G5000's Plan For Economic Prosperity And Better Cable Reception

[MarathonMike]

I admit I expend way too much energy going after the psychos, liars, hypocrites, and retards infecting the Republican Party.

That's because the GOP is my party of origin and it feels like a mob of maniacs moved into my house and they are shitting all over the furniture.

There is so much shit, I can't keep up.

Our house is fucking filthy and it really, really pisses me off.

Someday, maybe soon, some left wing loon will go after someone connected to the right wing with a bat or a crowbar or some other blunt object.

And I will say, "I had no idea the victim was gay!"

You have deeper problems than I realized, I'll leave you alone then.

 

[g5000]

1. Grabbing a minority Republican position and blaring it as a "Republican Policy" is dishonest. True Lindsay Graham and a few other Evangelicals may be pushing for a nationwide abortion ban, but we all know that has ZERO probability of passing Congress. Same with exceptions, see poll below, your calling Republicans "sadistic" is a LIE. Same with stupid Rick Scott proposing to reauthorize Social Security every 5-years. Why do Republicans ALWAYS come up with moronic ideas? Is it to deliberately lose elections?

Vast majority of Republicans support abortion exceptions for rape, incest and mother's health

A new survey shows broad bipartisan support for abortion exemptions, including in states that have restricted the procedure.

www.nbcnews.com

There is a lot of overlap between the sadistic wing of the GOP and the Trump wing.

Why do they come up with moronic ideas? Because those ideas appeal to the morons who vote!

Have you seen the anti-abortion laws which went into effect the moment Roe was repealed?

Sadistic.

Shit, man. My wife is even more pro-life than I am. She's hardcore. So get this:

I don't know if you remember a law the Republicans in Virginia came up with which would have required women to be vaginally penetrated with a wand before they could get an abortion.

Men came up with idea, of course.

That is mechanical rape, and it really, really, really pissed off my wife despite how hardcore pro-life she is.

So, yeah. Sadists.

2. WOW! You are really sensitive about welfare recipients. I called them lazy, I said nothing about race. Here are the latest stats. I'm happy to learn that welfare recipients dropped 48% since 2016. Also learned that Social Security reduced poverty more than any other program. Welfare is still too expensive, it should be a state responsibility so it doesn't add to the DEBT.

Important welfare statistics for 2021 - Lexington Law

Poverty remains a widespread problem affecting countless low-income families in the U.S. Here’s a breakdown of the latest welfare statistics for 2021.

www.lexingtonlaw.com

Many different ethnicities receive SNAP benefits: White Americans make up the largest share (37 percent), followed by Black Americans (26 percent), Hispanic Americans (16 percent), Asian Americans (3 percent) and Native Americans (2 percent).

According to your figures, whites are 37 percent of SNAP recipients.

Whites are 75 percent of the population, so they are grossly under-represented on the welfare rolls.

People of color are grossly over-represented.

I don't know how old you are but the number one characteristic racists attributed to blacks was laziness.

When someone calls people on welfare "lazy", that harkens back to the old days in the minds of people of color.

3. Your Social Security plan is DOA. SS is easily fixable.

Politicians have been trying to fix SS for a very long time, and it usually entails making it even more expensive and even more insolvent.

I'm sorry you have an entitlement mindset. You call call people on welfare lazy, and yet you want to retire at the same age as your ancestors who died at an age 20 years younger than you will.

4. How does the government make healthcare more expensive. You type a lot, but don't prove anything. Take off the aluminum foil hat when you type next time. There is no conspiracy between the government and insurance companies.

My father worked in insurance for 30 years.

I was once hit by another driver and I called the driver's insurance company. I told them all I wanted was for them to pay my deductible, and my insurance was paying for the rest of the damages.

They said I would have to sue them. I said that would involve lawyers and they would take a lot more from them then my deductible. The insurer was totally cool with it.

So I got a lawyer and ended up pocketing $8000 after they took out their cut.

This baffled me and I asked my dad why they would rather be sued than just cough up $250.

My dad explained that insurance companies want the cost of insurance to go up. They work on margins, and so the more insurance costs, the bigger their profits.

What's more, I have explained to you more than once that you cannot call any insurance company you like. You are literally restricted by law from doing that. The insurance companies have paid our politicians to create no-competition zones.

I bet if you think really, really hard you could figure out why competition is being deliberately suppressed in the health insurance arena.

This is not a tin foil hat thing. It is quite real.

Even better for the insurance companies and health care providers, you are forced into your employer's health insurance plan. You must accept your health insurance from the one and only corporation your employer offers.

Nor are you allowed to got to any doctor you want. You must go to whoever is in the network of your health insurance company.

You are being held hostage in so many ways and you don't even realize it!

And that comes at your expense, and creates an unnatural concentration of wealth for the people robbing you blind.

5. So after whining about racial profiling for welfare recipients, you'd end it. OK.

I would end all existing welfare programs with the exception of the EITC.

Each welfare program has its own bureaucracy and its own paperwork and its own hurdles to overcome. That is a tremendous amount of waste.

It also results in generations of American people being trapped in poverty. These programs do not lift anyone.

Consolidating all welfare into ONE program would reduce costs astronomically.

The pandemic stimulus checks serendipitously proved that a negative income tax works.

Your magically affordable health insurance plan sounds like Medicare for all where the government is the single payer. NFW.

Wow! How did you reach that incredibly erroneous conclusion!?!?

A person calls any insurance company in America they wish. No government involvement.

They buy their health insurance from the company of their choice out of their own pocket. Again, no government involvement.


How you concluded this is "single payer" health care is beyond me. Truly bizarre!

 

[kyzr]

There is a lot of overlap between the sadistic wing of the GOP and the Trump wing.
Why do they come up with moronic ideas? Because those ideas appeal to the morons who vote!
Have you seen the anti-abortion laws which went into effect the moment Roe was repealed?
Sadistic. Shit, man. My wife is even more pro-life than I am. She's hardcore. So get this:
I don't know if you remember a law the Republicans in Virginia came up with which would have required women to be vaginally penetrated with a wand before they could get an abortion.
Men came up with idea, of course. That is mechanical rape, and it really, really, really pissed off my wife despite how hardcore pro-life she is.
So, yeah. Sadists.

According to your figures, whites are 37 percent of SNAP recipients.
Whites are 75 percent of the population, so they are grossly under-represented on the welfare rolls.
People of color are grossly over-represented.
I don't know how old you are but the number one characteristic racists attributed to blacks was laziness.
When someone calls people on welfare "lazy", that harkens back to the old days in the minds of people of color.
Politicians have been trying to fix SS for a very long time, and it usually entails making it even more expensive and even more insolvent.

I'm sorry you have an entitlement mindset. You call call people on welfare lazy, and yet you want to retire at the same age as your ancestors who died at an age 20 years younger than you will.

My father worked in insurance for 30 years.
I was once hit by another driver and I called the driver's insurance company. I told them all I wanted was for them to pay my deductible, and my insurance was paying for the rest of the damages.
They said I would have to sue them. I said that would involve lawyers and they would take a lot more from them then my deductible. The insurer was totally cool with it.
So I got a lawyer and ended up pocketing $8000 after they took out their cut.
This baffled me and I asked my dad why they would rather be sued than just cough up $250.
My dad explained that insurance companies want the cost of insurance to go up. They work on margins, and so the more insurance costs, the bigger their profits.
What's more, I have explained to you more than once that you cannot call any insurance company you like. You are literally restricted by law from doing that. The insurance companies have paid our politicians to create no-competition zones.
I bet if you think really, really hard you could figure out why competition is being deliberately suppressed in the health insurance arena.
This is not a tin foil hat thing. It is quite real.

Even better for the insurance companies and health care providers, you are forced into your employer's health insurance plan. You must accept your health insurance from the one and only corporation your employer offers. Nor are you allowed to got to any doctor you want. You must go to whoever is in the network of your health insurance company.
You are being held hostage in so many ways and you don't even realize it!
And that comes at your expense, and creates an unnatural concentration of wealth for the people robbing you blind.

I would end all existing welfare programs with the exception of the EITC.
Each welfare program has its own bureaucracy and its own paperwork and its own hurdles to overcome. That is a tremendous amount of waste.
It also results in generations of American people being trapped in poverty. These programs do not lift anyone.
Consolidating all welfare into ONE program would reduce costs astronomically.
The pandemic stimulus checks serendipitously proved that a negative income tax works.

Wow! How did you reach that incredibly erroneous conclusion!?!?
A person calls any insurance company in America they wish. No government involvement.
They buy their health insurance from the company of their choice out of their own pocket. Again, no government involvement.
How you concluded this is "single payer" health care is beyond me. Truly bizarre!

1. Like I said before. Some stupid Repubs always find ways to lose elections they shouldn't lose. Democrats have dumb ideas too, I have a long list, but the GOP does need to reign in "sadists" before they lose big in 2024. Giving dems talking points loses.

2 & 5 We agree that Welfare and Medicaid spending needs to be cut

4 & 6 I think we agree that health insurance needs to be "free market", there are many good health insurance companies to select from

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/health-insurance/best-health-insurance-companies/

 

[P@triot]

Note to self: Deficits. "Tax the rich more." Over-regulation

You’re annual “I think I’m smart and special and people are desperate to hear what I have to say”.

Unfortunately, everything you just said was total propaganda. You’re about as “libertarian” as Joseph fucking Stalin.

This is a tired tactic used by the left (why do you think left-wing extremist rightwinger called his account “right-winger”? He ignorantly believed it would give him credibility with the right and he could then influence them to be ignorant left-wing). You people are all too stupid to understand that dumb shit like that only works on you people on the left. The right is too informed and too intelligent to fall for stupid shit like this.

 

[P@triot]

I'm sorry you have an entitlement mindset. You call call people on welfare lazy, and yet you want to retire at the same age as your ancestors who died at an age 20 years younger than you will.

Except that he doesn’t ask someone else to provide his retirement for him. When a man provides for himself and his family, he’s got a fucking right to decide his own retirement.

People like you are fucking hilarious. You create the problem with failed government programs, then you cry about the problem which you created.

 

[Independentthinker]

Apparently some people are tragically confused about where I am on the political spectrum. So I thought I would consolidate my larger political beliefs into one topic and let the dice fall where they may.

This OP will necessarily be long as I intend to point to it in the future when some fool assumes my political orientation.

You are free to tl;dr this OP and continue to bear false witness against me, but you will always know you are lying and so will everyone else.

I have never understood why some people throw away their integrity so cheaply just to score a momentary, fake political point.

Sometimes your integrity is all you have, folks. It matters. It really, really matters.

Okay, here we go.

1. Abortion. I'm pro-life. It's right there in my signature. I believe this issue has been hijacked by the extremists on both sides. Even though I try to remain calm and collected when talking about abortion, I find myself feeling pushed to the right wing extreme when debating the pro-choice extremists. I think a lot of moderate reasonable people on either side of the issue feel that same compulsion.

So here's the deal. Even though America is split about 50-50 when asked if they are pro-life or pro-choice, it turns out when you ask them specifically about second trimester abortions, a supermajority of Americans are opposed. This means a lot of people who call themselves pro-choice actually have personal beliefs which are in direct opposition to Roe v. Wade which allows abortions on demand all the way to the end of the second trimester.

Where Americans Stand On Abortion, In 5 Charts

UPDATE (June 24, 2022, 12:31 p.m.): On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973, with fi…

fivethirtyeight.com

This extremist-dominated fight has been going on for half a century, with the needle barely moving.

And over the past decade or more, I said many, many times the repeal of Roe V. Wade would have ZERO impact on the number of abortions in America, though I believe for moral reasons that it should be repealed.

Astronomical amounts of energy have been wasted on a zero-sum game.

So what should we do?

According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, about half of all abortions are the result of no birth control being used during the sex act which led to the unwanted pregnancy.

HALF!

Another fifth are due to the improper or inconsistent use of birth control.

So just imagine what the result would be if we devoted all that tremendous energy toward getting people to use birth control and use it correctly and consistently.

I believe we would see a dramatic drop in the number of abortions.

And this is a middle ground upon which sane moderate pro-lifers and pro-choicers could meet.

This is but one of many issues which there are forces in our country who are doing everything they can to keep us all at each other's throats, though. Someone wants us divided so we can be conquered.

The pro-life extremists are getting more and more sadistic and cruel in their fight against abortion, and it is turning people off. Every pro-abortion measure on the ballot this year succeeded, even in the red states.

I will not go into the profound dark spiritual forces which I believe are at work here.


2. Taxes. Hate 'em! I don't even like that YOU have to pay taxes.

But what I hate most is the ridiculous amount of exemptions, credits, and deductions which are proven to tilt the legislative playing field upward, concentrating wealth up the food chain. I am very much in favor of people who invent a better mouse trap accumulating vast amounts of wealth. They earned it. But I am deeply opposed to the unnatural concentration of wealth.

Every dollar returned to someone in the form of a deduction, exemption, or credit has to be offset. This is done by taking money from someone else's pocket in the form of higher tax rates. This is the greatest wealth redistribution socialist program in history. It is also the worst kind of government interference in the markets. Your home costs an average of 27 percent more because of the mortgage interest deduction, so you are not getting ahead as much as you think you are.

So who's making bank on the mortgage interest deduction? Well, if your houses costs more, you have to pay your realtor more and you have to borrow more from the bank.

Bingo-bango, wealth redistribution up the food chain and massive government interference in the housing market.

That's just one example crammed inside the $1.4 trillion of government deductions, exemptions, and credits each year.

That's $1.4 trillion each year which has to come from your pockets in the form of higher tax rates or by borrowing from China or other investors.

What we have, folks, is an insane system where two people earning identical incomes are paying radically different amounts in taxes!

You are punished with higher taxes for not borrowing money! You are punished with higher taxes for not breeding or breeding less than you neighbors! You are punished with higher taxes for not buying the right kind of refrigerator which some company bribed our elected officials to put in the tax code.

So it was no big leap for Obama to punish you with higher taxes for not buying the right kind of health insurance.

If we eliminated all this socialist wealth redistribution and government interference, we could radically lower tax rates across the board for EVERYONE.

By the way, this political position of mine is a core libertarian principle.

3. Taxes II. Income taxes are a punitive tax on production. I hate 'em! A flat income tax is STILL a punitive tax on production.

There is no magical quality in a flat income tax which prohibits the exact same $1.4 trillion of exemptions, deductions, and credits.

That's a big secret, but you deserve to know.

What this means is that it would be required to raise the flat income tax rate ever higher to offset the $1.4 trillion of deductions, credits, and exemptions.

Most economists agree that a consumption tax is superior and healthier for the economy. I agree, which is why I favor the FAIR Tax.

FairTax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A flat tax is regressive. It's great for the rich, but it really schlongs the middle class and poor.

The Fair Tax is a kind of sales tax. But since sales taxes are also regressive, the Fair Tax has a prebate built into it.

Everyone gets the exact same prebate amount. To the rich, it's not even lunch money, but to the working poor it can be the difference between starvation and survival.

The Fair Tax also does not have any magical quality which prevents exemptions. Therefore, for every exemption the Fair Tax will have to be raised to offset them.

What's great about the Fair Tax, though, is that everyone immediately notices a tax increase. If you ask everyone you know how much they paid in income taxes from year to year, they would be unable to tell you. They remember what their REFUND was, but they really didn't look at their total tax bill and compare it to previous years.

Just ask your friends and see if I'm right.

But you can't hide a tax hike in the FAIR tax. It is immediately noticed.

Therefore, if the special interests manage to get the leading edge a wedge of exemptions (say, for milk) passed through Congress, everyone will personally feel the result when the FAIR Tax is raised to offset those exemptions. It will therefore be extremely difficult to get exemptions passed.

There is a significant drawback to the FAIR Tax which I won't go into as I have not come up with a solid solution yet.


Or...instead of the FAIR Tax as our consumption tax, we could take a look at Value Added Taxes. Another time, maybe.

In any case, a consumption tax should SUPPLANT the income tax, not SUPPLEMENT it.

Oh, and get this. If you take away the ability of congresscritters to sneak deductions, credits, and exemptions into the tax code, you just took away the incentive for special interest to give them campaign cash in exhange for those tax gifts.

TA-DAAA! You just reformed campaign finance! For real this time.

In all the decades of court decisions, Congressional legislation, and every other effort to reform campaign finance, the money flowing into politics has SKYROCKETED.

That's because the more power we take from the states and centralize at the federal level, the easier you make it to capture that power.

Take away the power to cram $1.4 trillion of giveaways in the tax code, and presto, campaign cash dwindles to a trickle. And this will give challengers to incumbents a fighting chance.

Which is why our politicians will give up that power when we pry it from their cold, dead hands.

Think about this. I do. A lot.




4. Welfare. Here I wander off the libertarian reservation a little bit. But maybe not as much as you might think.

There are some heartless people on the Right who would end all welfare and let our poor sink or swim. The fact is, they would sink.

The poor are not lazy, despite what the echo chamber propagandists pushing their confirmation bias to the limit would have you believe.

Sure, there are people who cheat the system, but they are the exception which prove the rule.

How do I know this? Just walk through a ghetto and see if you smell the odor of boiling lobster or sizzling steaks wafting through the air. Even better, volunteer in the ghetto and get to know these people.

Anyone you see with any kind of "eminence front" going on probably acquired their goods through crime. Poverty breeds crime.

No, the real problem, in my opinion, is the ridiculous number of welfare programs. And for each welfare program, you have to jump through a ridiculous number of bureaucratic hoops to qualify. It's just plain stupid. Misguided compassion has led to a tremendous amount of waste, fraud, and abuse.

These compoundingly dissipative programs are not lifting people out of poverty. They are actually a poverty trap. The only people making out are the social workers drawing down a paycheck. Not that they are paid well. They are actually wonderful people working their asses off to help their fellow man.

But the administrators above them are making bank.

So what am I saying? Would I end all welfare programs?

Yes. Yes I would.

Before any heartless bastards applaud me, let me quickly add I would replace all those welfare programs with a single one.

Milton Friedman's "negative income tax".






So you see, I have not really wandered off the libertarian platform.

Someone, I forget who, has Thomas Sowell as their avatar. Check out the first video.



5. Entitlement Programs. Let's face it. We are stuck with Social Security and Medicare. I say "stuck" as if I oppose them. I don't.

However, we are living much longer than our ancestors did. Decades longer. It is insane and unsustainable that we start drawing from the national treasury at the same age they did.

We are living longer, we should be working longer. This is just plain common sense.

When Social Security was established in 1935, only 5.7 percent of the US population was over 65. The average American was not expected to live long enough to collect Social Security. SS was for the outliers. The actuarials were against you, especially if you were a blue collar worker.

Most Americans died with their boots on.

By 1965, 9 percent of Americans were over the age of 65. This is the year Medicare was introduced to our entitlement package.

Today, 16 percent of Americans are over 65. Over the past 87 years, we have had a larger and larger percentage of the population drawing from the national treasury for longer and longer periods, while being supported by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

As I said, this is insane and unsustainable.

The retirement age should be indexed to an actuarial.

It so happens that 9 percent of our population is over the age of 70. The same percentage which was over 65 when Medicare was introduced.

I propose we raise the eligibility age to 70, and index it to 9 percent of the population going forward.

If one day there was a zombie apocalypse and half the country was wiped out, we would then lower the retirement age accordingly.


6. Health care. I am doing my best to avoid mentioning someone by name who everyone knows I detest. But it is the health care issue above all others which really pisses me off about him.

Not that he was the only one who pulled a hoax on the American people. The entire Republican party did long before he came down the shit pipe.

Health care costs have been skyrocketing for at least half a century. The Democrat answer to this problem was, is, and always will be what was originally called "socialize medicine" and is now known as Universal Health Care. The stigma of "socialized" has been removed by the ad men.

Ted Kennedy was not the first advocate, but he was the biggest. Both figuratively and literally, the fat bastard.

What I am saying is that for basically forever, the Democrats have been telegraphing exactly what their goal is. They did not make it a secret. They shouted it from the mountain. But for most of that time, they were screaming into the void.

But over all that time, the Democrats have succeeded in incrementally achieving the goal. George W. Bush even chipped in by creating a whole new government health care program to pander votes, and it has added more to the debt than Obamacare. Most right wingers are completely ignorance of this. Hell, Bush didn't even bother to try to offset the cost! At least Obama made an attempt to do so with the ACA.

Speaking of the ACA, which was a Great Leap Forward for socialized medicine, the Republicans immediately promised to repeal and replace Obamacare if they were given the power. This was the greatest political hoax of the modern era.

While they were out of power, the GOP passed, what, over 60 repeals knowing Obama would veto every one of those bills. But boy it was great theater for the rubes, wasn't it? They just kept voting for those hucksters until finally that glorious day arrived when the Republicans were given the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Then, suddenly, the GOP repeal and replacement program went dark. If that was not solid proof it had all been a hoax, then nothing is.

And yet the rubes didn't catch on! Unbelievable! They STILL have not caught on!

A "skinny repeal" was passed in the House on Trump's watch, and he did that repeat-a-lie-three-times thing he does. On the White House lawn, Trump held a party and prematurely ejaculated, stating, "“Make no mistake, (one!) “this is a repeal and a replace of Obamacare, make no mistake (two!) about it. Make no mistake.”(three!)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/05/04/this-is-not-the-health-care-bill-that-donald-trump-promised/

But it wasn't even close to a full repeal, and it certainly was not a replacement.

Hoax.

And who did the rubes get mad at?

John McCain.

You can't make this shit up.

As a result of all this hucksterism by Trump and the Republicans, Obamacare is now immortal. A third rail like Social Security and Medicare. Thanks, Drumpf!

The Democrats have moved the ball MUCH closer to the goal. UHC is now inevitable.

That's because the Republicans have never had a plan to get health care costs under control. They are too intellectually bankrupt, and so they have silently assented to UHC. They sold us all down the river to UHC decades ago.

Decades ago.

So what is G5000's plan for better health care?

Go ahead and call me a commie Democrat Biden-loving groomer homo, but I believe we have to get the government the fuck out of health care entirely.

With the exception of Medicare I described above.

Ladies and gentlemen, the government is the biggest player in the healthcare market, and they get to write the rules for their private sector competitors! Does it get more fucking commie than that!?!?


You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY car insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the car insurance which best suits your needs?

You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY life insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the life insurance which best suits your needs?

Avoid whole life insurance. Those are a scam. Go with term life insurance. And tell your beneficiaries to punch any insurance person who tries to tell them to accept your life insurance in annuities right in their fat gob. That's another scam. Tell your survivors to take the lump sum. My dad was an underwriter for 30 years, this is him talking.

But I digress.

You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY home insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the home insurance which best suits your needs?


I'm not one for conspiracy theories as you all well know. But the fact you CANNOT pick up your phone and call ANY health insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the health insurance which best suits your needs IS a vast bipartisan conspiracy.

You are deliberately being held hostage to your employer insurance. How's that been working for you?

You know how I feel about exemptions, deductions, and credits. Well, the tax deduction corporations get for employer-sponsored health insurance is bending the cost of healthcare UP.

Obama worked very hard to keep that alive. It was a big boon he gave to labor unions.

So that's my solution to healthcare. Get government the fuck out, and let Americans be able to call any health insurance company in America and negotiate for the best insurance which fits their needs.

The best part is that if you bundle all your insurance together with one insurance company, you get big discounts.

No, actually the best part is that you would be able to take your health insurance with you wherever you go. You would no longer be hostage to your employer. You know when you get a new job and you have to wait several months before they let you into their health plan and you pray to god you don't need medical care in the meantime?

That bullshit is gone.

FREEDOM, BABY!



I have more. Lots more. But I hope the point has been driven home.

If I'm in the mood, I will add more items in the coming days.

Many of the poor ARE lazy. The left refuse to accept that fact. Not all, but many and of course there are disabled and others who don't fall into that category. But, I was in retail and restaurant management for decades and have owned my own business for two decades now and have had much contact with many others in the business world over those decades. Trust me, the poor have many opportunities to get ahead but they choose not to. They are pre-programmed by Democrats to live paycheck to paycheck and they don't have a clue how to get out of the cycle and whenever opportunities arise to do it, they don't get on that train.

As far as health care goes, BOTH parties get it wrong. We should be trying our best to reduce health care costs but Republicans do very little on this front and the Democratic solution is all wrong. Democrat solutions do not reduce health care costs, they merely stiff big business and add money to the national debt. If we truly want to reduce the cost of healthcare, we need to do things that reduce the costs to big health care business, including the insurance companies and Big Pharma. We need to work with them instead of treating them as the enemy and we need to quit with the attitude of the government just passing on increased health care costs to the national debt instead of figuring out ways to actually REDUCE health care costs. Also, I have had at least two autoimmune diseases and have had a whole lot of contact with others around the world and I want absolutely no part of their socialist government run health care systems. These people have no idea how much their care sucks, all they know is that they don't have to pay for it (which of course they DO pay for it). I wouldn't want any of their health care systems with a ten foot pole.

 

[Rumpole]

Apparently some people are tragically confused about where I am on the political spectrum. So I thought I would consolidate my larger political beliefs into one topic and let the dice fall where they may.

This OP will necessarily be long as I intend to point to it in the future when some fool assumes my political orientation.

You are free to tl;dr this OP and continue to bear false witness against me, but you will always know you are lying and so will everyone else.

I have never understood why some people throw away their integrity so cheaply just to score a momentary, fake political point.

Sometimes your integrity is all you have, folks. It matters. It really, really matters.

Okay, here we go.

1. Abortion. I'm pro-life. It's right there in my signature. I believe this issue has been hijacked by the extremists on both sides. Even though I try to remain calm and collected when talking about abortion, I find myself feeling pushed to the right wing extreme when debating the pro-choice extremists. I think a lot of moderate reasonable people on either side of the issue feel that same compulsion.

So here's the deal. Even though America is split about 50-50 when asked if they are pro-life or pro-choice, it turns out when you ask them specifically about second trimester abortions, a supermajority of Americans are opposed. This means a lot of people who call themselves pro-choice actually have personal beliefs which are in direct opposition to Roe v. Wade which allows abortions on demand all the way to the end of the second trimester.

Where Americans Stand On Abortion, In 5 Charts

UPDATE (June 24, 2022, 12:31 p.m.): On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973, with fi…

fivethirtyeight.com

This extremist-dominated fight has been going on for half a century, with the needle barely moving.

And over the past decade or more, I said many, many times the repeal of Roe V. Wade would have ZERO impact on the number of abortions in America, though I believe for moral reasons that it should be repealed.

Astronomical amounts of energy have been wasted on a zero-sum game.

So what should we do?

According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, about half of all abortions are the result of no birth control being used during the sex act which led to the unwanted pregnancy.

HALF!

Another fifth are due to the improper or inconsistent use of birth control.

So just imagine what the result would be if we devoted all that tremendous energy toward getting people to use birth control and use it correctly and consistently.

I believe we would see a dramatic drop in the number of abortions.

And this is a middle ground upon which sane moderate pro-lifers and pro-choicers could meet.

This is but one of many issues which there are forces in our country who are doing everything they can to keep us all at each other's throats, though. Someone wants us divided so we can be conquered.

The pro-life extremists are getting more and more sadistic and cruel in their fight against abortion, and it is turning people off. Every pro-abortion measure on the ballot this year succeeded, even in the red states.

I will not go into the profound dark spiritual forces which I believe are at work here.


2. Taxes. Hate 'em! I don't even like that YOU have to pay taxes.

But what I hate most is the ridiculous amount of exemptions, credits, and deductions which are proven to tilt the legislative playing field upward, concentrating wealth up the food chain. I am very much in favor of people who invent a better mouse trap accumulating vast amounts of wealth. They earned it. But I am deeply opposed to the unnatural concentration of wealth.

Every dollar returned to someone in the form of a deduction, exemption, or credit has to be offset. This is done by taking money from someone else's pocket in the form of higher tax rates. This is the greatest wealth redistribution socialist program in history. It is also the worst kind of government interference in the markets. Your home costs an average of 27 percent more because of the mortgage interest deduction, so you are not getting ahead as much as you think you are.

So who's making bank on the mortgage interest deduction? Well, if your houses costs more, you have to pay your realtor more and you have to borrow more from the bank.

Bingo-bango, wealth redistribution up the food chain and massive government interference in the housing market.

That's just one example crammed inside the $1.4 trillion of government deductions, exemptions, and credits each year.

That's $1.4 trillion each year which has to come from your pockets in the form of higher tax rates or by borrowing from China or other investors.

What we have, folks, is an insane system where two people earning identical incomes are paying radically different amounts in taxes!

You are punished with higher taxes for not borrowing money! You are punished with higher taxes for not breeding or breeding less than you neighbors! You are punished with higher taxes for not buying the right kind of refrigerator which some company bribed our elected officials to put in the tax code.

So it was no big leap for Obama to punish you with higher taxes for not buying the right kind of health insurance.

If we eliminated all this socialist wealth redistribution and government interference, we could radically lower tax rates across the board for EVERYONE.

By the way, this political position of mine is a core libertarian principle.

3. Taxes II. Income taxes are a punitive tax on production. I hate 'em! A flat income tax is STILL a punitive tax on production.

There is no magical quality in a flat income tax which prohibits the exact same $1.4 trillion of exemptions, deductions, and credits.

That's a big secret, but you deserve to know.

What this means is that it would be required to raise the flat income tax rate ever higher to offset the $1.4 trillion of deductions, credits, and exemptions.

Most economists agree that a consumption tax is superior and healthier for the economy. I agree, which is why I favor the FAIR Tax.

FairTax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A flat tax is regressive. It's great for the rich, but it really schlongs the middle class and poor.

The Fair Tax is a kind of sales tax. But since sales taxes are also regressive, the Fair Tax has a prebate built into it.

Everyone gets the exact same prebate amount. To the rich, it's not even lunch money, but to the working poor it can be the difference between starvation and survival.

The Fair Tax also does not have any magical quality which prevents exemptions. Therefore, for every exemption the Fair Tax will have to be raised to offset them.

What's great about the Fair Tax, though, is that everyone immediately notices a tax increase. If you ask everyone you know how much they paid in income taxes from year to year, they would be unable to tell you. They remember what their REFUND was, but they really didn't look at their total tax bill and compare it to previous years.

Just ask your friends and see if I'm right.

But you can't hide a tax hike in the FAIR tax. It is immediately noticed.

Therefore, if the special interests manage to get the leading edge a wedge of exemptions (say, for milk) passed through Congress, everyone will personally feel the result when the FAIR Tax is raised to offset those exemptions. It will therefore be extremely difficult to get exemptions passed.

There is a significant drawback to the FAIR Tax which I won't go into as I have not come up with a solid solution yet.


Or...instead of the FAIR Tax as our consumption tax, we could take a look at Value Added Taxes. Another time, maybe.

In any case, a consumption tax should SUPPLANT the income tax, not SUPPLEMENT it.

Oh, and get this. If you take away the ability of congresscritters to sneak deductions, credits, and exemptions into the tax code, you just took away the incentive for special interest to give them campaign cash in exhange for those tax gifts.

TA-DAAA! You just reformed campaign finance! For real this time.

In all the decades of court decisions, Congressional legislation, and every other effort to reform campaign finance, the money flowing into politics has SKYROCKETED.

That's because the more power we take from the states and centralize at the federal level, the easier you make it to capture that power.

Take away the power to cram $1.4 trillion of giveaways in the tax code, and presto, campaign cash dwindles to a trickle. And this will give challengers to incumbents a fighting chance.

Which is why our politicians will give up that power when we pry it from their cold, dead hands.

Think about this. I do. A lot.




4. Welfare. Here I wander off the libertarian reservation a little bit. But maybe not as much as you might think.

There are some heartless people on the Right who would end all welfare and let our poor sink or swim. The fact is, they would sink.

The poor are not lazy, despite what the echo chamber propagandists pushing their confirmation bias to the limit would have you believe.

Sure, there are people who cheat the system, but they are the exception which prove the rule.

How do I know this? Just walk through a ghetto and see if you smell the odor of boiling lobster or sizzling steaks wafting through the air. Even better, volunteer in the ghetto and get to know these people.

Anyone you see with any kind of "eminence front" going on probably acquired their goods through crime. Poverty breeds crime.

No, the real problem, in my opinion, is the ridiculous number of welfare programs. And for each welfare program, you have to jump through a ridiculous number of bureaucratic hoops to qualify. It's just plain stupid. Misguided compassion has led to a tremendous amount of waste, fraud, and abuse.

These compoundingly dissipative programs are not lifting people out of poverty. They are actually a poverty trap. The only people making out are the social workers drawing down a paycheck. Not that they are paid well. They are actually wonderful people working their asses off to help their fellow man.

But the administrators above them are making bank.

So what am I saying? Would I end all welfare programs?

Yes. Yes I would.

Before any heartless bastards applaud me, let me quickly add I would replace all those welfare programs with a single one.

Milton Friedman's "negative income tax".






So you see, I have not really wandered off the libertarian platform.

Someone, I forget who, has Thomas Sowell as their avatar. Check out the first video.



5. Entitlement Programs. Let's face it. We are stuck with Social Security and Medicare. I say "stuck" as if I oppose them. I don't.

However, we are living much longer than our ancestors did. Decades longer. It is insane and unsustainable that we start drawing from the national treasury at the same age they did.

We are living longer, we should be working longer. This is just plain common sense.

When Social Security was established in 1935, only 5.7 percent of the US population was over 65. The average American was not expected to live long enough to collect Social Security. SS was for the outliers. The actuarials were against you, especially if you were a blue collar worker.

Most Americans died with their boots on.

By 1965, 9 percent of Americans were over the age of 65. This is the year Medicare was introduced to our entitlement package.

Today, 16 percent of Americans are over 65. Over the past 87 years, we have had a larger and larger percentage of the population drawing from the national treasury for longer and longer periods, while being supported by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

As I said, this is insane and unsustainable.

The retirement age should be indexed to an actuarial.

It so happens that 9 percent of our population is over the age of 70. The same percentage which was over 65 when Medicare was introduced.

I propose we raise the eligibility age to 70, and index it to 9 percent of the population going forward.

If one day there was a zombie apocalypse and half the country was wiped out, we would then lower the retirement age accordingly.


6. Health care. I am doing my best to avoid mentioning someone by name who everyone knows I detest. But it is the health care issue above all others which really pisses me off about him.

Not that he was the only one who pulled a hoax on the American people. The entire Republican party did long before he came down the shit pipe.

Health care costs have been skyrocketing for at least half a century. The Democrat answer to this problem was, is, and always will be what was originally called "socialize medicine" and is now known as Universal Health Care. The stigma of "socialized" has been removed by the ad men.

Ted Kennedy was not the first advocate, but he was the biggest. Both figuratively and literally, the fat bastard.

What I am saying is that for basically forever, the Democrats have been telegraphing exactly what their goal is. They did not make it a secret. They shouted it from the mountain. But for most of that time, they were screaming into the void.

But over all that time, the Democrats have succeeded in incrementally achieving the goal. George W. Bush even chipped in by creating a whole new government health care program to pander votes, and it has added more to the debt than Obamacare. Most right wingers are completely ignorance of this. Hell, Bush didn't even bother to try to offset the cost! At least Obama made an attempt to do so with the ACA.

Speaking of the ACA, which was a Great Leap Forward for socialized medicine, the Republicans immediately promised to repeal and replace Obamacare if they were given the power. This was the greatest political hoax of the modern era.

While they were out of power, the GOP passed, what, over 60 repeals knowing Obama would veto every one of those bills. But boy it was great theater for the rubes, wasn't it? They just kept voting for those hucksters until finally that glorious day arrived when the Republicans were given the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Then, suddenly, the GOP repeal and replacement program went dark. If that was not solid proof it had all been a hoax, then nothing is.

And yet the rubes didn't catch on! Unbelievable! They STILL have not caught on!

A "skinny repeal" was passed in the House on Trump's watch, and he did that repeat-a-lie-three-times thing he does. On the White House lawn, Trump held a party and prematurely ejaculated, stating, "“Make no mistake, (one!) “this is a repeal and a replace of Obamacare, make no mistake (two!) about it. Make no mistake.”(three!)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/05/04/this-is-not-the-health-care-bill-that-donald-trump-promised/

But it wasn't even close to a full repeal, and it certainly was not a replacement.

Hoax.

And who did the rubes get mad at?

John McCain.

You can't make this shit up.

As a result of all this hucksterism by Trump and the Republicans, Obamacare is now immortal. A third rail like Social Security and Medicare. Thanks, Drumpf!

The Democrats have moved the ball MUCH closer to the goal. UHC is now inevitable.

That's because the Republicans have never had a plan to get health care costs under control. They are too intellectually bankrupt, and so they have silently assented to UHC. They sold us all down the river to UHC decades ago.

Decades ago.

So what is G5000's plan for better health care?

Go ahead and call me a commie Democrat Biden-loving groomer homo, but I believe we have to get the government the fuck out of health care entirely.

With the exception of Medicare I described above.

Ladies and gentlemen, the government is the biggest player in the healthcare market, and they get to write the rules for their private sector competitors! Does it get more fucking commie than that!?!?


You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY car insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the car insurance which best suits your needs?

You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY life insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the life insurance which best suits your needs?

Avoid whole life insurance. Those are a scam. Go with term life insurance. And tell your beneficiaries to punch any insurance person who tries to tell them to accept your life insurance in annuities right in their fat gob. That's another scam. Tell your survivors to take the lump sum. My dad was an underwriter for 30 years, this is him talking.

But I digress.

You know how you can pick up your phone and dial ANY home insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the home insurance which best suits your needs?


I'm not one for conspiracy theories as you all well know. But the fact you CANNOT pick up your phone and call ANY health insurance company in America and personally negotiate for the health insurance which best suits your needs IS a vast bipartisan conspiracy.

You are deliberately being held hostage to your employer insurance. How's that been working for you?

You know how I feel about exemptions, deductions, and credits. Well, the tax deduction corporations get for employer-sponsored health insurance is bending the cost of healthcare UP.

Obama worked very hard to keep that alive. It was a big boon he gave to labor unions.

So that's my solution to healthcare. Get government the fuck out, and let Americans be able to call any health insurance company in America and negotiate for the best insurance which fits their needs.

Never in my 72 years, before or after the ACA, have I been able to call up a health insurance company and 'negotiate' with them. They have their prices and you either accept it or find another insurer. But, what the ACA did is get rid of denials because of pre-existing conditions. Even if accepted, if you get in to a catastrophic situation, your insurer would , find a way to deny your claim, this happened a lot before the ACA. Insurance companies had whole departments, trained their adjusters to figure out how to not pay their claimants. The ACA got rid of this:

The best part is that if you bundle all your insurance together with one insurance company, you get big discounts.

No, actually the best part is that you would be able to take your health insurance with you wherever you go.

I do that with the ACA.

You would no longer be hostage to your employer. You know when you get a new job and you have to wait several months before they let you into their health plan and you pray to god you don't need medical care in the meantime?

That bullshit is gone.

FREEDOM, BABY!



I have more. Lots more. But I hope the point has been driven home.

If I'm in the mood, I will add more items in the coming days.

you appear to be what, moderate/libertarian? I consider myself a liberal libertarian.

I do like the negative income tax, it makes a lot of sense, we might disagree on what the threshold is. You do understand that a negative income tax makes no condition on how it's recipients will spend it. Friedman, being a free marketer, wants this because it will allow the free market to be more free.

But, one thing the free market cannot do, is assure that everyone will have access to affordable health care and the only way I can think of that will get us there is some kind of universal health care, noting that almost all of the western nations that have it, which is most of them, their per capita costs are about half of what it is here.

 

[g5000]

Never in my 72 years, before or after the ACA, have I been able to call up a health insurance company and 'negotiate' with them.

That's because you are not allowed to.

You can negotiate with your auto insurance broker. You can negotiate with your life insurance broker. You can negotiate with your home insurance broker.

And you can call any auto, life, or home insurer in the country that you wish.

Not so with health insurance. The vast majority of American are hostage to their employer's insurance.

They have their prices and you either accept it or find another insurer. But, what the ACA did is get rid of denials because of pre-existing conditions. Even if accepted, if you get in to a catastrophic situation, your insurer would , find a way to deny your claim, this happened a lot before the ACA. Insurance companies had whole departments, trained their adjusters to figure out how to not pay their claimants. The ACA got rid of this:


I do that with the ACA.

you appear to be what, moderate/libertarian? I consider myself a liberal libertarian.

I do like the negative income tax, it makes a lot of sense, we might disagree on what the threshold is. You do understand that a negative income tax makes no condition on how it's recipients will spend it. Friedman, being a free marketer, wants this because it will allow the free market to be more free.

But, one thing the free market cannot do, is assure that everyone will have access to affordable health care and the only way I can think of that will get us there is some kind of universal health care, noting that almost all of the western nations that have it, which is most of them, their per capita costs are about half of what it is here.

I am a conservative with a wide libertarian streak.

As for universal health care, take heart. It's coming. The GOP and Trump have made sure it is inevitable. They sold us all down the river to UHC.

 

[Rumpole]

Many of the poor ARE lazy. The left refuse to accept that fact.

I see no evidence of it. I've been around poor people all my life. Many work more than one job.

Not all, but many and of course there are disabled and others who don't fall into that category. But, I was in retail and restaurant management for decades and have owned my own business for two decades now and have had much contact with many others in the business world over those decades. Trust me, the poor have many opportunities to get ahead but they choose not to.

We are all endowed with our respective talents, some are adept in the workaday world, are savvy some aren't. Some people have a genius IQ but are savants in music, math, but are social cripples, can't hold a job.

In the forest, there are dandelions and sunflowers. one can never 'choose' to be the other, because that is not how they are endowed. People are what they are and your view that most poor people are lazy is not based on fact, but bias.

They are pre-programmed by Democrats to live paycheck to paycheck and they don't have a clue how to get out of the cycle and whenever opportunities arise to do it, they don't get on that train.

A clearly partisan biased viewpoint. A nice assortment of weasel words. congratulations.

As far as health care goes, BOTH parties get it wrong. We should be trying our best to reduce health care costs but Republicans do very little on this front and the Democratic solution is all wrong. Democrat solutions do not reduce health care costs, they merely stiff big business and add money to the national debt. If we truly want to reduce the cost of healthcare, we need to do things that reduce the costs to big health care business, including the insurance companies and Big Pharma. We need to work with them instead of treating them as the enemy and we need to quit with the attitude of the government just passing on increased health care costs to the national debt instead of figuring out ways to actually REDUCE health care costs.

Okay, what do you think of Bernie Sander's ideas on this?

Also, I have had at least two autoimmune diseases and have had a whole lot of contact with others around the world and I want absolutely no part of their socialist government run health care systems. These people have no idea how much their care sucks, all they know is that they don't have to pay for it (which of course they DO pay for it). I wouldn't want any of their health care systems with a ten foot pole.

I've talked with people from all of the world and not one of them, when I asked them if they would trade their health care system for that of America's, I was told a resounding NO!

It's nice to have quality health care, but if you can't afford it, can't access it, what good is it?


Oh, become a lawyer or high functional business person, or engineer, and then you can afford it?

This is your solution?

That's no solution because not everyone can operate at a high functioning level. There will always be ants and elephants, and everything in between ,and that's life. to call poor 'lazy' because they are not savvy enough to operate at a high functioning level is cruel and wrong. Saying 'get off your ass' is not a health care solution.

 

[Rumpole]

That's because you are not allowed to.

You can negotiate with your auto insurance broker. You can negotiate with your life insurance broker. You can negotiate with your home insurance broker.

Hmmmm, well, as I understand it, that's about 15% right. In terms of negotiating the price of the insurance policy, brokers may have some influence in certain circumstances. For instance, if the broker has a strong relationship with the insurance company, they may be able to leverage that relationship to negotiate a better deal for their client. Additionally, if the broker is working with a large group of people, they may be able to negotiate a lower rate for the entire group. But, you make it sound like the broker has more power to negotiate with an insurer than they do. That's not quite right. Most of what they do is match to you an insurer that meets your needs. That's my understanding, anyway.

And you can call any auto, life, or home insurer in the country that you wish.

Not so with health insurance. The vast majority of American are hostage to their employer's insurance.



I am a conservative with a wide libertarian streak.

As for universal health care, take heart. It's coming. The GOP and Trump have made sure it is inevitable. They sold us all down the river to UHC.

Democrats believe it is the governments responsibility to assure that all of it's citizens have access to affordable health care, just as we believe in all citizens having access to education. We believe it is to every individual's benefit and thus society's benefit as a whole if everyone has health care and is educated.

do you?

Ideally, we believe in a 'public option', similar to education, where, though everyone contributes to the tax to fund it you can still opt out if you want to, and go with a private school. That taxes are a bit higher, but you pay out less since you are not paying for a premium (unless you decide on going private, but that is because you can afford it).

Either you believe in it or your don't.

 

[Independentthinker]

I see no evidence of it. I've been around poor people all my life. Many work more than one job.

We are all endowed with our respective talents, some are adept in the workaday world, are savvy some aren't. Some people have a genius IQ but are savants in music, math, but are social cripples, can't hold a job.

In the forest, there are dandelions and sunflowers. one can never 'choose' to be the other, because that is not how they are endowed. People are what they are and your view that most poor people are lazy is not based on fact, but bias.

A clearly partisan biased viewpoint. A nice assortment of weasel words. congratulations.

Okay, what do you think of Bernie Sander's ideas on this?


I've talked with people from all of the world and not one of them, when I asked them if they would trade their health care system for that of America's, I was told a resounding NO!

It's nice to have quality health care, but if you can't afford it, can't access it, what good is it?


Oh, become a lawyer or high functional business person, or engineer, and then you can afford it?

This is your solution?

That's no solution because not everyone can operate at a high functioning level. There will always be ants and elephants, and everything in between ,and that's life. to call poor 'lazy' because they are not savvy enough to operate at a high functioning level is cruel and wrong. Saying 'get off your ass' is not a health care solution.

That's why there are rich and poor. We don't live in socialism. The poor have a lousy life, the rich have better lives. That's they way it is. Socialism is not the solution. Robbing from the rich is not the solution. It's not the rich's fault that there are dandalions in the forest.

 

[g5000]

Hmmmm, well, as I understand it, that's about 15% right. In terms of negotiating the price of the insurance policy, brokers may have some influence in certain circumstances. For instance, if the broker has a strong relationship with the insurance company, they may be able to leverage that relationship to negotiate a better deal for their client. Additionally, if the broker is working with a large group of people, they may be able to negotiate a lower rate for the entire group. But, you make it sound like the broker has more power to negotiate with an insurer than they do. That's not quite right. Most of what they do is match to you an insurer that meets your needs. That's my understanding, anyway.

When you call your life insurance agent, you negotiate how much coverage you want. You negotiate whether you want term life insurance or whole life insurance. You negotiate how much accidental death/disability insurance you want. Et cetera, et cetera.

What's more, every life insurance agent knows there is competition out there, and that keeps their prices down.

With single payer life insurance, there is no competition. You are a hostage.

To make matters worse, under our current system the government is deeply embedded in health care, and gets to write the rules for its private sector competition. How's that working for you?

Democrats believe it is the governments responsibility to assure that all of it's citizens have access to affordable health care, just as we believe in all citizens having access to education.

If Democrats really believed citizens should have access to affordable health care, then why do they keep doing things which make it more and more UNaffordable?

All the Democrats have achieved is making health care more expensive, and shifting the increasing costs to the taxpayers.

We believe it is to every individual's benefit and thus society's benefit as a whole if everyone has health care and is educated.

As do I. And the government is failing on both counts. Bigly.

Ideally, we believe in a 'public option', similar to education, where, though everyone contributes to the tax to fund it you can still opt out if you want to, and go with a private school. That taxes are a bit higher, but you pay out less since you are not paying for a premium (unless you decide on going private, but that is because you can afford it).

Either you believe in it or your don't.

I guess you have not heard of school vouchers.

 

[Rumpole]

When you call your life insurance agent, you negotiate how much coverage you want. You negotiate whether you want term life insurance or whole life insurance. You negotiate how much accidental death/disability insurance you want. Et cetera, et cetera.

What's more, every life insurance agent knows there is competition out there, and that keeps their prices down.

With single payer life insurance, there is no competition. You are a hostage.Which

Not with a public option. Just opt out.

To make matters worse, under our current system the government is deeply embedded in health care, and gets to write the rules for its private sector competition. How's that working for you?

That's not the point, the point is that can be fixed, but Republicans won't work with Dems to fix it.

If Democrats really believed citizens should have access to affordable health care, then why do they keep doing things which make it more and more UNaffordable?

It made it very affordable for me, and millions of others. For others, it didn't help but what can be fixed Repubs won't work with us to fix it because if they did, they think more people would vote for dems.

All the Democrats have achieved is making health care more expensive, and shifting the increasing costs to the taxpayers.

Sorry, that's just not true. Maybe for some, but for millions, the ACA was a godsend, especially came to me when I really needed it.

As do I. And the government is failing on both counts. Bigly.

Republicans block everything we want. Until we get some cooperation, and willing to work on it, it won't happen. Vote enough dems in where we don't need repubs, and we'll get it done.

I guess you have not heard of school vouchers.

I first heard of them back in the 70s. Milton Friedman was a big advocate of them, I think he was the guy who brought a lot of attention to the idea. I oppose them because it reduces funds for public education and defeats how taxation works, i.e., taxation is a collective effort, not a transactional effort. But, there are other reasons, these are the conventional reasons:

1. Unequal Access: Critics argue that vouchers do not provide equal access to education. Not all students have access to private schools, even with vouchers. Some private schools may not have enough space to accept all students who apply, and some may be located in areas that are not easily accessible to all families. Additionally, the value of a voucher may not cover the full cost of private school tuition, making it unaffordable for some families.
2. Siphoning Public School Resources: As mentioned above, vouchers divert public funds to private schools. This means that public schools, which serve the majority of students, may receive less funding. Critics argue that this could lead to a decrease in the quality of education in public schools.
3. Accountability Issues: Public schools are held to certain standards for accountability, including state testing requirements and regulations. Private schools, on the other hand, do not have to meet these same standards. Critics argue that this makes it difficult to ensure that students are receiving a quality education and that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively.
4. Religious Issues: Many private schools are religiously affiliated. Critics argue that using public funds to pay for education in these schools violates the separation of church and state.
5. Social Segregation: Critics worry that vouchers could lead to increased social segregation. This could happen if students from more privileged backgrounds use vouchers to attend private schools, while students from less privileged backgrounds remain in public schools.
6. Lack of Special Education Services: Private schools are not required to provide special education services, whereas public schools are. This could leave students with disabilities without the support they need.

 

[Rumpole]

That's why there are rich and poor. We don't live in socialism. The poor have a lousy life, the rich have better lives. That's they way it is. Socialism is not the solution. Robbing from the rich is not the solution. It's not the rich's fault that there are dandalions in the forest.

A true socialist wants to get rid of capitalism, and I know of no democrat that advocates that.

 

[Independentthinker]

A true socialist wants to get rid of capitalism, and I know of no democrat that advocates that.

LOL. A true socialist wants government to control every aspect of our lives. Democrats do want that.

 

[kyzr]

There is a lot of overlap between the sadistic wing of the GOP and the Trump wing.
Why do they come up with moronic ideas? Because those ideas appeal to the morons who vote!
Have you seen the anti-abortion laws which went into effect the moment Roe was repealed?
Sadistic.Shit, man. My wife is even more pro-life than I am. She's hardcore. So get this:
I don't know if you remember a law the Republicans in Virginia came up with which would have required women to be vaginally penetrated with a wand before they could get an abortion.
Men came up with idea, of course.
That is mechanical rape, and it really, really, really pissed off my wife despite how hardcore pro-life she is.
So, yeah. Sadists.


According to your figures, whites are 37 percent of SNAP recipients.
Whites are 75 percent of the population, so they are grossly under-represented on the welfare rolls.
People of color are grossly over-represented.
I don't know how old you are but the number one characteristic racists attributed to blacks was laziness.
When someone calls people on welfare "lazy", that harkens back to the old days in the minds of people of color.


Politicians have been trying to fix SS for a very long time, and it usually entails making it even more expensive and even more insolvent.
I'm sorry you have an entitlement mindset. You call call people on welfare lazy, and yet you want to retire at the same age as your ancestors who died at an age 20 years younger than you will.


My father worked in insurance for 30 years.
I was once hit by another driver and I called the driver's insurance company. I told them all I wanted was for them to pay my deductible, and my insurance was paying for the rest of the damages.
They said I would have to sue them. I said that would involve lawyers and they would take a lot more from them then my deductible. The insurer was totally cool with it.
So I got a lawyer and ended up pocketing $8000 after they took out their cut.
This baffled me and I asked my dad why they would rather be sued than just cough up $250.
My dad explained that insurance companies want the cost of insurance to go up. They work on margins, and so the more insurance costs, the bigger their profits.
What's more, I have explained to you more than once that you cannot call any insurance company you like. You are literally restricted by law from doing that. The insurance companies have paid our politicians to create no-competition zones.

I bet if you think really, really hard you could figure out why competition is being deliberately suppressed in the health insurance arena.
This is not a tin foil hat thing. It is quite real.
Even better for the insurance companies and health care providers, you are forced into your employer's health insurance plan. You must accept your health insurance from the one and only corporation your employer offers.
Nor are you allowed to got to any doctor you want. You must go to whoever is in the network of your health insurance company.
You are being held hostage in so many ways and you don't even realize it!
And that comes at your expense, and creates an unnatural concentration of wealth for the people robbing you blind.


I would end all existing welfare programs with the exception of the EITC.
Each welfare program has its own bureaucracy and its own paperwork and its own hurdles to overcome. That is a tremendous amount of waste.
It also results in generations of American people being trapped in poverty. These programs do not lift anyone.
Consolidating all welfare into ONE program would reduce costs astronomically.
The pandemic stimulus checks serendipitously proved that a negative income tax works.


Wow! How did you reach that incredibly erroneous conclusion!?!?
A person calls any insurance company in America they wish. No government involvement.
They buy their health insurance from the company of their choice out of their own pocket. Again, no government involvement.
How you concluded this is "single payer" health care is beyond me. Truly bizarre!

1. I agree that Republicans that push for Laws prohibiting abortions are morons. A reasonable limit, like 12 or 15 weeks seems like a good compromise.

2. I am old. I used a slide-rule in college. Healthy people who don't work are LAZY.

3. I worked and paid into Social Security and Medicare all my life. The surplus we paid in was spent by the House and Senate. Those coxuckers had better fix entitlements, and fast. Raise the cap, cut Medicaid and Welfare, whatever it takes to make seniors whole.

4. I'm not well versed on "social safety net" programs.

5. I worked all my life, and paid for company health insurance, for family coverage. I never used any, thankfully. Now I'm on Medicare.
Between retirement age and 65 I had to pay out of pocket for healthcare insurance. It was very expensive. No one should get free healthcare.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Welfare.
America is financing poverty.
And yes, MANY of the poor are just lazy people. I see them all over. My adopted sister is one of them.
She is now 29 I believe. Had a part-time job at Arbys for about 6 months or so till she got fired for repeated no show.
She is pregnant with her 5th child by 4 different fathers.
The boyfriend she has currently is the first one I know of that had an actual job. All of the others were absolute 20 something bums. She lives in an apartment, has healthcare better than I have, has a cellphone, cable TV, utilities and is fat so clearly is eating - 100% paid for by the government. If she was required to work - she would not have 5 kids. Guarantee it. She may be stupid, but she wouldn't get rewarded financially for each child like she is now.
She has - 0 - ZERO, Nada- zilch incentive to be productive. Why the hell would she??
Take her - and multiply her by several million just like her.

We need welfare reform. We passed welfare reform and it was working till Obama found 1000 ways to work around it and the welfare numbers skyrocketed and has stayed there since.

 

[kyzr]

1. When we owe $33T there won't be any "economic prosperity", only survival after the dollar collapses.
2. For better cable reception get Xfinity

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

my god.....i woke/wake up every day doing what i love so much that i never worked a day in my life


god i'd never make it waking up when i don't want to and hving a boss....ugggghhhhhh....that has to be so humiliating and awful

 

[initforme]

Very long and very well written. I'd say you're in the mainstream with a left bias, which is not where most of your posts are, they are further left when debating.
1. I think we agree on abortion, very much like the EU, a 15 week or so limit .

2/3. I think we agree on taxes. We'll see after we see how Trump gamed the tax system, "only little people pay taxes".
I also hate corporate subsidies, tax deductions, the flat tax.
The wealthy should pay more taxes, we are not serfs.
View attachment 730294

4. Welfare. No one under 50 should get welfare. It should help poor people with no retirement income. Poor people do get food stamps. Then again, what to do with the homeless? You didn't address Medicaid. That needs to be cut.

5. Entitlements. We disagree somewhat. SS is easily fixable. Just raise the cap and the 62 early retirement to 63 or 64. NFW people with physical jobs should need to work past 66. True that office workers could, but not the rest. Once the boomers exit the scene the entitlement funding should settle back to normal.

6. Healthcare. Congrats for even tackling this topic. Get a job with benefits, healthcare solved. That was easy. I also oppose "Medicare for all", aka "socialized medicine".
Your TDS flared up in the healthcare post. Obamacare is here to stay.

7. You did not address MEDICAID or "cable reception" as in your title??

8. 4am post, what state do you live in?

People working later hurts the econo.y and businesses don't want to retain their older workers they want them gone and retired. Wr font want people working longer especially now ad we have a massive labor excess.