So your statement "The Democrats couldn't get a majority of their party" is true because 67% is not a majority? Who taught you math?
Fair enough -- I phrased it poorly. The point I was trying to make is that they had a Senate majority in seats, yet were nowhere near what they needed in votes (i.e. Republicans are not to blame -- had the Democrats merely walked party line, the public option would have passed, but they did not have the support amongst their own)
Malpractice reform: Malpractice accounts for ~30 billion. Assuming we can cut that down to 0 we've saved almost 2%, but a 2% that will shrink over time as other costs rise. While helpful, it's not a long term solution.
I'd take a -30 billion/yr over a +200 billion/yr (which is pretty much what Obamacare is bringing to the table).
Cross-state insurance: A logistical nightmare for insurance companies
And the 4000+ page maze of legislation that is Obamacare is a logistical breeze??? And that's impacting all businesses, not just insurance companies.
You know what things people love and are very popular? Covering pre-existing conditions, students stay on their parents insurance, no life time caps.
Of course they are. "Free money" is always popular. In a surprising coincidence, people also like tax breaks, housing deductions, and free beer. But healthcare reform isn't about what people want, it's about what the system needs (which is cost control, not a bunch of "free" hand outs).
Problem is you can't just include those things if people can just get insurance as soon as they get sick - hence the insurance mandate.
And there are even easier ways to handle it. Mandate catastrophic insurance, which is cheap. Then make it illegal for insurance companies to drop existing customers after they develop a condition. Problem solved. If you want to encourage preventative care or healthier living, try tax breaks for positive behavior -- it works for the green industry. Solving the "hospital chargemaster" issue is as simple as adding transparency in costs (which is one good thing that may come out of the state exchanges, though it's far more likely it'll just relocate the costs around, shell-game style, since the consumer is still not the direct cost absorber -- so long as the consumer only deals with "insurance premiums", and never with real "healthcare costs", healthcare will always have distorted prices, little choice, and no motivator to live healthy)
Catastrophic health care is much more expensive.
No it isn't. The premiums are lower, for one. And it changes behavior when people feel the costs out of their own pocket (http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/04/02/the_obamacare_story_starts_to_unravel_100235.html). One of the primary drivers of high healthcare costs is that costs are obscured from the consumer and negotiated by middlemen. Catastrophic insurance (ala high-deductible health insurance w/ HSA) exposes the consumer to costs. Obamacare only serves to cement the existing system whereby the hospitals, government, and insurance companies scheme secretly behind your back to tell you what you're going to pay and what they're going to cover. And then it takes it one step farther by telling you that you're also going to cover a bunch of other stuff, whether you want it or not (take female childcare items, for instance, such as breast pumps)
It's weird how some people don't think we should provide health care to our citizens now in the modern world.
I find it equally weird that you believe people should be allowed to lead any life of their choosing, and society should be forced to absorb the expense of their bad decisions. What's next? Reimbursements for suckers who spent decades of their earni
What you mean is actually "The Democrats couldn't even get a majority on board to support a public option". If the senate was all Democrats, they could have passed it easily
How about any cost controls? (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all).
But it's not necessarily what they wanted moreso than what they didn't want. Alot of the ideas in the bill had crossover appeal, but they were overshadowed by a mass of crap that no one liked, such as the pre-existing condition mandate and the individual mandate (which is NOT the same mandate Republicans once supported -- for just one example, the Heritage plan covered only catastrophic, NOT comprehensive expenses)
The Democrats made lots of compromises, the biggest one being the public option. Can you name any that the Republicans made?
No, they didn't. The Democrats couldn't even get a majority of their own party on board to support a public option (Google the "Blue Dogs" and Obamacare). Regarding compromises, what compromises could the Republicans make when none of the ideas the Republicans actually pitched were actually in the draft bill? This was a matter of "compromising" meaning "come to our side and accept our partisan idea". This wasn't a bipartisan bill -- it was a partisan affair that they crammed through by buying off other politicians with riders and state kickbacks. It was about as dirty as politics get.
Socialized medical insurance would be nice though. Maybe it's why Canadians seem happy and friendly all the time (or maybe that's the effect of too much maple syrup).
Canadians have province level Medicare. That's a far cry from the federal-level system US proponents of "socialized medicine" are clamoring for.
Sneak it through? The biggest political debate of that year, months and months of continual coverage and debate in the media, followed by votes in congress, is "sneaking it through"?
You might want to revisit that coverage/debate. Because the bulk of that "long period" was essentially brainstorming/committees/tossing-around-ideas -- the actual bill on the other hand was only on a docket for a very small period of time before being forced through to a vote: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/olympia-snowe-obama-failing-grade_n_1382838.html
Ignore the biased conclusion made by the author of this article, and focus on the statement by Snowe: "she voted for the bill in the Finance Committee, only to turn against it when it reached the decisive vote on the Senate floor. Snowe complained that the process was happening too fast, and that it was too partisan".
Hell, the woman retired because of the hyperpartisanship she saw in the government, and that was a Republican willing to cross party lines. So yes, it was snuck through, using reconciliation because they didn't have enough votes for a straight passage. AND it was against public opinion (which was like 70% opposed at the time).
Obamacare doesn't encourage massive cost increases in health care. Since the ACA was passed, my premiums have increased at the slowest rate in memory. In fact this year was the first year I can recall where my premiums didn't increase at all.
That's irrelevant!!! The correct test is whether the total cost of "premiums/healthcare expenses without Obamacare" is greater than or less than the total cost of "premiums/healthcare expenses with Obamacare PLUS the cost of Obamacare". Just because your premiums went down doesn't mean the ~200+ billion we're going to be spending as taxpayers per year on Obamacare isn't happening -- you'll be paying those expenses one way or another.
Like the fact that the US spends roughly 2x as much(as a % of GDP) than any other industrialized nation(who all have public health insurance) and yet the health outcomes are not any better for all that cash spent. Oh I'm sorry, did I use facts with a Republican? My mistake.
Ya, and half of that is public spending (https://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/2012/10/02/US_spends_much_more_on_health_than_what_might_be_expected_1_slideshow.jpg). So your whole "put everything in the government's hands and all will go well" plan is kinda shot to shit there. They certainly haven't been very successful with Medicare/Medicaid. Sorry, are those those facts not working out for you anymore? Before mouthing off, why don't you look into the fact that cost controls have more to do with what and less to do with who is driving a system.
How does looking at voting history do any good? First, who has time to really read the details of the stuff they're voting on?
Most times, details aren't even needed. The bare minimum aggregate is enough to prove them for the liars that they are. Take Obama, for instance, who voted in favor of the Patriot Act as a senator (http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml), yet claimed to be about civil liberties in his campaign speeches. You don't have to know the details of the bills to know when someone is flat out full of shit.
In the last 15 years 12 of the them have broken records for heat. How is that not a lick of warming?
The planet is the warmest it has ever been in human history. That is normal and expected, given the fact we're currently in a warming cycle (even without's man's influence). So we're already sitting at the very top of "mankind's historical temperature records". By normal weather variation, 7.5 of those 15 years are going to be "historical records". Secondly, it's the rate of warming that is more important than "is any warming occuring?". Scientisits dictate that "more CO2 == faster rate of warming".
Exactly how is the historical record in any way not confirming global warming?
Because historically we've seen similar rises and falls in temperature when mankind wasn't even around. Climate scientists try to use the rapid climb in temperature from 1950 - 2000 as a sign of "abnormality", because clearly the change would have been "slower and more deliberate" if the evilness of man did not intrude. But when you ask why this rapid rise in the rate of heating did not continue in the past 15 years where CO2 has still been spiking, they're fast to search for boogey men and fudge factors to attribute it to. Global CO2 emissions today are 30% higher than they were in 2000 (even higher than was predicted by the IPCC). Yet where's the accompanied climb in the rate of warming? The opposite has actually occurred...the rate of warming has slowed:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/why-the-globe-hasnt-warmed-much-for-the-past-decade-15788 http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/what-caused-global-warming-to/7173667
You can claim it's being sinked in the ocean, or counterbalanced by aerosols, leprechauns, or fairies, but you can't pretend the last 15 years doesn't throw a wrench into the "effect of manmade CO2" claims of the IPCC.
This is the point most deniers seem to miss when they bring up past periods of climate change. Scientists have never said it didn't happen in the past. What they say is the rate of change is faster than they have seen and may be faster than species can adapt and humans are most likely the cause of the current change
And the point most AGW myth accepters seem to miss is that the recent ~50 year period they like to isolate showing increasing temperatures is but a blip on the radar in the climate of a planet. The fact we haven't seen a lick of warming in the last 15 years has stood starkly in the face of their models (which have been increasingly more dire). It shows they have no fucking clue what effects are human driven and what effects are natural variation. How the hell can a scientist acknowledge similar historical variations in climate have occurred and then promptly throw that history out when trying to make a case for a historical abnormality??????
Having just watched Gasland II, I don't necessarily trust the government's pronouncements either. According to that documentary (which is a bit propagandistic to be honest)
Terrible, terrible source. That movie is loaded with so many inconsistencies and so many flat-out lies that I wouldn't know what is a fact, what is an exaggeration, and what is plainly made up. Did you know that, for instance, the hose in Gasland 2 that was on fire was attached directly to a gas vent rather than a water supply? http://energyindepth.org/national/the-continuing-fraud-of-gasland/
He averted an econopocalypse. There were not runs on the banks. FDIC didn't come into play. The stock market bounced back, if not the job market.
An assumption -- you don't know if there ever was going to be an "econopocalypse". This is an example of the tiger-repellant rock. Hell, if anything staved off the "runs on the banks", it was the TARP program that passed under Bush, not Obama. The fact we're now 5-6 years passed the start of the economic collapse (~4 years passed the "trough"), and still seeing sluggish recovery at best isn't exactly a selling point for Obama.
He ramped down our military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. In such a way that was a non-newsworthy event. This is a SLAM DUNK.
Hardly. This was going to happen anyway, as those wars were already over and winding down.
He has pushed his health care plan though a RAGING MAELSTROM of vile hate. And it passed.
And you think forcing politically-motivated legislation through Congress against the will of the people is a good thing???
And he pushed for the assault on Osama Bin Laden. That business? Taken care of.
Fair enough, but this is more a star in the caps of the intel community, not the president.
Tell me again what the point of insurance companies is?
To keep your life/finances from being ruined: when your house burns down, when your car gets t-boned, when a sudden disability makes you unable to work, when your spouse dies and you can't afford the bills...etc, etc, etc. Insurance has a purpose -- it is just implemented in a backward and pisspoor fashion in medicine (largely but not solely in part due to the government mucking about with it)
"Methane (CH4) emissions in the United States decreased by 8% between 1990 and 2011. During this time period, emissions increased from sources associated with agricultural activities, while emissions decreased from sources associated with the exploration and production of natural gas and petroleum products."
We should be able to moderate the story submitters in the same manner we moderate posts. Because this is Flamebait -1. Hell, the phrase "Climate Change Denier" is in the title itself. We're one step away from Godwinn'ing the submission itself: "[person I hate] is just like Hitler, receives funding from [some other schmuck]".
I see that you don't actually give a reason it "pales". 7% of the total population is still rather large even when compared to 15%.
Because the total government dollar benefit of those 15% is also way larger than that of the 7% you speak of (and I might add your 7% remains a mythical voting bloc whereas the 15% are a demonstrated coalition). Hell, the fact that government workers have essentially had their pay frozen for half a decade + the fact they're currently being furloughed is proof enough for me that they aren't gaming the system to pad their own pockets.
Medicare beneficiaries cost the US an average of $9,500 per. In comparison, I see that public employees at the state and local level apparently receive around $42 per hour in total compensation (of which only two thirds was wages). At full time (2000 hours a year) that would be around $80k of compensation a year, which is around a factor of 8 higher than the average medicare recipient.
You can't be serious. You're pretending all that work they're providing is utterly useless. A job isn't a handout. People looking to game the system and vote themselves dollars aren't going to do it by giving themselves more work. They're just going to give themselves money (via tax breaks, or credits, or some other bullshit).
I'm not seeing the problem with denying a vote to people who take in more from government than they pay out.
Well it would shut out the ~47% of voters that pay no income taxes (the very poor and the retired elderly). It would probably motivate employers to lay off a bunch of people in an election year to squash votes.
A minimum guaranteed pay is not the same as minimum wage.
But that's not what you said originally: "Guaranteed doesn't necessarily mean you don't work at all. It could mean that there are a large number of part time 10-20 hour per week jobs."
It's one way or the other: either it's guaranteed money (whether you work or not), or it's minimum wage. You can't just "guarantee" a job, particularly during recessions when jobs are scarce. Hell, if people could create jobs from thin air, the government would be all over it.
And frankly, guaranteeing a paycheck no matter what is just insane. Have you seen the fiscal stress that is already being put on nations worldwide just because of ballooning Welfare/Unemployment outlays? And that's but a fraction of an actual salary.
It costs me money either way.
Either they're bumped from the health insurance that the company has and I have to subsidize because they're no longer insurable, or the costs for that particular policy goes up.
The situation isn't that black and white. There is a large swath of people that would have been dying before that are now kept alive for many more decades on a very expensive and unhealthy lifestyle (take your pick: ridiculous numbers of heart disease drugs perhaps: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/too-many-heart-pills-doctors-say-1C8845071). Believe it or not, EMTALA isn't a "cure-all". They might patch you up and send you on your way at the emergency room, but without maintenance drugs, nothing is stopping your next heart attack. Giving everyone a blank check to lead whatever lifestyle they wish w/ society footing the bill will be more expensive than the previous "heartless" way of doing it, guaranteed. Your belief that's it a zero sum game and merely a transfer of payment source is too simplistic.
What is wrong with everyone quitting?
I used to smoke, don't care if you do
That's why. It's a freedom. It's a right. If you don't care if others do it, you shouldn't be trying to remove their freedom. Otherwise, the slippery slope eventually bites you in the ass: What is wrong with banning automobiles? Bikes are safer, better for the environment, and better for your health. I don't need a car, so why do you?.
Name me one other 'civilized' Western country where the populace walks around armed that isn't in the middle of civil war, because I'm honestly hard pressed to think of one besides the US.
"The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world"
They may not be "Walking around with guns", but that populace sure as hell is loaded to bear. Oh, and Switzerland is very safe. From the same link: "The annual rate of homicide by any means per 100,000 population was 0.70, which is one of the lowest in the world.[16] The annual rate of homicide by guns per 100,000 population was 0.52." If anything, it's more proof that gun education/training is what is direly needed, not gun control.
But these are particularly pernicious conflicts of interest in that they create a large group of people with an interest in expanding the extent and power of the various governments of the US.
But that example pales in comparison to the true conflicts of interest -- take Medicare for example. 15% of the country is on Medciare and they all do vote, typically as a monolithic bloc. So sorry, the hypothetical "government workers" case doesn't cut it against the real-life cases that are actually true and are actually costing us tons of money as taxpayers. So what then, should we not let the elderly vote either? Where does it end?
Similar to today, except there is a minimum guaranteed pay.
What do you mean similar to toady? That's exactly today. It's called minimum wage, and it's hotly debated by economists as to whether the net effect on the system is positive or negative.
It's hardly disingenuous to have a change of heart based on the actions between now and then and differences between promises and policy.
I think the sarcastic point being made is that it was stupid he ever got the peace prize in the first place, having done nothing (as many conservatives pointed out at the time). Not only was he voted in based on nothing more than false promises, he also was given accolades and rewards based on the same false promises.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough -- I phrased it poorly. The point I was trying to make is that they had a Senate majority in seats, yet were nowhere near what they needed in votes (i.e. Republicans are not to blame -- had the Democrats merely walked party line, the public option would have passed, but they did not have the support amongst their own)
I'd take a -30 billion/yr over a +200 billion/yr (which is pretty much what Obamacare is bringing to the table).
And the 4000+ page maze of legislation that is Obamacare is a logistical breeze??? And that's impacting all businesses, not just insurance companies.
Of course they are. "Free money" is always popular. In a surprising coincidence, people also like tax breaks, housing deductions, and free beer. But healthcare reform isn't about what people want, it's about what the system needs (which is cost control, not a bunch of "free" hand outs).
And there are even easier ways to handle it. Mandate catastrophic insurance, which is cheap. Then make it illegal for insurance companies to drop existing customers after they develop a condition. Problem solved. If you want to encourage preventative care or healthier living, try tax breaks for positive behavior -- it works for the green industry. Solving the "hospital chargemaster" issue is as simple as adding transparency in costs (which is one good thing that may come out of the state exchanges, though it's far more likely it'll just relocate the costs around, shell-game style, since the consumer is still not the direct cost absorber -- so long as the consumer only deals with "insurance premiums", and never with real "healthcare costs", healthcare will always have distorted prices, little choice, and no motivator to live healthy)
No it isn't. The premiums are lower, for one. And it changes behavior when people feel the costs out of their own pocket (http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/04/02/the_obamacare_story_starts_to_unravel_100235.html). One of the primary drivers of high healthcare costs is that costs are obscured from the consumer and negotiated by middlemen. Catastrophic insurance (ala high-deductible health insurance w/ HSA) exposes the consumer to costs. Obamacare only serves to cement the existing system whereby the hospitals, government, and insurance companies scheme secretly behind your back to tell you what you're going to pay and what they're going to cover. And then it takes it one step farther by telling you that you're also going to cover a bunch of other stuff, whether you want it or not (take female childcare items, for instance, such as breast pumps)
I find it equally weird that you believe people should be allowed to lead any life of their choosing, and society should be forced to absorb the expense of their bad decisions. What's next? Reimbursements for suckers who spent decades of their earni
No, you're wrong. Stop lying and/or trying to rewrite history. The Democrats had between 58 and 60 seats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress) and at best had about 41 people on board with a public option: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/10/public-option-support-now_n_493725.html
That's ~67% of the Democrats. That's not widespread appeal. It certainly isn't bipartisan appeal.
A smaller, more focused package for one: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443989204577601583402450826.html
Or malpractice reform?
Or cross-state insurance?
How about any cost controls? (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all).
But it's not necessarily what they wanted moreso than what they didn't want. Alot of the ideas in the bill had crossover appeal, but they were overshadowed by a mass of crap that no one liked, such as the pre-existing condition mandate and the individual mandate (which is NOT the same mandate Republicans once supported -- for just one example, the Heritage plan covered only catastrophic, NOT comprehensive expenses)
No, they didn't. The Democrats couldn't even get a majority of their own party on board to support a public option (Google the "Blue Dogs" and Obamacare). Regarding compromises, what compromises could the Republicans make when none of the ideas the Republicans actually pitched were actually in the draft bill? This was a matter of "compromising" meaning "come to our side and accept our partisan idea". This wasn't a bipartisan bill -- it was a partisan affair that they crammed through by buying off other politicians with riders and state kickbacks. It was about as dirty as politics get.
Canadians have province level Medicare. That's a far cry from the federal-level system US proponents of "socialized medicine" are clamoring for.
You might want to revisit that coverage/debate. Because the bulk of that "long period" was essentially brainstorming/committees/tossing-around-ideas -- the actual bill on the other hand was only on a docket for a very small period of time before being forced through to a vote: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/olympia-snowe-obama-failing-grade_n_1382838.html
Ignore the biased conclusion made by the author of this article, and focus on the statement by Snowe: "she voted for the bill in the Finance Committee, only to turn against it when it reached the decisive vote on the Senate floor. Snowe complained that the process was happening too fast, and that it was too partisan".
Hell, the woman retired because of the hyperpartisanship she saw in the government, and that was a Republican willing to cross party lines. So yes, it was snuck through, using reconciliation because they didn't have enough votes for a straight passage. AND it was against public opinion (which was like 70% opposed at the time).
Pretty damn easy when they're allowed to demand whatever services they want and then just welch on the payment:
http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/001097
It's no surprise to me that more and more doctors are choosing not to take Medicare patients. Good luck "delivering more" when we eventually get to the point where no doctor wants to engage with your shady payment plan: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2013/July/29/medicare-doctor-issues.aspx
That's irrelevant!!! The correct test is whether the total cost of "premiums/healthcare expenses without Obamacare" is greater than or less than the total cost of "premiums/healthcare expenses with Obamacare PLUS the cost of Obamacare". Just because your premiums went down doesn't mean the ~200+ billion we're going to be spending as taxpayers per year on Obamacare isn't happening -- you'll be paying those expenses one way or another.
Ya, and half of that is public spending (https://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/2012/10/02/US_spends_much_more_on_health_than_what_might_be_expected_1_slideshow.jpg). So your whole "put everything in the government's hands and all will go well" plan is kinda shot to shit there. They certainly haven't been very successful with Medicare/Medicaid. Sorry, are those those facts not working out for you anymore? Before mouthing off, why don't you look into the fact that cost controls have more to do with what and less to do with who is driving a system.
Most times, details aren't even needed. The bare minimum aggregate is enough to prove them for the liars that they are. Take Obama, for instance, who voted in favor of the Patriot Act as a senator (http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml), yet claimed to be about civil liberties in his campaign speeches. You don't have to know the details of the bills to know when someone is flat out full of shit.
The planet is the warmest it has ever been in human history. That is normal and expected, given the fact we're currently in a warming cycle (even without's man's influence). So we're already sitting at the very top of "mankind's historical temperature records". By normal weather variation, 7.5 of those 15 years are going to be "historical records". Secondly, it's the rate of warming that is more important than "is any warming occuring?". Scientisits dictate that "more CO2 == faster rate of warming".
Because historically we've seen similar rises and falls in temperature when mankind wasn't even around. Climate scientists try to use the rapid climb in temperature from 1950 - 2000 as a sign of "abnormality", because clearly the change would have been "slower and more deliberate" if the evilness of man did not intrude. But when you ask why this rapid rise in the rate of heating did not continue in the past 15 years where CO2 has still been spiking, they're fast to search for boogey men and fudge factors to attribute it to. Global CO2 emissions today are 30% higher than they were in 2000 (even higher than was predicted by the IPCC). Yet where's the accompanied climb in the rate of warming? The opposite has actually occurred...the rate of warming has slowed: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/why-the-globe-hasnt-warmed-much-for-the-past-decade-15788
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/what-caused-global-warming-to/7173667
You can claim it's being sinked in the ocean, or counterbalanced by aerosols, leprechauns, or fairies, but you can't pretend the last 15 years doesn't throw a wrench into the "effect of manmade CO2" claims of the IPCC.
And the point most AGW myth accepters seem to miss is that the recent ~50 year period they like to isolate showing increasing temperatures is but a blip on the radar in the climate of a planet. The fact we haven't seen a lick of warming in the last 15 years has stood starkly in the face of their models (which have been increasingly more dire). It shows they have no fucking clue what effects are human driven and what effects are natural variation. How the hell can a scientist acknowledge similar historical variations in climate have occurred and then promptly throw that history out when trying to make a case for a historical abnormality??????
Terrible, terrible source. That movie is loaded with so many inconsistencies and so many flat-out lies that I wouldn't know what is a fact, what is an exaggeration, and what is plainly made up. Did you know that, for instance, the hose in Gasland 2 that was on fire was attached directly to a gas vent rather than a water supply? http://energyindepth.org/national/the-continuing-fraud-of-gasland/
For the same reason they want to believe CO2 is Hitler. Can't have a Crusade without a heretic.
An assumption -- you don't know if there ever was going to be an "econopocalypse". This is an example of the tiger-repellant rock. Hell, if anything staved off the "runs on the banks", it was the TARP program that passed under Bush, not Obama. The fact we're now 5-6 years passed the start of the economic collapse (~4 years passed the "trough"), and still seeing sluggish recovery at best isn't exactly a selling point for Obama.
Hardly. This was going to happen anyway, as those wars were already over and winding down.
And you think forcing politically-motivated legislation through Congress against the will of the people is a good thing???
Fair enough, but this is more a star in the caps of the intel community, not the president.
To keep your life/finances from being ruined: when your house burns down, when your car gets t-boned, when a sudden disability makes you unable to work, when your spouse dies and you can't afford the bills...etc, etc, etc. Insurance has a purpose -- it is just implemented in a backward and pisspoor fashion in medicine (largely but not solely in part due to the government mucking about with it)
Everyone says this, but it doesn't appear to be showing up in the measurements:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html
"Methane (CH4) emissions in the United States decreased by 8% between 1990 and 2011. During this time period, emissions increased from sources associated with agricultural activities, while emissions decreased from sources associated with the exploration and production of natural gas and petroleum products."
We should be able to moderate the story submitters in the same manner we moderate posts. Because this is Flamebait -1. Hell, the phrase "Climate Change Denier" is in the title itself. We're one step away from Godwinn'ing the submission itself: "[person I hate] is just like Hitler, receives funding from [some other schmuck]".
Kendo is a martial art, the way of the sword.
Because the total government dollar benefit of those 15% is also way larger than that of the 7% you speak of (and I might add your 7% remains a mythical voting bloc whereas the 15% are a demonstrated coalition). Hell, the fact that government workers have essentially had their pay frozen for half a decade + the fact they're currently being furloughed is proof enough for me that they aren't gaming the system to pad their own pockets.
You can't be serious. You're pretending all that work they're providing is utterly useless. A job isn't a handout. People looking to game the system and vote themselves dollars aren't going to do it by giving themselves more work. They're just going to give themselves money (via tax breaks, or credits, or some other bullshit).
Well it would shut out the ~47% of voters that pay no income taxes (the very poor and the retired elderly). It would probably motivate employers to lay off a bunch of people in an election year to squash votes.
But that's not what you said originally: "Guaranteed doesn't necessarily mean you don't work at all. It could mean that there are a large number of part time 10-20 hour per week jobs." It's one way or the other: either it's guaranteed money (whether you work or not), or it's minimum wage. You can't just "guarantee" a job, particularly during recessions when jobs are scarce. Hell, if people could create jobs from thin air, the government would be all over it.
And frankly, guaranteeing a paycheck no matter what is just insane. Have you seen the fiscal stress that is already being put on nations worldwide just because of ballooning Welfare/Unemployment outlays? And that's but a fraction of an actual salary.
The situation isn't that black and white. There is a large swath of people that would have been dying before that are now kept alive for many more decades on a very expensive and unhealthy lifestyle (take your pick: ridiculous numbers of heart disease drugs perhaps: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/too-many-heart-pills-doctors-say-1C8845071). Believe it or not, EMTALA isn't a "cure-all". They might patch you up and send you on your way at the emergency room, but without maintenance drugs, nothing is stopping your next heart attack. Giving everyone a blank check to lead whatever lifestyle they wish w/ society footing the bill will be more expensive than the previous "heartless" way of doing it, guaranteed. Your belief that's it a zero sum game and merely a transfer of payment source is too simplistic.
That's why. It's a freedom. It's a right. If you don't care if others do it, you shouldn't be trying to remove their freedom. Otherwise, the slippery slope eventually bites you in the ass: What is wrong with banning automobiles? Bikes are safer, better for the environment, and better for your health. I don't need a car, so why do you?.
You're joking, right? How about Switzerland? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
"The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world"
They may not be "Walking around with guns", but that populace sure as hell is loaded to bear. Oh, and Switzerland is very safe. From the same link: "The annual rate of homicide by any means per 100,000 population was 0.70, which is one of the lowest in the world.[16] The annual rate of homicide by guns per 100,000 population was 0.52." If anything, it's more proof that gun education/training is what is direly needed, not gun control.
But that example pales in comparison to the true conflicts of interest -- take Medicare for example. 15% of the country is on Medciare and they all do vote, typically as a monolithic bloc. So sorry, the hypothetical "government workers" case doesn't cut it against the real-life cases that are actually true and are actually costing us tons of money as taxpayers. So what then, should we not let the elderly vote either? Where does it end?
What do you mean similar to toady? That's exactly today. It's called minimum wage, and it's hotly debated by economists as to whether the net effect on the system is positive or negative.
I think the sarcastic point being made is that it was stupid he ever got the peace prize in the first place, having done nothing (as many conservatives pointed out at the time). Not only was he voted in based on nothing more than false promises, he also was given accolades and rewards based on the same false promises.