Boehner wants to raise retirement age to fund the wars. Um...?

[gonzomax]

@sleeping

@septimus

So when people like Sam Stone complain about the “100 trillion dollar” shortfall in providing medical care to retirees, let’s ask them what their solution is. Let the retirees get sick and die? Blame it on Democrats who keep wasting money on public schools etc.? Or failure to elect right-wingers? – remember it was the Republicans under Bush who converted Medicare into a Windfall for Drug Companies program. :smack:

More to the point, these lies are designed to privatize Medicare–in other words, *steal * from the public that which it paid for, under the auspices of fiscal restraint.

Social Security and Medicare are huge pots of money. If they can get their fingers in those pots they can filter 15 to 30 percent of the money into the hands of managers and investors. It is Pavlovian. They can not resist. It would wind up being run like the Heath Care which is a pathetic waste of money and a very poor delivery system. But those in control could they get even richer. They never have enough.

[elucidator]

@septimus

…But what did Mr. Brooks contribute to “The Biggest Ideas” of 2010? A screed against teachers’ unions!..Brooks likes to adopt a pretense of some humanist idea, then twist it into right-wing tripe.)

Mr. Brooks is a very intelligent man trapped in a prison of his own devise. He knows who writes his checks, and why.

I never miss him and Shields on PBS, they are precisely the form of calm debate that everyone claims to love and nobody watches. Brooks has the better suits, Shields the better points, and, besides, Shields would make a suit of armor look rumpled.

But Brooks is clearly uncomfortable with trends in the party he serves. He seems to be ever alert for an issue wherein he can declaim his orthodoxy without actually soiling himself. The Teacher’s Unions serve his purposes admirably.

Now, let it be noted that I am deeply and unashamedly biased towards unions, walked a picket line with my grandfather when I was three. But even as lefty as I am, there is no question that unions, like any other grouping of people, need be carefully watched, lest good intentions fall into the hands of the ambitious. And I also think there is evidence enough that the Teachers Unions could do with a brisk round of self-criticism.

Unions, like any other human endeavor, are susceptible to human weakness, wellduh. And that’s the truth. But far too often when one is being told a truth by somebody wearing $500 shoes, the truth is a worm squirming on the hook, helplessly trying to escape, and luring the unwary.

[gonzomax]

@Wesley_Clark

@Sam_Stone

Wow. That’s bizarre. I’m curious, though: How did I do that? By advocating that Medicare be on a sound actuarial footing? By saying that the wealthy should pay for their own health care? Or what?

Means testing can be seen as a way to convince the middle class that a program is designed to benefit the poor, and as a result make it easier to destroy at the ballot.

Medicare, public education, the interstate system, military etc. benefit everyone regardless of income. If they were income based programs like food stamps, WIC, medicaid, etc. they would be more unpopular and easier for politicians to rail against.

So this push to means test medicare & SS that some republicans are pushing sounds more like a trojan horse effort to make those programs unpopular enough to repeal them.

Means testing is tough. I worked with a guy who’s wife had brain surgeries. She went through millions in care before she died. A person with cancer can go through a million bucks too. How rich do you have to be to not need Medicare?