middle class again began to vanish in America in the 1980s - a process that has dramatically picked up steam under George W. Bush.

The conservative mantra is "let the market decide." But there is no market independent of government, so what they're really saying is, "Stop corporations from defending workers and building a middle class, and let the corporations decide how much to pay for labor and how to trade." This is, at best, destructive to national and international economies, and, at worst, destructive to democracy itself.

Markets are a creation of government, just as corporations exist only by authorization of government. Governments set the rules of the market. And, since our government is of, by, and for We The People, those rules have historically been set to first maximize the public good resulting from people doing business.

If you want to play the game of business, then you have to play in a way that both makes you money AND serves the public interest.

Which requires us to puncture the second balloon of popular belief. The "middle class" is not the natural result of freeing business to do whatever it wants, of "free and open markets," or of "free trade." The "middle class" is not a normal result of "free markets." Those policies will produce a small but powerful wealthy class, a small "middle" mercantilist class, and a huge and terrified worker class which have traditionally been called "serfs."

The middle class is a new invention of liberal democracies, the direct result of governments defining the rules of the game of business. It is, quite simply, an artifact of government regulation of markets and tax laws.

When government sets the rules of the game of business in such a way that working people must receive a living wage, labor has the power to organize into unions just as capital can organize into corporations, and domestic industries are protected from overseas competition, a middle class will emerge. When government gives up these functions, the middle class vanishes and we return to the Dickens-era "normal" form of totally free market conservative economics where the rich get richer while the working poor are kept in a constant state of fear and anxiety so the cost of their labor will always be cheap.


The fact that the "marketplace" was an artifact of government activity was well known to our Founders. As Thomas Jefferson said in an 1803 letter to David Williams, "The greatest evils of populous society have ever appeared to me to spring from the vicious distribution of its members among the occupations... But when, by a blind concourse, particular occupations are ruinously overcharged and others left in want of hands, the national authorities can do much towards restoring the equilibrium."

And the "national authorities," in Jefferson's mind, should be the Congress, as he wrote in a series of answers to the French politician de Meusnier in 1786: "The commerce of the States cannot be regulated to the best advantage but by a single body, and no body so proper as Congress."

But, conservatives say, government is the problem, not the solution.

Of course, they can't explain how it was that the repeated series of huge tax cuts for the wealthy by the Herbert Hoover administration brought us the Great Depression, while raising taxes to provide for an active and interventionist government to protect the rights of labor to organize throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s led us to the Golden Age of the American Middle Class. (The top tax rate in 1930 under Hoover was 25 percent, and even that was only paid by about a fifth of wealthy Americans. Thirty years later, the top tax rate was 91 percent, and held at 70 percent until Reagan began dismantling the middle class. As the top rate dropped, so did the middle class it helped create.)

Most of the Founders advocated - and all ultimately passed - tariffs to protect domestic industries and workers. Seventy years later, Abraham Lincoln actively stood up for the right for labor to organize, intervening in several strikes to stop corporations and local governments from using hired goon squads to beat and murder strikers.

But conservative economics - the return of ancient feudalism - rose up after Lincoln's death and reigned through the Gilded Age, creating both great wealth and a huge population of what today we call the "working poor." American reaction to these disparities gave birth to the Populist, Progressive, and modern Labor movements. Two generations later, Franklin Roosevelt brought us out of Herbert Hoover's conservative-economics-produced Great Depression and bequeathed us with more than a half-century of prosperity.

But now the conservatives are back in the driver's seat, and heading us back toward feudalism and serfdom (and possibly another Great Depression).

Only a return to liberal economic policies - a return to We The People again setting and enforcing the rules of the game of business - will reverse this dangerous trend. We've done it before, with tariffs, anti-trust legislation, and worker protections ranging from enforcing the rights of organized labor to restricting American companies' access to cheap foreign labor through visas and tariffs. The result was the production of something never before seen in history: a strong and vibrant middle class.

 

[Nik]

Oh....the ol' strawman defense, that won't work here sonny. You see, there are good prudent taxes that we do need for infrastructure, that we all use. I'm not against paying taxes, it's just all the bullshit that is being shoved down yours and my thoats that I'm against. Syn taxing is a start, but it won't just stop there...like you might believe. Then there is the VAT tax that will be following, and if Barry has his way, we will have the CAP & TRADE that will be shoved on us, oh yeah, let's not forget the next stimulus bill that might be in the pipeline for this fall. You see that's not the team I'm on board with. Of course, a socialist wouldn't have any issues with it.

I don't use roads, actually, I live in a city and don't drive. So why am I paying for them again?

And no, nothing I said was a strawman. There is no difference between healthcare and roads and firefighters and police, etc, etc.
Your not against taxes...just any new taxes

By the way...a public plan will save money.[/QUOTE]
To a socialist there would be no difference, but to capitalist there is a difference. We don't have a private sector for roads, military, firefighters, and police...but we do with healthcare coverage, in fact we have a menu of types of coverage.

So your argument is that its socialist to have new publicly funded things, but capitalist to keep having old publicly funded things continuing to be public funded?

How absurd. Surely even you can come up with something better than that.

The public plan would cost me more....because I would be paying for my coverage, and helping pay for your coverage...no savings there.

You already do pay for other peoples coverage. ER visits are guaranteed. By the way, a public plan would drive down your healthcare costs because now there would be actual, real competition.

The public plan would eventually push out my private coverage through mandates, and then I would not have choice. To me, that would be one of my liberties lost through your socialism.
So do you walk everywhere you go, or do you take some form of public transportation highlighted by the Dept. of Transportation?

Oh, I do take public transportation provided to me by my city. Of course I pay for that, but generally I walk everywhere.

 

[Nik]

Dangerous/harmful to whom? to oneself?

Yes.

who decides this? FYI I'm not asking for "pure regressive tax that fucks the poor" , I'm not into the oppression of the individual to expand the power of the state (that's YOUR gig)....... I'm for doing away with these idiotic, unjust taxes altogether.

Umm, scientists? Its not really disputable that soda, alcohol, cigs, etc are things that are bad for people.

You need to tax something, so what tax would you propose?

the government doesn't "need" to tax anything. it "needs" to spend less

So your in favor of disbanding the military? No cops or firefighters? Or how shall we pay for them with no taxes?

 

[Nik]

You do of course realize that consumers end up paying all business taxes one way or the other, right ? Not just the ones where the gub'ment feels it perfectly ok to tax us for exercising our right to screw our OWN BODIES up, all of them.

And? Of course its going to hit consumers, its passed directly onto them.

And you have a right to screw up your body. You just have to pay for it. Its amusing that a "right" to do some things (like screw up your body) means that the "right" should be cheap, but other rights like healthcare, well it doesn't matter if you can't afford.

How very fucked up of you.

So how are we going to tax skateboarding, basketball, rock-climbing, ATV-ing, cliff diving, spelunking, scuba diving, swimming, mountain biking, and the other 100,000 ways one can end up in the hospital.

Colorodoman is going to pissed when he finds out his carabiner are going to be $500 apiece.

Those things are harmful to people? No? Ooooh, false analogy then, care to try again?

 

[sealybobo]

You do of course realize that consumers end up paying all business taxes one way or the other, right ? Not just the ones where the gub'ment feels it perfectly ok to tax us for exercising our right to screw our OWN BODIES up, all of them.

And? Of course its going to hit consumers, its passed directly onto them.

And you have a right to screw up your body. You just have to pay for it. Its amusing that a "right" to do some things (like screw up your body) means that the "right" should be cheap, but other rights like healthcare, well it doesn't matter if you can't afford.

How very fucked up of you.

So how are we going to tax skateboarding, basketball, rock-climbing, ATV-ing, cliff diving, spelunking, scuba diving, swimming, mountain biking, and the other 100,000 ways one can end up in the hospital.

Colorodoman is going to pissed when he finds out his carabiner are going to be $500 apiece.

Did you cry when the insurance companies and government made it mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle or rollerblades?

Too bad. The people cracking their skulls were raising all of our healthcare costs. So it was either require them to wear a helmet or raise all our premiums.

How do you tax basketball? Maybe you charge a different co-pay for a broken arm than you do for the flu.

But we can't charge the fat asses who got diabetes from eating ho ho's all their life. Instead, we charge everyone across the board more. So instead the government is going to tax ho ho's so those fat asses pay now so we don't have to pay later.

 

[Nik]

you used firefighters, cops and roads in your answer not health care

I was comparing them to healthcare, genius.

and there is no comparison moron.

Oh, well, cause you said so it must be true. Oh wait, your a fucking retard with the IQ of a neanderthal.

How bout you give me a reason why there is "no comparison" rather than thinking that I should take the shit filled assertions spewing from your mouth as truth.

 

[sealybobo]

I was comparing them to healthcare, genius.

and there is no comparison moron.

Oh, well, cause you said so it must be true. Oh wait, your a fucking retard with the IQ of a neanderthal.

How bout you give me a reason why there is "no comparison" rather than thinking that I should take the shit filled assertions spewing from your mouth as truth.

And later they will accuse you of doing all the things that they are now doing to you.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Yes.




Umm, scientists? Its not really disputable that soda, alcohol, cigs, etc are things that are bad for people.

You need to tax something, so what tax would you propose?

the government doesn't "need" to tax anything. it "needs" to spend less

So your in favor of disbanding the military? No cops or firefighters? Or how shall we pay for them with no taxes?

send everyone a bill.

divide the cost of everything by the population and let everyone pay their "fair share".

the only truly fair tax policy.

 

[Meister]

And? Of course its going to hit consumers, its passed directly onto them.

And you have a right to screw up your body. You just have to pay for it. Its amusing that a "right" to do some things (like screw up your body) means that the "right" should be cheap, but other rights like healthcare, well it doesn't matter if you can't afford.

How very fucked up of you.

So how are we going to tax skateboarding, basketball, rock-climbing, ATV-ing, cliff diving, spelunking, scuba diving, swimming, mountain biking, and the other 100,000 ways one can end up in the hospital.

Colorodoman is going to pissed when he finds out his carabiner are going to be $500 apiece.

Those things are harmful to people? No? Ooooh, false analogy then, care to try again?

Every one of those examples have a high level of injury attached to them. Injuries that are unessessary, but injuries just the same. They will need to be paying more taxes. Prime examples that he gave.

 

[Nik]

Dangerous/harmful to whom? to oneself?

Yes.

who decides this? FYI I'm not asking for "pure regressive tax that fucks the poor" , I'm not into the oppression of the individual to expand the power of the state (that's YOUR gig)....... I'm for doing away with these idiotic, unjust taxes altogether.

Umm, scientists? Its not really disputable that soda, alcohol, cigs, etc are things that are bad for people.

You need to tax something, so what tax would you propose?

So your rational seems to be; screw justice, it's not important, the only thing that really counts is the empowerment and funding of the (nanny) state, that about some it up?

Wtf? If your going to claim something isn't just, how bout you explain it, asswipe.

how about a tax for breathing polluted air, "scientists" have confirmed that it's bad for you after all, that cool with you?

I didn't know breathing polluted air was a choice. Oh wait, its not really. Fail. Care to try again?

Sheesh.. it woud be interesting to see the look on your face when you wake up and realize how cheerfully you've been bending over for the politicians that've been screwing you for all these years and urging the rest of us to do the same, wish I could be there to see it.

And I can't wait until you get sick, realize oh wait, public healthcare is actually pretty important, and then realize that its too damn late. Actually, not really, but it'd be nice if there was an easier way of getting you to realize how asinine your opinons are.

 

[Nik]

So how are we going to tax skateboarding, basketball, rock-climbing, ATV-ing, cliff diving, spelunking, scuba diving, swimming, mountain biking, and the other 100,000 ways one can end up in the hospital.

Colorodoman is going to pissed when he finds out his carabiner are going to be $500 apiece.

Those things are harmful to people? No? Ooooh, false analogy then, care to try again?

Every one of those examples have a high level of injury attached to them. Injuries that are unessessary, but injuries just the same. They will need to be paying more taxes. Prime examples that he gave.

Swimming has a high level of injury attached to it?

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

Yes.




Umm, scientists? Its not really disputable that soda, alcohol, cigs, etc are things that are bad for people.

You need to tax something, so what tax would you propose?

So your rational seems to be; screw justice, it's not important, the only thing that really counts is the empowerment and funding of the (nanny) state, that about some it up?

Wtf? If your going to claim something isn't just, how bout you explain it, asswipe.

how about a tax for breathing polluted air, "scientists" have confirmed that it's bad for you after all, that cool with you?

I didn't know breathing polluted air was a choice. Oh wait, its not really. Fail. Care to try again?

Sheesh.. it woud be interesting to see the look on your face when you wake up and realize how cheerfully you've been bending over for the politicians that've been screwing you for all these years and urging the rest of us to do the same, wish I could be there to see it.

And I can't wait until you get sick, realize oh wait, public healthcare is actually pretty important, and then realize that its too damn late. Actually, not really, but it'd be nice if there was an easier way of getting you to realize how asinine your opinons are.

Typical, can't refute the arguement so resort to childish name calling instead, congratulations I'm sure the rest of your Borg Collective is proud to have you as a member.....

Have a nice day and seek some anger management counseling while you're at it.

 

[Meister]

I don't use roads, actually, I live in a city and don't drive. So why am I paying for them again?

And no, nothing I said was a strawman. There is no difference between healthcare and roads and firefighters and police, etc, etc.
Your not against taxes...just any new taxes

By the way...a public plan will save money.[/QUOTE]
To a socialist there would be no difference, but to capitalist there is a difference. We don't have a private sector for roads, military, firefighters, and police...but we do with healthcare coverage, in fact we have a menu of types of coverage.

So your argument is that its socialist to have new publicly funded things, but capitalist to keep having old publicly funded things continuing to be public funded?

How absurd. Surely even you can come up with something better than that.



You already do pay for other peoples coverage. ER visits are guaranteed. By the way, a public plan would drive down your healthcare costs because now there would be actual, real competition.

The public plan would eventually push out my private coverage through mandates, and then I would not have choice. To me, that would be one of my liberties lost through your socialism.
So do you walk everywhere you go, or do you take some form of public transportation highlighted by the Dept. of Transportation?

Oh, I do take public transportation provided to me by my city. Of course I pay for that, but generally I walk everywhere.

So my taxes won't go up with nationalized healthcare?
The plan would eventually eliminate my healthcare coverage, and would have to have your socialized healthcare coverage which I don't want.....GET IT! You want the government to take care of you....I don't want the government to take care of me...I can do that all by myself.

 

[Nik]

So your rational seems to be; screw justice, it's not important, the only thing that really counts is the empowerment and funding of the (nanny) state, that about some it up?

Wtf? If your going to claim something isn't just, how bout you explain it, asswipe.



I didn't know breathing polluted air was a choice. Oh wait, its not really. Fail. Care to try again?

Sheesh.. it woud be interesting to see the look on your face when you wake up and realize how cheerfully you've been bending over for the politicians that've been screwing you for all these years and urging the rest of us to do the same, wish I could be there to see it.

And I can't wait until you get sick, realize oh wait, public healthcare is actually pretty important, and then realize that its too damn late. Actually, not really, but it'd be nice if there was an easier way of getting you to realize how asinine your opinons are.

Typical, can't refute the arguement so resort to childish name calling instead, congratulations I'm sure the rest of your Borg Collective is proud to have you as a member.....

Have a nice day and seek some anger management counseling while you're at it.

Actually I did refute the argument, and threw in some insults because you made me listen to such ignorant bullshit. If you want to run away and cry because I called you a name, go for it, but I've refuted everything you've said.

 

[Meister]

Those things are harmful to people? No? Ooooh, false analogy then, care to try again?

Every one of those examples have a high level of injury attached to them. Injuries that are unessessary, but injuries just the same. They will need to be paying more taxes. Prime examples that he gave.

Swimming has a high level of injury attached to it?

Eh, yes it does...there is a risk of broken back from diving, coma from lack of oxygen...Never been a surfer, huh? Knarly, dude.

 

[Nik]

So your argument is that its socialist to have new publicly funded things, but capitalist to keep having old publicly funded things continuing to be public funded?

How absurd. Surely even you can come up with something better than that.



You already do pay for other peoples coverage. ER visits are guaranteed. By the way, a public plan would drive down your healthcare costs because now there would be actual, real competition.



Oh, I do take public transportation provided to me by my city. Of course I pay for that, but generally I walk everywhere.

So my taxes won't go up with nationalized healthcare?
The plan would eventually eliminate my healthcare coverage, and would have to have your socialized healthcare coverage which I don't want.....GET IT! You want the government to take care of you....I don't want the government to take care of me...I can do that all by myself.

Well nobody has suggested nationalized healthcare, so I don't know if they would go up under that. What they've suggested is a public plan and, thats correct, your taxes won't go up. Well, not because of the healthcare anyway.

And why exactly do you think you'd have to choose the public plan?

Really?...so you can defend yourself? You don't use roads, or firefighters, or cops? You are completely self sufficient? You never use the internet (government created it)? Yeah...thought so.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So your argument is that its socialist to have new publicly funded things, but capitalist to keep having old publicly funded things continuing to be public funded?

How absurd. Surely even you can come up with something better than that.



You already do pay for other peoples coverage. ER visits are guaranteed. By the way, a public plan would drive down your healthcare costs because now there would be actual, real competition.



Oh, I do take public transportation provided to me by my city. Of course I pay for that, but generally I walk everywhere.

So my taxes won't go up with nationalized healthcare?
The plan would eventually eliminate my healthcare coverage, and would have to have your socialized healthcare coverage which I don't want.....GET IT! You want the government to take care of you....I don't want the government to take care of me...I can do that all by myself.

Over these [citizens] is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle… It works willingly for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs, directs their testaments, divides their inheritances… In this fashion, every day, it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will within a smaller space and bit by bit it steals from each citizen the use of that which is his own. Equality has prepared men for all of these things: it has disposed them to put up with them and often even to regard them as a benefit. .......Tocqueville

THIS is what bigger and bigger, more expensive more intrusive government has as its end result.

 

[Meister]

And? Of course its going to hit consumers, its passed directly onto them.

And you have a right to screw up your body. You just have to pay for it. Its amusing that a "right" to do some things (like screw up your body) means that the "right" should be cheap, but other rights like healthcare, well it doesn't matter if you can't afford.

How very fucked up of you.

So how are we going to tax skateboarding, basketball, rock-climbing, ATV-ing, cliff diving, spelunking, scuba diving, swimming, mountain biking, and the other 100,000 ways one can end up in the hospital.

Colorodoman is going to pissed when he finds out his carabiner are going to be $500 apiece.

Did you cry when the insurance companies and government made it mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle or rollerblades?

Too bad. The people cracking their skulls were raising all of our healthcare costs. So it was either require them to wear a helmet or raise all our premiums.

How do you tax basketball? Maybe you charge a different co-pay for a broken arm than you do for the flu.

But we can't charge the fat asses who got diabetes from eating ho ho's all their life. Instead, we charge everyone across the board more. So instead the government is going to tax ho ho's so those fat asses pay now so we don't have to pay later.

Actually, diabetes is more of an inherent sort of thing, not because one eats too much sugar. just sayin...