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Well from what I've read your country saves WAY more money on this bill than what is spent on it.
See the link in my comment further down:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1590674&cid=31565886

So seeing this bill from your country's point of view, some of the 'trillion' dollors, saved not spend, are going out to all of it's citizens - resulting in a richer and probably more healthy America...
Try the first two pages to see some huge numbers:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf

... and then there's the 30 million people without cover .... humans are way more important than money, but somehow the discussions always ends up beeing about money, and not the ones that actually make the money in the first place...

"Most of the people living on it [the planet] were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable..." - Douglas Adams

The text of the bill:
http://www.opencongress.org/senate_health_care_bill

The economy of the bill:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=508

Congrats from Europe :)

One? You're joking.

How about the Rural Electrification Administration, without which much of the US would still be in the nineteenth century because electrical utilities companies weren't expanding beyond cities? Or the federal prison system? The government runs that. There's also the Eisenhower Interstate System, which believe it or not was created by the government and not some "Eisenhower Interstate Corporation."

If you care more about healthcare specifically, Medicare is the reason our elderly and disabled have medical coverage, particularly useful to the elderly if their personal savings were invested in Enron or MCI or one of the many companies that were walloped over the past few years (particularly in 2008). Medicare is a great example because it provides healthcare coverage more cheaply than private insurance companies do. So does the VA system, which covers our veterans. They do excellent cost control according to the CBO.

Or was the point of your comment that it "has worked as planned?" That's a tall order. Name some private company initiatives that have worked as planned. Most don't. I've worked for private companies most of my adult life and I see the same waste and errors people complain about in government.

I don't understand how someone could say that tort reform is a red herring.

In terms of the direct financial impact of malpractice insurance and litigation costs, tort reform doesn't help more than a few percent or so. But in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on unnecessary treatment because doctors are paralyzed to do anything besides order the extra tests and procedures, tort reform would make a HUGE difference.

The Congressional Budget Office studied this and agrees with you that the savings for "less utilitization of health services" due to tort reform is important... 150% bigger than the direct financial impact. But it disagrees with you about the amount... and says that even combined, it's less than 1 percent of the total cost of health, all things considered.

Also, the Congressional Budget Office says in their analysis that "Those estimates take into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings [of the federal bill] has already been realized."

I don't understand how someone could say that tort reform is a red herring.

In terms of the direct financial impact of malpractice insurance and litigation costs, tort reform doesn't help more than a few percent or so. But in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on unnecessary treatment because doctors are paralyzed to do anything besides order the extra tests and procedures, tort reform would make a HUGE difference.

The Congressional Budget Office studied this and agrees with you that the savings for "less utilitization of health services" due to tort reform is important... 150% bigger than the direct financial impact. But it disagrees with you about the amount... and says that even combined, it's less than 1 percent of the total cost of health, all things considered.

Also, the Congressional Budget Office says in their analysis that "Those estimates take into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings [of the federal bill] has already been realized."

I don't understand how someone could say that tort reform is a red herring.

In terms of the direct financial impact of malpractice insurance and litigation costs, tort reform doesn't help more than a few percent or so. But in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on unnecessary treatment because doctors are paralyzed to do anything besides order the extra tests and procedures, tort reform would make a HUGE difference.

The Congressional Budget Office studied this and agrees with you that the savings for "less utilitization of health services" due to tort reform is important... 150% bigger than the direct financial impact. But it disagrees with you about the amount... and says that even combined, it's less than 1 percent of the total cost of health, all things considered.

It costs money to get people health insurance. That doesn't mean that the government's going to be providing that insurance.

Where do you get a trillion dollars from? The CBO has this to say:

CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation—H.R. 3590 and the
reconciliation proposal— would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138
billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue
(see the top panel of Table 1 and subtitle A of title II on Table 5).

Let me count the ways:
Constitutionality:
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract. By anyone. If you don't like it amend the constitution, but you cannot just make up your own laws. That's called anarchy. So right there the bill is dead. But let me go on.

Common sense
The kings of inefficiency. The same people who spent so much of your social security and medicare money on things besides social security and medicare, to the point that the two programs have unfunded liabilities of over $100 trillion, are now going to, according to the bill, take 500B from medicare to pay for the new program and supposedly expand the roles of people on medicare and the new plan. Do some simple math! If you have a system that's already out of money, and you take more money from it to start a similar system, more than triple the number of people receiving benefits, it's going to cost more not less! You have to be insane if you think adding people to the government's dole will somehow lower costs as progressives claim. Keep in mind that in 1965 lawmakers predicted it would only cost 9$ billion by 1990, unfortuanly the real cost was $67 billion. But don't worry they were only off by A FACTTOR OF 7. I'm sure they are better and more trustworthy in making cost estimates today. Congress would never deceive us!

This bill causes lack of care (not coverage)
Sure the government will cover you for all preexisting conditions, there will just be no faciliteis or doctors to treat you! OH BUT YOU'RE COVERED!!! Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days. The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that a full 1/3 of doctors will "QUIT PRACTICING MEDICINE" if the bill passes, further eroding our resources. So ya, you're covered, but you're going to have to wait a few years for that liver transplant now. People other countries will no longer have a "capitalist health care system" to save them, unfortunately nether will we. We will have a government panel deciding who is worth said liver transplant and deciding who gets to live and die, instead of your doctor or a panel of your doctors. A healthy 19 yr/old kid, who hasn't put a dime into the system will be placed higher on the list than say a 60 yr/old man who has paid into the system his whole life. In essence the 60 yr/old man worked his whole life paying into a system that will deem him unworthy and spend his money on someone whom he has never met while he suffers and dies while younger "more economically viable" people will get treatment first. In the existing system, the same 60 yr/old man would be able to do whatever it takes for him to get his liver (insurance,debt,sell car/house etc.). While dems try and portray private insurers as evil for turning down procedures, drugs etc. keep in mind that the number 1 denier of care per capita is medicare! So there's another false argument made to try and pass this bill.

How much is too much?
People in this country continue to live longer and longer. This is attributable not to better diets or healthier living, but as a direct result of having invested such large sums of money into our health care system. I've heard 17% from democrats, decrying the amount. Dems say that our private insurance is increasing at too fast a rate (3%/yr) but they want to change us to a system that is similar to the unfunded medicare, but medicare is increasing at a rate much faste

AMA licensing forces doctors to meet some minimal standard. It raises prices because we have fewer doctors, but I think most of us would gladly pay a little more for a doctor that is a little more competent. Tort reform is attractive, but the savings aren't as big as you'd think - $54B over 10 years. That isn't nothing, but these changes would make it harder to sue incompetent doctors who cause legitimate harm to others. So if we're going to break up the AMA licensing cartel, and rely on the free market to sift through good & bad doctors, then we'd want tort enhancement rather than limits.

What CBO analysis? They said they have not had time to review the new revised bill, so there is NO analysis.

Uh...this analysis:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf

Where the hell have you been?

Savings of that magnitude would not have a significant impact on total health care costs, however. Malpractice costs amounted to an estimated $24 billion in 2002, but that figure represents less than 2 percent of overall health care spending

Full bill: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28572002/Reconciliation-HR-4872-Full-Text

CBO report: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf

Get to reading!

[citation needed]
This would be the CBO's forecast:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11307/Reid_Letter_HR3590.pdf

The coverage provisions will have a net cost of $624 billion for the ten years from 2010 to 2019, and a gross cost of $875 billion over the same ten years, the $624 billion number is what is actually relevant. However, with new taxes and other cost savings the bill would implement, the total effect of the bill on the budget deficit would be to lower the deficit by saving $118 billion over ten years. On the other hand the CBO estimate in 2003 for the bill that established Medicare Part D stated the new (at the time) benefits would have outlays (costs) of $460.7 billion from 2004 to 2013. That is here:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/44xx/doc4468/hr1s1.pdf

[citation needed]
This would be the CBO's forecast:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11307/Reid_Letter_HR3590.pdf

The coverage provisions will have a net cost of $624 billion for the ten years from 2010 to 2019, and a gross cost of $875 billion over the same ten years, the $624 billion number is what is actually relevant. However, with new taxes and other cost savings the bill would implement, the total effect of the bill on the budget deficit would be to lower the deficit by saving $118 billion over ten years. On the other hand the CBO estimate in 2003 for the bill that established Medicare Part D stated the new (at the time) benefits would have outlays (costs) of $460.7 billion from 2004 to 2013. That is here:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/44xx/doc4468/hr1s1.pdf

i think it just boils down to incredible, horrible levels of high propaganda: the government is out to get you! the government is YOURS. it serves YOU. really

That, and documents like
this one from the CBO (and an updated one regrading the Senate bill with almost identical numbers) that show a family of four with a combined income of $100K/yr will pay about $20K/yr or about $1800 a month for a basic healthcare policy. About $450/month goes to subsidize the lower tranches. Logically one needs to lower US healthcare costs so that a universal system can be implemented. These bills were clearly not lowering costs (one can argue they continued to protect the AMA, the pharmaceuticals companies, as well as the big insurance companies), and so they died.

The good news is that the $450 million cost the average taxpayer about $0.30

(I'm assuming ~ 150 million taxpayers, and using the middle quintile from this page as 'average':

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

And I say that more in the spirit of not worrying about individual programs than I do in the spirit of thinking there is anything reasonable about current levels of government spending vs tax revenues (and when I say current, I mean the last 40 years more than I mean this particular, particularly egregious, year)

)

...[S]avings from changes to the Medicare program (along with other changes to direct spending that are not associated directly with expanded insurance coverage) would increase at a rate that is between 10 percent and 15 percent per year during the 2020–2029 period [...] All told, CBO expects that the legislation, if enacted, would reduce federal budget deficits over the decade after 2019 relative to those projected under current law—with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP.

I had linked it above:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1506636&cid=30737894

Here it is again:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml#1011537

It appears there are different methodologies involved. And it would be fair to mention that the over 40% thing happened for the first time in 2007.

Never mind that the flat tax rate would have to be less than 17% to benefit most people at lower incomes (people that usually don't have much wealth):

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml#1011537

Note that the 17% comes from the average effective rate paid by the 4th quintile, so by definition, at least 60% of households pay less than 17% taxes (and, on average, 80% of households pay much less than that).

There is a reason Steve Forbes loves the fair tax, and it isn't because he thinks he needs to contribute more.

If you are referring to the Clinton years. The deficits were high until the Republican takeover of Congress.

This is simply wrong. Under Clinton the deficit got consistently smaller and smaller, starting in 1992. The Republican takeover occurred in 1994. See the CBO data. Or take a look at the following graph.

And I would agree with those that think the gigantic spike in 2009 is really, really scary.

If you are referring to the Clinton years. The deficits were high until the Republican takeover of Congress.

This is simply wrong. Under Clinton the deficit got consistently smaller and smaller, starting in 1992. The Republican takeover occurred in 1994. See the CBO data. Or take a look at the following graph.

And I would agree with those that think the gigantic spike in 2009 is really, really scary.

I am highlighting the simplisticness of your question. Your argument is even more arbitrary than my numbers. You suppose that the purchasing power of the poor must rise but this is not the case.

No, you are spposing purchasing power must rise for the poor if the iPod is made in the US and not in China. They are made in China because it is cheaper to make them there. By making them here, they will neither cost less nor raise the wages of US workers.

The wealthiest of the US, to whom these profits are returning need not, and in fact do not, translate that wealth into dollars to help shore up the US economy.

The wealthy got that way by investing and if they have more money they will invest more which does help the economy. Are you really that dense so you don't understand that? Or are you trolling?

They don't pay much tax, either.

Are you really saying the wealthy don't pay taxes either? The Top 1% Pay More Income Tax Than Bottom 90%. Through 1999 the top 5% pay 50% of all taxes. And that comes from the Congressional Budget Office. For an argument of who pays more How much tax do the Jones' pay? has the arguments for both why the rich pay more and why they don't.

All this is relevant because the notion that returned profits from offshoring increases the wealth of the country, is heavily undermined if that wealth gets put into the hands of a functionally transnational section of society (i.e. people who invest and purchase internationally, rather than strictly domestically).

Do you see what I did there? I understood your reply and made a logical explanation of the problems with it, rather than just make comments about you pulling things from your arse. :)

And what you left out is that international investments go both ways, foreigners invest in the US and US citizens invest internationally. American Depositary Receipts or ADRs allow me, you, and any other American to buy stocks in foreign corporations. That is if the corporation is not listed on US exchanges, but many are. Those Japanese car manufacturers opening factories in the US, they are listed on US exchanges. For those who don't have enough to buy individual stocks, foreign or domestic, there are mutual funds. They allow money from many different people to be pooled and invested. Another way individuals can pool money is with investment clubs. Using them a person can put just say $10, less than the cost of 2 packs of cigarettes, a week into a pool. Add in the money saved by not buying a 6-pack of beer a day and growing some food in a garden and it adds up. There are a number of others ways people can save and invest money as well. Even a McDonald's employee can save and invest money, though they'd be better enrolling in college taking classes part tyme.

The low income can be investors, but it is logically flawed to say that this is a universal case. More frequently, people are living from month to month (sometimes week to week) trying to feed themselves and their families, pay for health care, keep a roof over their heads, etc.

They are also poor because they spent money to buy an iPod and had a family. I myself am one of the poor. Just an hour or two ago I got back from a food pantry where I picked up free food. My medical expenses are paid for with Medicare and Medical Assistance. I get them because I am disabled. So I don't go around spending money on lots of things I don't need. Nor did I get married or have children when I could not afford them

For one, it gives the government control of every faculty of human life. Almost everything we do, from eating, to breathing, breeding, and working has a carbon footprint. Giving the government control of carbon emissions gives the government control of everything. Students of history should recognize this pattern very well. An external force will harm us all unless the government is given enough power to protect us. Governments don't protect, they repress. What happens if the government decides large dogs have too much of a carbon footprint. Or horses? Or more than one child?

Well, you should be relieved to hear that most governments' plans for reducing carbon emissions rely mostly on market mechanisms. That is, they put a price on emitting greenhouse gases and allow society to figure out the best way of dealing with it.

Secondly, cutting emissions in the US will do nothing about China and India. In fact, cutting oil consumption in the US will make oil cheaper for third world factories. It is supply and demand. Personally, I would rather see the fossil fuels burnt in the US, under EPA standards, creating American jobs than to have it sent to China or India where it will be used in a much less efficient manner.

The easy solution to this is border adjustments. That way, anyone who wants to sell a product in the US will be subject to the same price for greenhouse gases emitted while producing it. (There are provisions for this in the Waxman-Markey bill that passed in the House.)

For one, a lot of very wealthy people are going to lose their expensive beach front properties. Many bailed out bankers will see their mansions succumb to the tides. Tough shit.

Don't delude yourself. The wealthy will always come out in better shape than everyone else.

This will be expensive, but probably less expensive than curtailing global emissions enough to have an effect.

The costs of curtailing emissions tend to be exaggerated. Admittedly the legislation isn't as strong as it should be, but the CBO has been studying this issue:

For example, CBO concludes that the cap-and-trade provisions of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would reduce GDP below what it would otherwise have been—by roughly ¼ to ¾ percent in 2020 and by between 1 and 3½ percent in 2050. By way of comparison, CBO projects that real (that is, inflation-adjusted) GDP will be roughly two and a half times as large in 2050 as it is today, so those changes would be comparatively modest. In the models that CBO reviewed, the long-run cost to households would be smaller than the changes in GDP because consumption falls by less than GDP and because households benefit from more time spent in nonmarket activities. Moreover, these measures of potential costs do not include any benefits of averting climate change.

Perhaps I have read one to many sci-fi novels [...] If nuclear fusion can be perfected in the next decade or two [...]

You've probably been reading too many sci-fi novels. And there's no way fusion would be cheaper than currently available technologies.

I respond to some of your post later, but I should start by pointing out that my earlier response was to a specific claim you made in your original post regarding Governments:

[...] if we look at similar historic pollution agreements, they have failed miserably.

I responded by pointing to a specific government program that appears not to have failed miserably.

The rebuttal included a very serious rejection of the evidence. Wikipedia has a history of being edited by people with a certain viewpoint, as the numerous comments to that slashdot article support, so we cannot be certain that evidence in opposition has not been edited out of the article, nor can we know that this particular legislation was not also supported by some other activities (such as private litigation).

This is an ad hominem argument. You haven't rebutted any of the claims in the Wikipedia article. If you were to cite something written by the Heritage Foundation, I would respond to the specific claims.

You present a logical fallacy; my not suggesting other means does not mean that your argument is correct.

Again, let me quote your original post:

Of course, this does overshadow the real debate, which is whether or not Governments are the right organizations to correct any issues [...]

I suggested that your argument would be stronger if you had offered an alternative means that would be more effective than government. This was not a fallacious statement.

So it is on you to prove that:

Now you're changing the subject. I was arguing against the second paragraph of your original post, which you have yet to seriously defend.

b. The Federal Government's policies will be better written and better enforced than the states' policies

Are you arguing about governments in general (as in your original post) or the US Federal Government? I can't respond to a shifting set of claims.

We cannot afford the proposals, so we will have to take on more debt to pay for them.

Generally a cap-and-trade or carbon tax system will bring in a fair amount of revenue. From the CBO's analysis of H.R. 2454 (Waxman-Markey):

CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that over the 2010-2019 period enacting this legislation would:

• Increase federal revenues by about $846 billion; and
• Increase direct spending by about $821 billion.

In total, those changes would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $24 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

It's true that this does have an effect on the overall economy. From CBO:

For example, CBO concludes that the cap-and-trade provisions of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would reduce GDP below what it would otherwise have been—by roughly ¼ to ¾ percent in 2020 and by between 1 and 3½ percent in 2050. By way of comparison, CBO projects that real (that is, inflation-adjusted) GDP will be roughly two and a half times as large in 2050 as it is today, so those changes would be comparatively modest.

I might post more later, as I don't have time at the moment.

I respond to some of your post later, but I should start by pointing out that my earlier response was to a specific claim you made in your original post regarding Governments:

[...] if we look at similar historic pollution agreements, they have failed miserably.

I responded by pointing to a specific government program that appears not to have failed miserably.

The rebuttal included a very serious rejection of the evidence. Wikipedia has a history of being edited by people with a certain viewpoint, as the numerous comments to that slashdot article support, so we cannot be certain that evidence in opposition has not been edited out of the article, nor can we know that this particular legislation was not also supported by some other activities (such as private litigation).

This is an ad hominem argument. You haven't rebutted any of the claims in the Wikipedia article. If you were to cite something written by the Heritage Foundation, I would respond to the specific claims.

You present a logical fallacy; my not suggesting other means does not mean that your argument is correct.

Again, let me quote your original post:

Of course, this does overshadow the real debate, which is whether or not Governments are the right organizations to correct any issues [...]

I suggested that your argument would be stronger if you had offered an alternative means that would be more effective than government. This was not a fallacious statement.

So it is on you to prove that:

Now you're changing the subject. I was arguing against the second paragraph of your original post, which you have yet to seriously defend.

b. The Federal Government's policies will be better written and better enforced than the states' policies

Are you arguing about governments in general (as in your original post) or the US Federal Government? I can't respond to a shifting set of claims.

We cannot afford the proposals, so we will have to take on more debt to pay for them.

Generally a cap-and-trade or carbon tax system will bring in a fair amount of revenue. From the CBO's analysis of H.R. 2454 (Waxman-Markey):

CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that over the 2010-2019 period enacting this legislation would:

• Increase federal revenues by about $846 billion; and
• Increase direct spending by about $821 billion.

In total, those changes would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $24 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

It's true that this does have an effect on the overall economy. From CBO:

For example, CBO concludes that the cap-and-trade provisions of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would reduce GDP below what it would otherwise have been—by roughly ¼ to ¾ percent in 2020 and by between 1 and 3½ percent in 2050. By way of comparison, CBO projects that real (that is, inflation-adjusted) GDP will be roughly two and a half times as large in 2050 as it is today, so those changes would be comparatively modest.

I might post more later, as I don't have time at the moment.

1. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10710/hr3962Dingell_mgr_amendment_update.pdf, pg. 1.

2. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c111j3JbX9:e330194:,SEC. 347. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.

At least get the liberal talking points correct it is 3% for Medicare and 20-25% for private insurances, some places use 12% for private but the 2-3% for Medicare is constant.
According to the CBO for 2001-2005 Medicare admin costs were 24% higher on average per person then private insurances.
Also Medicare does not have to worry about little things like taxes or even fraud. Regina Herzlinger, Harvard Business School, has a study that shows that 10-20% of private insurance admin overhead goes into fraud prevention Medicare does not care since it is not thier money. Also Dartmouth researchers have shown that around a third of Medicare's spending goes to medical procedures that are not needed.
So if you are going to allow yourself to be used aleast be correct and use that 3% figure. Also the insurance that is used by federal employees, and that the Democrates are not giving up for themselves is private insurance.

And even those areas of flagrant fraud and waste, while requiring a fix, won't come close to making up the national deficit. The bailout money, while significant this year, will barely be noticeable average over the decades between major bailouts, AND would presumably end up costing everyone far more money, if that money wasn't spent where and when it was needed.

Read this over:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10297/SummaryforWeb_LTBO.pdf

I know, I know, the CBO is part of the "vast right wing conspiracy". Probably tea-baggers, the lot of 'em, eh? EH?

You want to improve things, fix your tort laws.

OK, I'm going to provide you with a link to a study by the CBO in 2004 that shows that medical liability costs have little to do with the cost of our healthcare, another study by the CBO in 2006 that shows that tort reform has almost no effect at all, and a smaller look at the result of tort reform in Texas where they have capped medical liability. You do realize that most medical liability cases are brought to state courts, there are 50 states, each has its own laws, and therefore we can actually LOOK at what the effects of 35 states having enacted various different tort reforms are, right? That being the case, can you find me something that has analyzed that data and found any real, significant (i.e. > 3%?) positive effect from tort reform? I'd like some actual statistical analysis here. I'm very skeptical it would help.

Then eliminate medicare, and stop giving away services to the rest of the world. I guarantee the figures will look much more balanced.

Balanced? I'm not even sure what you might mean by that.

You want to improve things, fix your tort laws.

OK, I'm going to provide you with a link to a study by the CBO in 2004 that shows that medical liability costs have little to do with the cost of our healthcare, another study by the CBO in 2006 that shows that tort reform has almost no effect at all, and a smaller look at the result of tort reform in Texas where they have capped medical liability. You do realize that most medical liability cases are brought to state courts, there are 50 states, each has its own laws, and therefore we can actually LOOK at what the effects of 35 states having enacted various different tort reforms are, right? That being the case, can you find me something that has analyzed that data and found any real, significant (i.e. > 3%?) positive effect from tort reform? I'd like some actual statistical analysis here. I'm very skeptical it would help.

Then eliminate medicare, and stop giving away services to the rest of the world. I guarantee the figures will look much more balanced.

Balanced? I'm not even sure what you might mean by that.

So the coward was off a bit, but not much.

Sorry I wasn't clear. The 5% figure I gave was the increase from the projected deficit when Obama took office (well, from the February numbers, which're the closest I had). You can't seriously blame his policies for deficit spending that was in place before his inauguration.

The bailouts contributed to the deficit, but they were red-inked well before Obama took office; Obama agreed with and went through with them, but GWB (and, ultimately, Congress) initiated them.

Ditto the economic stimulus--Congress anticipated and budgeted for spending of that nature, although the plan Obama pushed was larger than planned. Some stimulus spending was in the projected deficit before he took office, but that number got larger later.

If you can stand a .pdf, here is the CBO's February report. I may've been hasty in attributing the deficit increase to war overspending, tho', now that I look at the source numbers. Here is another damn .pdf from the CBO analyzing spending in FY2009 based on policy changes since January. It notes a $400 billion increase in spending offset somewhat by increased revenue from the stimulus pushing the projected deficit to 1.7 trillion. This includes changes in spending prior to Obama taking office, so essentially, his economic stimulus is the only single major change to the deficit since he took office. Here is a WSJ article detailing the bailout plans and an early glimpse of the stimulus plan from January 8, with a photo of Obama as the President Elect. It notes the recent lowered tax revenue on the deficit and a recent $500 billion spending increase.

So the coward is off. Obama's policies are responsible for only a small percent of the deficit this year, which isn't surprising, since he inherited the budget. The huge deficits next year you can blame on him.

As to the ten-year projection, Here is yet another .pdf with the CBO's most recent ten-year. Note that it's a little different. By which I mean, a lot different: In it, the annual deficit returns to roughly normal in a few years (a few percent of the GDP), although admittedly a little higher than it should be since we'll have a lot of leftover debt.

It notes, however, that reducing deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan will alone reduce spending enough to service the debt somewhat. One day, perhaps we'll manage to elect a Prez and Congress that're willing to make some other cuts--there's plenty we can make that won't even hurt, but that's a topic for another day.

So the coward was off a bit, but not much.

Sorry I wasn't clear. The 5% figure I gave was the increase from the projected deficit when Obama took office (well, from the February numbers, which're the closest I had). You can't seriously blame his policies for deficit spending that was in place before his inauguration.

The bailouts contributed to the deficit, but they were red-inked well before Obama took office; Obama agreed with and went through with them, but GWB (and, ultimately, Congress) initiated them.

Ditto the economic stimulus--Congress anticipated and budgeted for spending of that nature, although the plan Obama pushed was larger than planned. Some stimulus spending was in the projected deficit before he took office, but that number got larger later.

If you can stand a .pdf, here is the CBO's February report. I may've been hasty in attributing the deficit increase to war overspending, tho', now that I look at the source numbers. Here is another damn .pdf from the CBO analyzing spending in FY2009 based on policy changes since January. It notes a $400 billion increase in spending offset somewhat by increased revenue from the stimulus pushing the projected deficit to 1.7 trillion. This includes changes in spending prior to Obama taking office, so essentially, his economic stimulus is the only single major change to the deficit since he took office. Here is a WSJ article detailing the bailout plans and an early glimpse of the stimulus plan from January 8, with a photo of Obama as the President Elect. It notes the recent lowered tax revenue on the deficit and a recent $500 billion spending increase.

So the coward is off. Obama's policies are responsible for only a small percent of the deficit this year, which isn't surprising, since he inherited the budget. The huge deficits next year you can blame on him.

As to the ten-year projection, Here is yet another .pdf with the CBO's most recent ten-year. Note that it's a little different. By which I mean, a lot different: In it, the annual deficit returns to roughly normal in a few years (a few percent of the GDP), although admittedly a little higher than it should be since we'll have a lot of leftover debt.

It notes, however, that reducing deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan will alone reduce spending enough to service the debt somewhat. One day, perhaps we'll manage to elect a Prez and Congress that're willing to make some other cuts--there's plenty we can make that won't even hurt, but that's a topic for another day.

So the coward was off a bit, but not much.

Sorry I wasn't clear. The 5% figure I gave was the increase from the projected deficit when Obama took office (well, from the February numbers, which're the closest I had). You can't seriously blame his policies for deficit spending that was in place before his inauguration.

The bailouts contributed to the deficit, but they were red-inked well before Obama took office; Obama agreed with and went through with them, but GWB (and, ultimately, Congress) initiated them.

Ditto the economic stimulus--Congress anticipated and budgeted for spending of that nature, although the plan Obama pushed was larger than planned. Some stimulus spending was in the projected deficit before he took office, but that number got larger later.

If you can stand a .pdf, here is the CBO's February report. I may've been hasty in attributing the deficit increase to war overspending, tho', now that I look at the source numbers. Here is another damn .pdf from the CBO analyzing spending in FY2009 based on policy changes since January. It notes a $400 billion increase in spending offset somewhat by increased revenue from the stimulus pushing the projected deficit to 1.7 trillion. This includes changes in spending prior to Obama taking office, so essentially, his economic stimulus is the only single major change to the deficit since he took office. Here is a WSJ article detailing the bailout plans and an early glimpse of the stimulus plan from January 8, with a photo of Obama as the President Elect. It notes the recent lowered tax revenue on the deficit and a recent $500 billion spending increase.

So the coward is off. Obama's policies are responsible for only a small percent of the deficit this year, which isn't surprising, since he inherited the budget. The huge deficits next year you can blame on him.

As to the ten-year projection, Here is yet another .pdf with the CBO's most recent ten-year. Note that it's a little different. By which I mean, a lot different: In it, the annual deficit returns to roughly normal in a few years (a few percent of the GDP), although admittedly a little higher than it should be since we'll have a lot of leftover debt.

It notes, however, that reducing deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan will alone reduce spending enough to service the debt somewhat. One day, perhaps we'll manage to elect a Prez and Congress that're willing to make some other cuts--there's plenty we can make that won't even hurt, but that's a topic for another day.

Except the report does not say quite what you, or Martin Weiss says it does, i.e. the U.S. is doomed financially. What it says it, if current laws do not change the deficit situation will continue to worsen, and extrapolating that out far enough leads to dire consequences. Of course, laws change all the time. The daily Federal Register, which documents those changes, is typically hundreds of pages. Daily. Also, the notion that Congress and the president are doing nothing about this is a blatant lie. You can verify this very simply by going back to the CBO for their analysis of the Senate health plan Full details here.

The idea that the federal government is just sitting back doing nothing about the flow of credit/money from banks is also a lie. Pressure has been coming from many areas to re-institute responsible lending. It should not be news to anyone that an overabundance of credit has been extended over the past few years, so it should also not be surprising that those markets are contracting now. A decrease in outstanding credit/liabilities means, in part, that businesses and individuals are paying off debt, and incurring new debt at a less crazy pace. That's a sign of impending financial armageddon?

I don't get what is so much fun about spreading gloom and doom. Lots of you folks sure seem to like it, though.

Keep shitting on the US

You didn't even read the report did you? Notice the .GOV tag? But of course not, you're an "enlightened" US citizen. You have a lot of NFL or NBA television to watch, and don't have time for those things.

Summary: I'm not shitting the US. But even your government KNOWS the US is up shit's creek without a paddle. Enjoy your plunging dollar.

As the article says, nuclear power plants keep dedicated funds for decomissioning those plants. These funds are in the stock market.

The stock market took a beating.

Greenpeace and other anti-nuke wackos found an opportunity to say idiotic things like:
It's like a sitting time bomb. The notion that you can just walk away from these sites and everything will be hunky-dory is just not true."

Speaking as someone who works at a nuclear power plant, uh, yeah, for various definitions of 'walk away', you can do just that.

If by walk away you mean:
1) Defuel the reactor, offload all fuel into the spent fuel pool.
2) Drain all primary systems of water and process it (A daily occurance at any plant anyway)
3) Maintain enough staffing to secure the facility and watch the THREE relatively small pumps and TWO heat exchangers required to keep the fuel safe until it can be safely stored in a dry cask.
4) Store the dry casks on site until Yucca opens, or they can be re-processed.

(While they will be guarded, these dry casks are not a significant security risk. Terrorists aren't running around with the heavy rigging equipment required to handle these casks, and they most certainly will never control any facility for the hours required to get any nuclear material.)

That's the nuclear definition of 'walk away.' We take our jobs much more seriously than Greenpeace clowns take anything. They're a professional agitation group who currently only exists to generate enough attention to collect enough funds to continue to exist.

You might have to keep some fans running in contaminated areas until they're cleaned up, but compared to actually operating a nuclear power plant, the safe long term shutdown of a plant requires minimal resources.

I love this part too:
Last week, British officials reported on a 2007 leak in a cooling tank at the decommissioned Sizewell-A nuclear plant. If the leak had not been promptly discovered, officials said, nuclear fuel rods could have caught fire and sent airborne radioactive waste along the English coast, harming plant operators or the public.

The job of the people there is to promptly discover these sorts of things. There are loud alarms available to help them with just that. It's not a lucky happenstance that the leak was promptly discovered.

What else?
Sixteen more are being reviewed, and the commission expects to receive 21 more applications in the next several years. To date, the NRC hasn't turned down any license extensions.

In case anyone was wondering, the reason the NRC hasn't turned down any license extension applications is two fold:
1) The standards the plants have to meet are published, and not a secret.
2) The NRC bills maybe $250 a man-hour for the thousands of hours required to review these applications.

No utility is going to pay the NRC millions of dollars to review their application unless they're sure they meet the published NRC standards.

and one more:
Plant operators appear to benefit from NRC rules that don't require them to set aside money to store old nuclear fuel...

because nuclear power plants pay ongoing fees to the federal government to dispose of spent nuclear fuel. $25 billion dollars have been paid so far pursuant to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the federal government only has the Yucca Mountain debacle to show for it.

What exactly are they spending all that money on? It looks like such a simple design.

I've never been able to find a full cost breakdown, but I believe their initial cost estimates didn't take into account having to design/build a 5 segment booster, developing the J2X engine, and having to deal with the oscillation problems inherent to using an SRB. This Congressional Budget Office report from last year is handy. I can't find a link at the moment, but I was under the impression that their solutions for dealing with vibration actually put the Ares close to not having the payload capacity needed for Orion, and so there's additional money to be spent figuring out where to trim weight. This is largely going from memory though, so take my comment with a grain of salt until you see a reference for it.

I think the Delta IV heavy is a great launcher, but wouldn't you still need a new upper stage if you used it launch Orion?

I can't find anything conclusive on this. I believe the presentation by ULA and Aerospace Corp. to the Augustine Commission give conflicting information.

I'm wondering if the Delta IV would mostly just be a replacement for Ares I's SRB stage - meaning, we'd still need to spend how many ever billions it's taking to develop the Ares I's second stage.

Even if this were the case (which I don't think it is), keep in mind that many of the problems the Ares I is experiencing (particularly vibration endangering crew, steering, self-destruct mechanisms, etc.) are a direct result of using an SRB first stage. Switching to a liquid first stage would also greatly simplify and lessen the weight of the launch abort system.

Also, wikipedia claims that Ares I can deliver 55,000lb to LEO, while the Delta IV heavy can only deliver 50,000lb. So, (baring a magical upper stage) it sounds like you'd have to either scale back the Orion to the point of making it useless, or spend a lot more money redesigning the D IV.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any concrete projections of Orion's mass. In any case, if it ended up being overweight, you could lessen the required mass considerably by taking advantage of orbital propellant depots.

Also, for the problem of transporting crew to LEO, there's much simpler and more lightweight solutions than Orion, which is what's covered by the "commercial transport to EELV" slides in the ULA presentation. Orion would be necessary for the lunar architecture as NASA currently envisions it, but my suspicion is that the Augustine commission is going to recommend some changes to this architecture. The architecture is bizarre in certain ways, such as trying to avoid things like in-orbit rendezvous which could allow an architecture to operate with existing launch vehicles, even though NASA's learned to become quite good at orbital rendezvous with the ISS.

This is a really good point. We should be at least as skeptical of economic models as of climate models. But if you do want to pay attention to economic models, you should know that they don't always predict that serious action on climate will cause "severe economic consequences." The CBO, for example, predicts that the cost of Waxman-Markey are fairly modest.. A study by MIT also found that cap-and-trade would not be very expensive

I guess it would vary for local areas (because the incomes of the 1% and the 99% will impact the taxes paid by quite a bit), but at the federal level, it is more like 25% of income taxes:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml#1011535

as cited by wiki http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6908/12-01-10PercentTaxCut.pdf

One: The Congressional Budget Office issued a report to that effect in 2005 (when the US federal government was entirely Republican-run). http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6908/12-01-10PercentTaxCut.pdf

Two: Nobel prize laureate James Tobin, for another. In 1992 he wrote that "[t]he 'Laffer Curve' idea that tax cuts would actually increase revenues turned out to deserve the ridicule with which sober economists had greeted it in 1981."

And three, economist Paul Pecorino calculated in 1995 that peak revenue was generated at a tax rate of around 65%, much higher than current tax rates in the US.

I'm sure the lads at the Congressional budget office
also wrote their data to favor clinton (*rolls eyes*). Theres a difference between debt and deficit. Clinton, in his final years, is the only president not to have a deficit in recent history. That means money could actually be put to paying interest without having to borrow more money. Whether he covered principal or not doesnt matter.

Yes, if you are already in debt and you make just as much as you spend, you can still end up further in debt. Thats how interest works.

When inflation skyrockets, the real debt goes down anyway.

Look at the Congressional budget office historical links:

www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.pdf ..

The only time there was a budget SURPLUS (meaning we made more than we spent) in recent history is under Clinton.

That's really rich that you'd post that, considering the Democratically controlled Congress just passed this travesty:

Full Report
Summary Graph
In dollar amounts instead of GDP Percent

The Democrats can no longer cry about the budget. Now that they're in control, it's three or four times as bad.

Given that your other graph is about how 'unfair' the United States is (What do you think life is, Kindergarten?), I'm pretty sure you're fine with any government spending, as long it's of the redistributionist variety.

That's really rich that you'd post that, considering the Democratically controlled Congress just passed this travesty:

Full Report
Summary Graph
In dollar amounts instead of GDP Percent

The Democrats can no longer cry about the budget. Now that they're in control, it's three or four times as bad.

Given that your other graph is about how 'unfair' the United States is (What do you think life is, Kindergarten?), I'm pretty sure you're fine with any government spending, as long it's of the redistributionist variety.

Another problem is the "tax base" thingy that effectively makes FICA one of the most regressive taxes in existence.

Yes, about half of wage earners in the US pay more in payroll taxes (FICA and Medicare) than federal income taxes.

But oh noes, it would make the rich fatcats actually notice how much they are paying.

No, they would simply shift their compensation to non-wage income.

In fact, if we got rid of the cap and made SS taxes a mere 1 percent of your income, I would propose that there would be a net gain.

You would be wrong.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

See Summary Table 1. Note the effective tax rate for social insurance taxes was already 1.7% for the top 1% of US taxpayers in 2005. Of course, if you are proposing that your 1% is actually 2% (1% from employee + 1% from employer), then their effective rate was close to what you propose.

But, that refutes your proposal: there's no way that you can lower everyone else's contribution to 1% (or 2% combined) and maintain the existing revenue, much less increase it. Plus, remember that FICA and Medicare are payroll taxes, and is not assessed on non-wage income like dividends and capital gains.

In fact, the table in question tells you the effective rate for social insurance taxes on all pre-tax income: 7.6% for all quintiles in 2005.

Summary Table 2 also refutes any contention that upper income isn't paying their share: The top 20% paid 43.6% of social insurance taxes in 2005. The top 40% paid 68.7% of social insurance taxes.

Read that again: The top 2/5th of taxpayers paid over 2/3rds of the social insurance taxes in 2005.

If you take but a few minutes to look at the official numbers:
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.shtml

You will see that since 1968 (as far back as it goes), the only surplus was in 1969 and from 98-2001. This just happens to be when the Republicans had majorties in both houses. This is also the time frame when Welfare was reformed. And we all know what happend in 2001 that blew out the budget.

All the other years, Democrats were in the majority and for only a single year did they have a modest surplus.

BTW, this is in terms of percentage of GDP, the only meaningful measurement.

Seems like not taxing the rich was a huge mistake.

No, the mistake is claiming that the rich aren't being taxed.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

In 2005, the top 20% paid 86.3% of federal income taxes, and 68.7% of all federal taxes (social security, individual and corporate income, excise). The average pre-tax income in that quintile was $231,500, although that was adjusted for household size. See the footnotes for an explanation.

For the top 10%, it was 72.7% and 54.7%, on average pre-tax income of $339,100.
For the top 5%, it was 60.7% and 43.8%, on average pre-tax income of $520,200.
And for the top 1%, it was 38.8% and 27.6%, on average pre-tax income of $1,558,500.

The same URL provides information about effective tax rates, which range from 25.2% for the top 20% to 31.4% for the top 1%, when accounting for all taxes.

In comparison, the lowest 20% paid 0.9% of all federal taxes, on average pre-tax income of $15,800. The facts are a lot different than the propaganda.

Only a fool would argue with the basic logic of the Laffer Curve. The only puny argument would be that we are on the good side of it, but history rebuts that so completely even The One didn't attempt it.

I guess I'm that fool - how sad. The main problem with the Laffer curve is a type mismatch. The space of possible tax policies is a high-dimensional system, and expected tax revenues over time depends not only on these policies, but also on additional inputs like trade policy, currency management, and vagaries of the business cycle. When Laffer attempts to distill a complex system to a single curve like this, he communicates essentially zero useful information. However, one can take something resembling a partial derivative, and ask whether cutting income tax by, e.g., 10 percent, while holding most other variables steady is expected to yield revenue growth. Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office studied exactly that (pdf warning) in 2003, and found that you're wrong. Also, the US treasury studied historical effects (another pdf, sorry) of tax cuts and raises, and found that contrary to your assertions, the Reagan and Bush tax cuts were highly revenue-negative. The revenue act of 1964 was signed by Johnson, not Kennedy, and was also revenue-negative.

Where are your sources? Do you have any data to back up your claims?

A letter from the CBO about the stimulus bill (PDF)

Instead of relying on someone else's bias to interpret things for you, how about doing some digging and go to the source?

Please tell me where in the linked CBO document it says the stimulus bill will be harmful?