I certainly agree with you about the risks of startups. I may be over sensitive, but I seem to hear a lot of people saying things that sound like anyone not starting a business is not a true American and is just a wage slave. And of course that small businesses create all the jobs. Maybe so but an OpEd in the times (Tom Friedman?) said that small businesses also destroy the jobs when they go under. No one thinks about this because the big layoff gets the headlines, unlike that restaurant down the street which suddenly disappears. Also big companies layoffs happen all at once, hiring happens bit by bit without any headlines. These days you don’t even see fat help wanted sections in the newspapers as triggers.
How exactly do you think that trying and failing to change the healthcare system would turn a surplus into a deficit?
Well, what I’m seeing is that the Corporations are destroying America. Listen, I’m not against capitalism, but I am against corporate greed. Small businesses have jobs, but at the same time, since consumers have no confidence, they can’t afford to hire more employees. Unless Obama waves some damn magic wand and makes all our problems go away, it won’t be such a holly-jolly Christmas this year.
As near as I can tell, it takes a lot of money to pay for every Citizen’s healthcare. Can you pay my medical bills? What about my sister’s, or my dad’s?
My point is that it didn’t happen. How can something that didn’t happen turn a surplus into a deficit?
Right. Well, I also think that we tried to allocate more spending to our infrastructure, and that was what did it.
Just keep throwing things out. Eventually something will stick.
Is this the “flailing away” style of debate I’ve heard so much about?
No, you didn’t.
Hear, hear! Let it be known that I second! Come up with a plan and I’ll follow. (I’m not a traitor, never will be, but the Founding Fathers were, so it can’t be that bad, can it? Something needs to happen, obviously the monkeys in charge can’t do shit…)
RE: Universal Health Care
So, lemme get this straight…
-
At some point (or many points) in your life you will fall ill and will requite treatment, therapy, or might need emergency attention or surgery.
-
It’s a fantastic idea to provide health care.
-
It’s expensive.
-
To reduce getting hammered over the head with medical costs, health insurance companies come to the aid on the private market, by pooling together large groups of healthy and ill people, and turning a profit.
-
Now, due to a host of unchecked issues, insurance premiums are so expensive, it’s becoming a problem for the poor, self-employed and the general public to afford health insurance. Hospitals and doctors are screwed with bills that cannot be paid, and the premiums rise ever higher.
-
Since everybody is going to fall ill and/or need expensive operations and treatment at some or many points in their lives, everyone needs health care; what could be a larger group than the entire nation?
-
Say, how 'bout, one, robust, nation-wide health care system, through taxation, to be more efficient and offset or render moot many issues in healthcare costs, all the while taking out the middle-man (e.g. either the company pays the tax, instead of the insurance benefit, or instead of buying health insurance outright, you use that money toward taxation).
-
[ a blurry, bloody hullabaloo and wringing hands ]
-
Universal Health Care is a bust.
What went wrong?
Was this a mistake, or did you really think that Clinton turned a surplus into a deficit? Last time I checked, Clinton took office in 1993, when we had a deficit in the hundreds of billion, and left office in January 2001, when we had a surplus of over a hundred billion. Cite. I you want to know what happened to it, well it sure wasn’t health care. As I understand it, it disappeared due to the Bush tax cuts and war spending.
dramatically squashes half-chewed cigar on the bar We don’t much like them there facts 'round here, pilgrim.
Not so’s anyone could tell.
ooops thanks for calling me out.
Yes .lets hire contractors. they will give you great service and save us lots and lots of money.
Wait, you were serious about that? I thought you were trying to be ironic.
Overturn Wickard v. Filburn!!!
Seriously, it’s bad law.
Ah.
Well, when I said that it’s bad law, I meant that I think the court simply did a poor legal analysis of the issue, not that the results are bad. Of course, the results are (mostly) bad - the medical marijuana wasn’t my focus, but it is an example of how the misguided interpretation in the ruling has led to the federal gov exerting more power than what was intitally (or at least, via an unintended method). The thing is, reasonable people can disagree over the outcomes - and that’s fine - but that doesn’t change the fact that the legal analysis that the court performed was pretty shoddy, and we’ve built a lot of legal precedent on that shaky foundation.