Retire at 60 with, have better health care for less money, and get a first-rate education without starting with 5 or 6 figures in student debt! The horror!
Don't forget the purple unicorn and the raining doughnuts. Truly paradise.
t's worth pointing out (as was said below), that most Democrats would support a single-payer government healthcare system, either on a federal level (like the NHS in Britain), or through federal mandates for states to create their own single player (as in Canada).
Whats' your point? Republicans have a bunch of "pie in the skies" as well (such as eliminating entitlements entirely). What'd Obama say? "You can't get everything you want"?
Yes, there are legit reasons to be annoyed or disappointed with it, but the rhetoric "the communist, authoritarian" claims and frequent citations of the bill as "the worst law in American history" are completely absurd.
How do you figure? Obamacare represents an entitlement expansion not seen since the New Deal. Given the major spending issues we already have with our current New Deal programs, why wouldn't people be freaking out? (especially when the party that gave us Obamacare would like to cover their eyes and just pretend Social Security/Medicare aren't going to explode in costs in the next few decades.) I ask you: at what point does a government become communist/authoritarian? All the rhetoric (+ legislation) I ever hear about from the Democrats is talk of income redistribution from the rich to the poor. In addition, our govt entitlement spending is at downright silly levels (~60+% of the budget now?). I understand that Republicans like to hyperbolize about socialism, but honestly, when do you qualify?
"The bars in this diagram reflect budgeted amounts, which exclude spending for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan (about $750 billion from 2001-2008), which were funded via supplemental appropriations
A fair remark, but it wouldn't change the graph that much (An extra 100 billion per year from 2001 to 2008, measured against ~2.5 trillion in total outlays is an additional 4%). More importantly, it wouldn't change the current expense, since those wars have wound down at this point. So, people trying to cut defense spending now have no legs to stand on with regards to Iraq/Afghanistan spending.
Further, it appears that homeland security spending is not entirely included in the budgeted amounts described as defense spending per the budget historical tables; these amounts are spread in other "buckets.""
Ultimately, your former statement (that the period from 2001 - 2008 should be about 4 percentage points higher) is fair. But my reflection on current spending levels remains (~21-22% is historical lows, and projected costs show significant escalation in entitlements with mostly flat defense spending).
They happily tick every box on the lab form without a care in the world for what it costs or that the patient's only complaint was an ingrown toenail. They prescribe the hyper inflated latest and greatest X without even considering if the generic (literally 1/100th the price) might be adequate. What's another $2000 eh?
You understand why this is, right? Because they know they're gonna get paid! Because it's not a consumer they're dealing with who may or may not have the money to pay them. Rather, it's an insurance company or a government with deep pockets and no penchant to say "no thanks I don't want/need that". The point remains: Medicare does not lower costs. The doctor's behavior is the same with or without it. Therefore, all the program does is foist the ridiculously inefficient costs onto society, primarily onto the working class (since they're the ones that pay the bulk of Medicare taxes)
You people in your echo chamber like to trot out a chart where a single tax (income) that was set so at an income level so high that it was not even paid at the time allows you to skew the results and paint the argument in a favorable light. In reality, govt spending is at all-time highs, and the rich already pay a historical high share of the taxes that cover said spending. That's a fact, and reality, and you can't hide from it.
The reason people are talking about taxing the rich is because they're the only ones that still have any money left to tax.
Except that if you took ALL their income, you still couldn't pay the bills at our level of govt spending, as I've already stated.
You really think we can fix the deficit by taxing poor people's welfare payments?
No, we do it by reducing govt spending. Social Security and Medicare reform would be a good start. Those taxes have escalated from 2% to 12% since inception. And they're still running a deficit (and projected to grow worse). And our health (and retirements) are no better for it.
Oh of course. That's why see Republicans pushing for single-payer heathcare.
Why in god's name would we want that? We want something that works.
That's why we see a flood of healthcare reform bills coming out of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
We had a voucher proposal via Romney not long ago. Additionally, Bush tried to do something about runaway social security spending by privatizing part of it.
Your model of "historical wealth" pre-supposes that the wealthy haven't advanced ways to hide assets.
And your model presupposes they haven't always had ways to hide assets. Deductions in the past were way more lenient than current day deductions, for instance. Just compare total share of taxes by income category -- that's the only truly fair test. Then compare the spending level. You'll see that spending is near historical highs (~post WW2 spending), and the bulk of the tax cost is being bourne by the rich (once again, at historical percentages of total taxes).
You have cherry picked your timeline there my friend. I know for a fact, that corporate taxes were much higher in the 50s
I have not, I've specifically picked a more relevant period. The 50s aren't applicable. They had barely any "social security taxes or medicare taxes" (~2% as per http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/content/pdf/ssrate_historical.pdf) that were "Tacked on", yet never included when discussing the taxes that people pay. It's like the great 90% myth -- just because a tax bracket was at one point 90% didn't mean anyone ever paid it. The number of deductions one could take back then was also far FAR higher than it is today. "Total taxes" is the relevant number, not some arbitrary income tax percentage. In truth, the fairest test is to simply compare the share of taxes the rich are paying, and that's at an all-time high.
Hopefully you can agree that money should absolutely not be a part of political campaigns.
Do these people actually believe that funding "Obamacare" for a few months is worse than letting the federal government default on its loans? There is no acceptable answer to this question. If the answer is "yes," well -- yikes. If the answer is "no," and this is just shameless pandering to the extreme right faction of the GOP/"Tea Party", then -- yikes.
The "default" talk is overblown. Failure to raise the debt limit wouldn't have been the armageddon you people seem to think it would be. Moreover, the reason 144 people voted against it is because they didn't get a single damn concession, as usual. As they feel that if they didn't get them now after all this pain, they certainly won't get it in February, when public pressure will be significantly against engaging in another shutdown. I might also add the "defunding Obamacare" demand was dropped very early in the negotiations. By the end, they were just looking for either Obamacare reform, or entitlement reform (two things they've been seeking for a very very long time that Democrats have never been willing to entertain).
Austerity programs in other countries have not helped to reduce their level of government debt, the level of government debt has still grown during this period.
You are mistaken. They have helped. The only reason the debt still grew was because the economy was generally still in a recession and economies/spending don't turn on a dime. For instance, the US has significant shrunk it's deficit despite the fact it continues to run one.
Seriously? You thought Obama would allow a bill to pass that would get rid of Obamacare?
The "defund Obamacare" demand was dropped very early in the "neogitations" (if you would call them that). Near the end, the Republicans were in fact asking for very very little (one year individual mandate delay + takeaway of congressional healthcare kickbacks) in exchange for a government reopen, but the Dems would still have none of it.
He wouldn't, especially when the country was blaming the shutdown on the opposition.
Now you're at the root of the problem. The Republicans are terrible at steering national dialogue.
The rest of the civilized world makes this shit work. You don't think America can do it better? Why do you hate America?
Just because the "rest of the civilized world" is content to lead a mediocre lifestyle with the government confiscating over half their income doesn't mean we want it for ourselves.
Because they nearly always cave in, often before the first vote.
Recent history speaks to the opposite. The Senate has gotten nearly everything it wanted. The House has gotten next to nothing. For instance, the Democrats have gotten the Republicans to cave on a considerable amount of tax hikes, yet entitlements haven't seen a single reform yet, nor has Obamacare seen a single significant change (short of the piddly one that was passed in this most recent showdown).
Please go do some research. A good place to start would be to find a graph of defense spending as a percentage of total outlays, but a graph of inflation adjusted military spending would be informative as well. Cutting military spending is basically how Clinton managed to balance the budget.
Now find a chart of social/Mandatory spending as a percentage of total outlays. Notice trends, notice total dollars, notice projected growth expectations.
I will tell you right now why they are gullible and easily fooled. It's because they are too lazy to go out and do research, and find out the data for themselves.
I'm not sure I believe this. but even if that was true, you would probably have to include 'faux news' viewers in that ie, the gullible and most easily fooled.
How ironic, you're horribly misinformed and you mock the other gullible people. Obamacare is opposed by a majority. At it's creation, it was opposed by a significant majority. Since, it has gained some support, but is generally still unfavored. Some of the individual provisions of the bill on the other hand hold majority support: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624
However, it's very disingenuous to claim that Americans like a ~4000 page bill just because they like 1 or 2 things in it.
The biggest threat to ACA is the ACA itself. If it works out, and most people have cheaper insurance, and healthcare generally gets better, then people will being to support it (all those undecideds). If it doesn't work out, if there are massive problems, if healthcare costs are perceived to go up, if healthcare generally gets worse, even if it's not entirely ACA's fault, then the opposition to ACA will grow.
I disagree. People will support programs no matter how badly they fail as long as they hand out "free things" (just like Social Security/Medicare, two other programs that fail to adequately address real problems, but are "free money" people would never ever try to get rid of or reform). Sadly, we're stuck with ACA for life, and the healthcare cost conversation will likely never be held again (Dems think the only solution to the problem is to raise taxes, rather than control costs).
I'd say Obamacare, and whatever it ultimately morphs into, is now pretty much cemented into the landscape.
Which is exactly why the Republicans were trying so hard to kill it. Now we're stuck with yet another cash cow entitlement that is a pisspoor attempt to solve a real problem that we'll never be able to reform or get rid of since it will be politically toxic to do so.
Medicare/Medicaid consistently push prices down (for medicare/medicaid, not for anyone else)...... Doctors complain about getting squeezed but then fail to pass the squeeze on to their suppliers for some reason.
For some reason? lol, I love your brand of logic. You claim Medicare is doing something about prices when in reality all it's doing is shafting the people trying to pay high prices. The healthcare prices didn't change (nor were they pressured at all). Just the doctors got fucked. If it were actually doing something, we wouldn't say "it's not working for some reason"
First of all, according to nonpartisan estimates, the ACA will reduce the deficit
Umm, I'll believe it when I see it. So far, it's added over 1.7 trillion in spending and put a severe crimp on business with new costs and regulations (such as mandatory electronic requirements). Or are you one of those "it's budget neutral" morons, simply because they embedded new taxes in it to "pay for it"? Believe it or not "new taxes + more spending + a failure to fix real spending growth problems" can very easily cause long term deleterious effects (some nonpartisan sources say the current continued economic malaise is a partial result of ACA).
If that happens, how could we possibly solve such a problem? Could it be that we could...pass a law raising taxes?
We already did that. Many times. Once during the Obamacare passage. Another time in December, on "rich" people. And as much as you like to believe that we can just endlessly raise taxes to solve our problems, it does actually have an effect on the economy.
From their current historically low levels, particularly as a fraction of GDP? And particularly on the super-wealthy?
Highly misleading. Rates on the "super wealthy" are far from historically low. The only people currently benefiting from historically low taxes are the poor. Taxes on everybody else are around "average" historical values: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/tax-facts-lowest-rates-in-30-years/ (and that article was before the December tax hike)
And since you aren't advocating raising taxes on everyone (perish the thought), instead of only on the people you envy, I'm afraid your statement is false. Additionally, raising taxes on the super-wealthy can't possibly bring in enough money to cover our government's level of spending (again, per unbiased sources: http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/01/news/economy/income_tax_deficit/)
If I'm reading you right, what you're actually saying is that the ACA will cost money to implement,
That isn't a "maybe", that's a fact. And it's predicted cost is beyond estimates (with most of the heavy spending not even beginning until 2014). The belief that it's going to be a net deficit savings requires not only outright lies that try to use tax increases as "savings" but also lots of speculation (since it takes into account a metric ton of complete unknowns and tries to use them as "cost savings"): http://useconomy.about.com/od/healthcarereform/a/Cost-of-Obamacare.htm
If you were 100% genuine about discussing the "cost" of something, that discussion should be held in a vacuum (namely, what I spend on the program vs what costs the program reduces). You can't chalk in additional revenue from additional taxes and try to pretend the program isn't costing 1.7 trillion in additional spending. At best, the net effect of the program is "1.7 trillion in spending minus the cost savings of the four things it's actually reducing: drug subsidies to wealthy/Hospital DSH Payments/Medicare Payments/Medicare Advantage Payments". Everything else is smoke and mirrors. Oh, and the net effect IS a deficit increase, based on those numbers. And it's a loss that we believe does nothing to address the real problem of high healthcare costs, and will likely continue to balloon in costs.
Doing stuff for people costs money. Helping poor people costs money.
And we'd love to see healthcare reform, reform that would actually help people. ACA does not. It passes the buck, shifts around costs, and tries to hide its massive spending behind tax increases. In reality, nothing has been don
The only remaining debate is whether to take the money that Congress was previously kicking in as a contribution to their employees' group health care and add it onto their employees' paychecks instead, which seems fair to me.
Fair??? Countless other employers drastically altered the insurance options available to their employees as well as the share of the premiums they were willing to cover as a direct result of ACA. Namely, those of us that work for other employers lost significant chunks of our "benefits". Why the hell should Congress maintain theirs when they're the ones that passed the damn thing? I certainly didn't see a paycheck increase after they stripped my plan and doubled my premiums.
Maybe a family making a quarter million a year is merely "middle class" in New York or something
Umm, exactly. And also why these arbitrary income lines are horseshit (or at least should take cost of living into account).
Tax havens have ~20 trillion dollars out there. Pretend it's in a bank with interest and you treat it like capital gains, and that's hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes.
Seriously dude, these numbers are big.
Your argument isn't exactly fair, given your link includes black market tax evasion (such as Al Capone). There's a huge difference between the "Tax evasion" of Facebook and the like and the tax evasion of criminals. It's not fair to just lump them together. No one has any plans to do anything about the latter (except for people pitching FairTax, which is just a fantastic idea).
[cut] 2. Defense
Dear god YES. You seem to be in bed with the GOP side. They claim to want to cut spending. Let's get on with it!
In the meantime, the entitlement potion of the budget has been growing at a substantial pace.
[cut] 3. Entitlements
Which entitlements are you talking about? Because it comes down to social security: $768 billion and medicaid/care: $802 billion. And you're right, cutting and/or trimming either would be hard on a lot of folks. Do you think it's reasonable that we could just BUY a nation's worth of hospitals, doctors and drugs for $802 billion/year? Plus, you know, whatever you spend on health insurance.
Don't forget ACA as well, which is coming in at 200 billion+ a year (so far). And the per-capita spending of other nations is certainly far less than ours, so why shouldn't that be enough money? (particularly considering the fact that the person getting the service should be picking up part of the bill).
`Was the whole idea of blowing up an asteroid. An asteroid, especially one the size of fucking TEXAS, does its damage through kinetic energy. So, as it strikes land, the other side is still 500 miles up in space, beyond the orbit of the ISS. Something that big is almost the size of Ceres. Ceres's mass is 9.43 ± 0.07Ã--10^20 kg. So, let's say it's a bit smaller and "only" 9x10^20 kg, and you blew it up into a million pieces, each piece is going to weigh 900,000,000,000,000 kg. or roughly, an asteroid of 5 miles wide. It only took one 8 miles wide to snuff the dinosaurs out. So multiply that by a million.
Even if you were on the other side of the planet, the winds would be upward of 2000 mph, with an over pressure of 276 psi. The sound would be 126 dB, and you would experience an earthquake of 13.6 richter. Blowing up something that big doesn't help - it's still 9x10^20 kg of rock falling on the earth, basically all at once. So, even if the Armageddon asteroid was blown up into a million pieces, it would still mean DOOM.
I thought the Armageddon premise was that they blew the asteroid into two halves (not a million pieces), each of which missed the earth on different sides, with only a very small smattering of debris continuing forward to actually strike the Earth? (hence the term "zero barrier" in the movie, the point past which the two halves would still collide with the planet).
So you object to Death Panels if those are run by government employees (who have no incentive to kill you), but like them when the Death Panels are run by for-profit companies who gauge your future payments against the cost of the treatment (thus may end up with a fiscal motive to kill you)?
If you don't think the govt doesn't have a fiscal motive to "kill you" in that scenario, you haven't been watching the latest deficit showdowns. Government is always looking for a way to save a buck.
Except it isn't the Senate that shut the government down, it was brand-new tea party Republicans who are really bad losers. They lost and Obamacare won, they tried to kill it in the courts and lost, they nominate a man who ran on an anti-Obamacare platform and lost, now they're holding the budget and debt limit hostage; Defund Obamacare or we'll destroy the US's economy!
Why is it that when your side in intransigent, it's "Republican obstructionism holding up sensible legislation", but when the other side is doing it, it's "holding the budget and debt limit hostage". You do realize Obama held the fiscal cliff hostage back in December over tax hikes on the rich? He was equally "willing to destroy the US economy" over a partisan demand, despite Congressional agreement over the other 99% of the budget. However, the Republicans actually compromised/caved and gave in to his demands, so we had no disaster. The Democrats aren't doing the same in this instance, unwilling to even discuss reforms to entitlements or Obamacare.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget the purple unicorn and the raining doughnuts. Truly paradise.
Whats' your point? Republicans have a bunch of "pie in the skies" as well (such as eliminating entitlements entirely). What'd Obama say? "You can't get everything you want"?
How do you figure? Obamacare represents an entitlement expansion not seen since the New Deal. Given the major spending issues we already have with our current New Deal programs, why wouldn't people be freaking out? (especially when the party that gave us Obamacare would like to cover their eyes and just pretend Social Security/Medicare aren't going to explode in costs in the next few decades.) I ask you: at what point does a government become communist/authoritarian? All the rhetoric (+ legislation) I ever hear about from the Democrats is talk of income redistribution from the rich to the poor. In addition, our govt entitlement spending is at downright silly levels (~60+% of the budget now?). I understand that Republicans like to hyperbolize about socialism, but honestly, when do you qualify?
A fair remark, but it wouldn't change the graph that much (An extra 100 billion per year from 2001 to 2008, measured against ~2.5 trillion in total outlays is an additional 4%). More importantly, it wouldn't change the current expense, since those wars have wound down at this point. So, people trying to cut defense spending now have no legs to stand on with regards to Iraq/Afghanistan spending.
That's reaching. The vast majority of the Homeland Security duties don't involve the war machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Homeland_Security#Consolidated_agencies
Ultimately, your former statement (that the period from 2001 - 2008 should be about 4 percentage points higher) is fair. But my reflection on current spending levels remains (~21-22% is historical lows, and projected costs show significant escalation in entitlements with mostly flat defense spending).
You understand why this is, right? Because they know they're gonna get paid! Because it's not a consumer they're dealing with who may or may not have the money to pay them. Rather, it's an insurance company or a government with deep pockets and no penchant to say "no thanks I don't want/need that". The point remains: Medicare does not lower costs. The doctor's behavior is the same with or without it. Therefore, all the program does is foist the ridiculously inefficient costs onto society, primarily onto the working class (since they're the ones that pay the bulk of Medicare taxes)
I'm not going to repeat myself. Look here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4345611&cid=45182993 or here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4345611&cid=45182959
You people in your echo chamber like to trot out a chart where a single tax (income) that was set so at an income level so high that it was not even paid at the time allows you to skew the results and paint the argument in a favorable light. In reality, govt spending is at all-time highs, and the rich already pay a historical high share of the taxes that cover said spending. That's a fact, and reality, and you can't hide from it.
Except that if you took ALL their income, you still couldn't pay the bills at our level of govt spending, as I've already stated.
No, we do it by reducing govt spending. Social Security and Medicare reform would be a good start. Those taxes have escalated from 2% to 12% since inception. And they're still running a deficit (and projected to grow worse). And our health (and retirements) are no better for it.
Why in god's name would we want that? We want something that works.
We had a voucher proposal via Romney not long ago. Additionally, Bush tried to do something about runaway social security spending by privatizing part of it.
And your model presupposes they haven't always had ways to hide assets. Deductions in the past were way more lenient than current day deductions, for instance. Just compare total share of taxes by income category -- that's the only truly fair test. Then compare the spending level. You'll see that spending is near historical highs (~post WW2 spending), and the bulk of the tax cost is being bourne by the rich (once again, at historical percentages of total taxes).
I have not, I've specifically picked a more relevant period. The 50s aren't applicable. They had barely any "social security taxes or medicare taxes" (~2% as per http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/content/pdf/ssrate_historical.pdf) that were "Tacked on", yet never included when discussing the taxes that people pay. It's like the great 90% myth -- just because a tax bracket was at one point 90% didn't mean anyone ever paid it. The number of deductions one could take back then was also far FAR higher than it is today. "Total taxes" is the relevant number, not some arbitrary income tax percentage. In truth, the fairest test is to simply compare the share of taxes the rich are paying, and that's at an all-time high.
I do agree.
The "default" talk is overblown. Failure to raise the debt limit wouldn't have been the armageddon you people seem to think it would be. Moreover, the reason 144 people voted against it is because they didn't get a single damn concession, as usual. As they feel that if they didn't get them now after all this pain, they certainly won't get it in February, when public pressure will be significantly against engaging in another shutdown. I might also add the "defunding Obamacare" demand was dropped very early in the negotiations. By the end, they were just looking for either Obamacare reform, or entitlement reform (two things they've been seeking for a very very long time that Democrats have never been willing to entertain).
You are mistaken. They have helped. The only reason the debt still grew was because the economy was generally still in a recession and economies/spending don't turn on a dime. For instance, the US has significant shrunk it's deficit despite the fact it continues to run one.
The "defund Obamacare" demand was dropped very early in the "neogitations" (if you would call them that). Near the end, the Republicans were in fact asking for very very little (one year individual mandate delay + takeaway of congressional healthcare kickbacks) in exchange for a government reopen, but the Dems would still have none of it.
Now you're at the root of the problem. The Republicans are terrible at steering national dialogue.
Just because the "rest of the civilized world" is content to lead a mediocre lifestyle with the government confiscating over half their income doesn't mean we want it for ourselves.
Recent history speaks to the opposite. The Senate has gotten nearly everything it wanted. The House has gotten next to nothing. For instance, the Democrats have gotten the Republicans to cave on a considerable amount of tax hikes, yet entitlements haven't seen a single reform yet, nor has Obamacare seen a single significant change (short of the piddly one that was passed in this most recent showdown).
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Defense_Spending_-_percent_to_Outlays.png
Now find a chart of social/Mandatory spending as a percentage of total outlays. Notice trends, notice total dollars, notice projected growth expectations.
I'll wait.
Oh, the irony. Where's your research? Where's your data? Oh that's right, you're wrong in this particular case, so you have none. Stop it, get some facts and we can have a real conversation. Here's mine: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624
How ironic, you're horribly misinformed and you mock the other gullible people. Obamacare is opposed by a majority. At it's creation, it was opposed by a significant majority. Since, it has gained some support, but is generally still unfavored. Some of the individual provisions of the bill on the other hand hold majority support: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624
However, it's very disingenuous to claim that Americans like a ~4000 page bill just because they like 1 or 2 things in it.
I disagree. People will support programs no matter how badly they fail as long as they hand out "free things" (just like Social Security/Medicare, two other programs that fail to adequately address real problems, but are "free money" people would never ever try to get rid of or reform). Sadly, we're stuck with ACA for life, and the healthcare cost conversation will likely never be held again (Dems think the only solution to the problem is to raise taxes, rather than control costs).
Which is exactly why the Republicans were trying so hard to kill it. Now we're stuck with yet another cash cow entitlement that is a pisspoor attempt to solve a real problem that we'll never be able to reform or get rid of since it will be politically toxic to do so.
For some reason? lol, I love your brand of logic. You claim Medicare is doing something about prices when in reality all it's doing is shafting the people trying to pay high prices. The healthcare prices didn't change (nor were they pressured at all). Just the doctors got fucked. If it were actually doing something, we wouldn't say "it's not working for some reason"
Umm, I'll believe it when I see it. So far, it's added over 1.7 trillion in spending and put a severe crimp on business with new costs and regulations (such as mandatory electronic requirements). Or are you one of those "it's budget neutral" morons, simply because they embedded new taxes in it to "pay for it"? Believe it or not "new taxes + more spending + a failure to fix real spending growth problems" can very easily cause long term deleterious effects (some nonpartisan sources say the current continued economic malaise is a partial result of ACA).
We already did that. Many times. Once during the Obamacare passage. Another time in December, on "rich" people. And as much as you like to believe that we can just endlessly raise taxes to solve our problems, it does actually have an effect on the economy.
Highly misleading. Rates on the "super wealthy" are far from historically low. The only people currently benefiting from historically low taxes are the poor. Taxes on everybody else are around "average" historical values: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/tax-facts-lowest-rates-in-30-years/ (and that article was before the December tax hike)
And since you aren't advocating raising taxes on everyone (perish the thought), instead of only on the people you envy, I'm afraid your statement is false. Additionally, raising taxes on the super-wealthy can't possibly bring in enough money to cover our government's level of spending (again, per unbiased sources: http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/01/news/economy/income_tax_deficit/)
That isn't a "maybe", that's a fact. And it's predicted cost is beyond estimates (with most of the heavy spending not even beginning until 2014). The belief that it's going to be a net deficit savings requires not only outright lies that try to use tax increases as "savings" but also lots of speculation (since it takes into account a metric ton of complete unknowns and tries to use them as "cost savings"): http://useconomy.about.com/od/healthcarereform/a/Cost-of-Obamacare.htm
If you were 100% genuine about discussing the "cost" of something, that discussion should be held in a vacuum (namely, what I spend on the program vs what costs the program reduces). You can't chalk in additional revenue from additional taxes and try to pretend the program isn't costing 1.7 trillion in additional spending. At best, the net effect of the program is "1.7 trillion in spending minus the cost savings of the four things it's actually reducing: drug subsidies to wealthy/Hospital DSH Payments/Medicare Payments/Medicare Advantage Payments". Everything else is smoke and mirrors. Oh, and the net effect IS a deficit increase, based on those numbers. And it's a loss that we believe does nothing to address the real problem of high healthcare costs, and will likely continue to balloon in costs.
And we'd love to see healthcare reform, reform that would actually help people. ACA does not. It passes the buck, shifts around costs, and tries to hide its massive spending behind tax increases. In reality, nothing has been don
You're fascinated there aren't more thieves amongst the poor? I guess that's true given the "criminal" wrap they often get.
Fair??? Countless other employers drastically altered the insurance options available to their employees as well as the share of the premiums they were willing to cover as a direct result of ACA. Namely, those of us that work for other employers lost significant chunks of our "benefits". Why the hell should Congress maintain theirs when they're the ones that passed the damn thing? I certainly didn't see a paycheck increase after they stripped my plan and doubled my premiums.
Umm, exactly. And also why these arbitrary income lines are horseshit (or at least should take cost of living into account).
Your argument isn't exactly fair, given your link includes black market tax evasion (such as Al Capone). There's a huge difference between the "Tax evasion" of Facebook and the like and the tax evasion of criminals. It's not fair to just lump them together. No one has any plans to do anything about the latter (except for people pitching FairTax, which is just a fantastic idea).
They already did -- what do you think the bulk of the sequester was? On top of that, defense spending has been declining for decades (as a proportion of GDP): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/U.S._Defense_Spending_-_percent_to_Outlays.png
In the meantime, the entitlement potion of the budget has been growing at a substantial pace.
Don't forget ACA as well, which is coming in at 200 billion+ a year (so far). And the per-capita spending of other nations is certainly far less than ours, so why shouldn't that be enough money? (particularly considering the fact that the person getting the service should be picking up part of the bill).
I thought the Armageddon premise was that they blew the asteroid into two halves (not a million pieces), each of which missed the earth on different sides, with only a very small smattering of debris continuing forward to actually strike the Earth? (hence the term "zero barrier" in the movie, the point past which the two halves would still collide with the planet).
If you don't think the govt doesn't have a fiscal motive to "kill you" in that scenario, you haven't been watching the latest deficit showdowns. Government is always looking for a way to save a buck.
Why is it that when your side in intransigent, it's "Republican obstructionism holding up sensible legislation", but when the other side is doing it, it's "holding the budget and debt limit hostage". You do realize Obama held the fiscal cliff hostage back in December over tax hikes on the rich? He was equally "willing to destroy the US economy" over a partisan demand, despite Congressional agreement over the other 99% of the budget. However, the Republicans actually compromised/caved and gave in to his demands, so we had no disaster. The Democrats aren't doing the same in this instance, unwilling to even discuss reforms to entitlements or Obamacare.