Still Waiting for the pro-govt health care response to my challenge

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Explain to me how it is a smart Idea to put the same govt that can not make our social security program solvent in charge of health care.

Social Security is a simple savings plan and the reps/dems can't even handle that without making it bankrupt and insolvent. So how can you expect the majority of americans to trust them to run health care for us?

I mean just look at the system they set up http://docs.house.gov/gopleader/Hous...ealth-Plan.pdf

They can't handle a savings account but think they can handle that? here is a small pic of the govt's propsal.

Maybe if the govt fixes social security and demonstratest that they can handle the savings program of Social Security I will begin to accept that they can put their hands into healthcare. Until they do so I do not trust those morons in either party to get involved.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Ok well no one could answer that challenge? Are you guys sure?


Fine...then lets talk about Fannie/Freddy and the Equal Opportunity Housing Act.....yeah that worked out pretty good didn't it? No major economic problems from giving out an excessive amount of high risk loans at the govt's direction......that was such a big success so maybe they can handle healthcare.

 

[Oddball]

I'm still waiting for anyone to name just one federal program that has come in under projected budget and delivered the supposedly superior product promised.

Anyone??

Beuller??

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

I'm still waiting for anyone to name just one federal program that has come in under projected budget and delivered the supposedly superior product promised.

Anyone??

Beuller??

Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off people. -ferris

Hey what was that ben stein ramble in that movie...i think he said something about vodoo economics

 

[Old Rocks]

I'm still waiting for anyone to name just one federal program that has come in under projected budget and delivered the supposedly superior product promised.

Anyone??

Beuller??

One particular government program. Came in ten times over budget. Was finished past due enough most had given up on it. Total failure in it's prime mission directive. It was given a jazzy name for the period, The Corps of Discovery, we know it as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

 

[Old Rocks]

Of course, the reality of very successful government programs is what really turns the Conservatives livid.


Attacking Programs that Work


Conservatives are not only in denial about the impressive record of government policy successes, they have actually attacked many of the programs responsible for these achievements. As detailed in other articles, anti-government forces have been systematically trying to tear down social programs and rollback regulations. Many of the successful programs mentioned earlier have already been undermined. When Republicans were in control of Congress, they cut back spending for vital infrastructure facilities, lessened enforcement of clean air laws, cut spending for basic scientific research, weakened consumer protection regulations, and cut back on student financial aid.

Particularly troublesome were efforts to undermine Social Security, a successful program that is fully solvent for at least several more decades. Conservatives tried to institute a privatization plan that would have allowed some of the money that goes toward Social Security to be invested by individuals themselves in the stock and bond markets. They claimed this was necessary because the program was fiscally unstable in the long run. But their privatization plan would have done nothing to address that problem. Besides, many economists and government analysts have pointed out that the problems facing this program are decades in the future and can be fixed with quite modest reforms.12 More importantly, the Republican plan would have had several detrimental effects. The government would have had to borrow at least a trillion dollars to fund this scheme, greatly increasing public debt, which is already soaring. It also would have cost workers a great deal more in the commissions and fees they would have to pay to brokers and mutual fund companies – amounting to billions of dollars that would have been skimmed off the top of the retirement system. Finally, and most importantly, this privatization plan would have put workers' savings much more at risk in volatile financial markets. When the stock market plunged in 2008, many retirees who saw their IRAs melting away were very glad to still have the stable income coming from Social Security.

What the Right Really Hates: Successful Programs

Such vociferous attacks on successful government programs like Social Security reveal one of the dirty little secrets of anti-government conservatives and libertarians: they hate successful government programs even more than unsuccessful ones. Government programs that work contradict the conservatives’ contention that government is bad and always screws things up. Worse, successful programs may actually encourage people to view the government and their taxes in a more positive light. So it is the very success of a program like Social Security that invites attack by conservatives. As Paul Krugman has explained, government haters “are not sincerely concerned about the possibility that the system will someday fail; they’re disturbed by the system’s historic successes. For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people’s lives better and more secure. And that’s why the right wants to destroy it.”13

Some of this same perverted political logic was at work in the defeat of Clinton’s universal health plan in the early 1990s. Some conservatives opposed it because they thought it was too expensive and wouldn’t work. But others opposed it precisely because they were afraid it would work. As Grover Norquist has explained, many on the right feared that if the plan passed, it would be a big step down the road toward a more generous government on the European model. They were afraid this would generate much more public support of government and much less support for Republicans who wanted to reduce government. In Norquist’s words, the conservative opponents were motivated by “sheer terror of Clinton's health care plan. The goal was to stop the government seizure of the health care industry. Had the Democrats taken over health care, I think we would have become a social democracy and we could have never undone it. We wouldn't have won in '94 ...”14
Government is Good - The Forgotten Achievements of Government

 

[Oddball]

Is that really the best you can come up with??

 

[Zoom-boing]

Explain to me how it is a smart Idea to put the same govt that can not make our social security program solvent in charge of health care.

It isn't.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Is that really the best you can come up with??

I think old rocks was a little sleepy when he/she cut and pasted that one.

The US government has told me that in 30 or so years when I hit retirement that Social Security will be long spent...this is from their own budget estimates out of their budget office.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/retirement/SStrustees_2006report/index.htm