Ya mean I lost the "freedom" to get laid off, lose my health insurance and go bankrupt paying inflated bills to hospitals and medical specialists? Oh no! Whatever shall I do without that precious "freedom"?
Conservatives equate "freedom" with exploitation. They equate health care reform with socialism.
Can any redefinition offered by Conservatives be seen as anything other than bullshit?
How about the freedom to not live in tax slavery to the state for the rest of our existence and have at least the opportunity to get your head and shoulders out of the drowning waters of that taxation.
You are willing to trade one kind elite for another. At least currently you have the ability to possibly join that elite if you have the skill and the gumption. But you will happily trade that off to get even with people you don't know in some sort of "eat the rich" fit. Doing your best to imitate "reign of terror" France for none of the reason.
Instead, you will have a political elite which will not be switched out or entered into by those not chosen. That means 99% of the people. You will get to equal with everyone else who will be just as low as you. You will not be raised up. Everyone will be dropped to the same level. Because the services that need the taxes will cost ever more. Your demand to "eat the rich" will never be sated, first the top 1% will be eaten, then there will be a new top 1%, you will eat each one in succession until no one dare be the top 1% lest they be eaten by the hunger mob with their enforcer, the government.
Then you will have a country that demands from its government more than it produces. The tax bill can never be paid. Where there once was wealth at the top there will be no top to store wealth. And America will have just what the other over the top welfare states have. Jack. Past its prime half life.
If that's what you want, I desperately hope you don't get it. If you do, I will not be here to enjoy it with you. Some places in this world still have freedom, I'll be there .....(incidentally, with the rich you were trying to eat cuz very few will stand still to be eaten).
And here I've heard that only the rich pay taxes!
Pretty much:
The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 1 percent now pay a significantly larger share of taxes than before President Bush's tax cuts, and also have a larger share of income.
The nonpartisan CBO keeps track of such things and published its most recent tables in December 2007. The information to answer this question is in "Summary Table 2: Shares of Federal Tax Liabilities, 2004 and 2005."
The top 1 percent in 2005 were those households with income of at least $307,500, and they got 18.1 percent of all "comprehensive" income, which includes all cash income plus the cash value of such benefits as Medicare and food stamps.
As for taxes, CBO calculates that the top 1 percent paid 27.6 percent of all federal taxes, including:
* 38.8 percent of federal individual income taxes
* 4.0 percent of federal social insurance taxes (Social Security and Medicare)
* 58.6 percent of corporate income taxes (indirectly, through stock ownership)
* 5.5 percent of federal excise taxes (on such things as gasoline, tobacco, alcoholic beverages and telephones.)
The share of taxes paid by different income levels have changed over time.
The share now borne by the top 1 percent is the highest it has been since 1979, the earliest year for which CBO has figures. And surprisingly, it is larger than in 2000, the last year of President Bill Clinton's administration, before President Bush signed a series of tax cuts that benefited upper-income taxpayers by cutting the top rate on federal income taxes, cutting the rate on capital gains taxes and reducing the estate tax. One reason is that the top 1 percent now receive a greater share of income than at any time covered by CBO's statistics, though those households receive only slightly more than the 17.8 percent share they got in 2000.
Fact Check
Don't know, I didn't see it.
Do we all pay taxes or just the wealthy?
That depends what "we" you are talking about. The "we" that is in the Top 60% of income earners pays some kind of income tax (although this year it goes down to more like the Top 52%). As you can see from above, by the time you get down to the 50th percentile, you ain't paying much.
Because that is the justification for cutting the tax burden on the top wage earners!
There might be a point here somewhere, but the language was too imprecise to make the point.
And when we can no longer afford the premiums for health insurance, will we rejoice in our "freedom"?
Hmmm....under the Republican plan you would get tax credits or advance tax credits depending on how poor you were. Under the Dem plan, they would charge you with a misdemeanor and send you to jail for a year. (And fine you)
The rate of increase is unsustainable.
Which is why you have to institute Health Savings Accounts as part of any reform. Until you start caring what your health care costs, the system will remain broken. No country that has public health care has fixed this problem. The solution is always less health care. RATIONING.
Yet we must preserve the "Freedom" of the health insurance providers to rake us out with the trash.
No, we must preserve a system that provides the best quality health care of any in the world across the board. We must fix those areas that are broken figure out how to use market forces to drive down costs including:
- Ending the artificial limitation on purchasing insurance across state lines
- Allowing people to contract for only amount of insurance they want to have
- Changing law suits to use the British model of "loser pays" (atty fees)
And here I've been paying taxes that go to programs I wholeheartedly disagree with.
Have you? Top 50% are you? One of those rich assholes that's ruining this country and you freely admit to it? You should be ashamed (at least the way you talk about what you do to the rest of us).
Corporate welfare, a blotted military industrial complex, tax breaks for the rich.
I was with you until you started "blotting the military" I'm not sure what that's about.
When I want some help to defer the high cost of health care, I'm called "Marxist".
You only want to defer it? You should be called something worse than a Marxist. How about we strive to end it by reform instead of replacement?
But I've come to expect that from the Conservatives.
Now we get to the stupid and insipid partisanship part of the post. I think we're going to go rapidly (and vapidly) downhill now.....everyone hold tight.
I dunno, you ran out of intelligent things to say but still wanted to type?
Because this variety of name calling is on the front of the Conservative playbook published in 1947 and not updated for better than 60 years!
I see and since 1947 a liberal has never called someone on the right a name?
Try again!
I'm sure that Conservatives have the same concerns about losing, or acquiring health coverage.
Yes.
Why do they resist a government reform plan?
They do not resist a reform plan. They resist replacing the current system with a system that is proven to fail everywhere. There is a very specific, targeted reform plan, but the Dems block it and resist it.
Because the talking heads told them to! For every Conservative that shouts about a big media boogieman, there is a Glenn Beck or a Rush Limbaugh or a Fox News telling them it's all too true.
Silly LIBERAL diatribe only useful in the LIBERAL echo chamber. Save it for buddies.
And how many people can the classification of "rich" hold?
Who cares. This isn't about rich people and poor people. When will you understand that? Ever??? I seriously doubt it.
Historically, we know it's far too few to be a realistic goal. Most of us would settle for "comfortable". In this class, we can afford to buy a home (not a McMansion), put our kids through school, retire in comfort, put something away for a rainy day and pay our bills on time with a little left over each month for discretionary spending.
When you write a 1.5 Trillion dollar check, how are YOU and people similarly situated going to pay for it? Because that's what you trying to do right now.
