I see what you did there. If he was running today, he’d probably show you something like this.
Oh, I think I see what the problem is. You mentioned citizens and illegals - forgetting that there are other kinds of people.
There are legal immigrants - permanent or temporary - who have not yet, or don’t intend to, become citizens.
They have pretty much all the same rights as citizens, save perhaps the right to vote (and the right to be here, of course).
In general, the Constitution is the law of the land, and applies to everyone here, not just citizens.
Yeah, that’s what I meant when I immediately retracted it in my very next post (missed the edit window). Sorry I wasn’t clear on that.
I didn’t forget there were other kinds of people. I was just responding to an assertion which was about illegal aliens specifically.
It would be exceedingly difficult for me to forget about the other kinds of people, in fact, because I’m a legal resident alien rather than a citizen.
So you did. I missed that. Anyway, I take it you are reassured that illegals will not be collecting Social Security benefits - at least not without an act of Congress.
Your post forgot them though. You made a blanket statement that left them out. In any event, glad that’s clear.
Real Average Wages vs. time This appears to inflation adjusted to 1964 dollars, and I note that the vertical scale starts at 6 rather than zero, that said it shows the following:
Real wages rose nicely through the 1960s. When Nixon took office, they started dropping like a stone. They leveled a bit under Ford, then started climbing slowly under Carter. Even though inflation was high, wages were outpacing it. Toward the end of Carter’s term things started going to shit, but even with that drop, real wages were still a little higher when Carter left office than when he was sworn in. Ronnie slowed the fall, but wages crept steadily downward until around Clinton’s second term, when they started a nice recovery thanks to the dot.com boom. Truman was the last Republican president that left office with real wages higher than when he started, and every Democratic president since the great depression has left real wages higher than he found them, albeit Carter only slightly.
Carter was the worst post-WW2 Democratic president WRT to deficit spending , yet he still beats Reagan, either Bush, and Nixon. The Reagan the right worships was the worst by a wide margin, he spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave. of course IOKIYAR.
Well you can’t vote Republican then, as enough of them have promised Grover Norquist that they will never, ever, for any reason, hope to die, increase taxes. So nothing like what you support can ever get through congress as long as Republicans have a majority in the House, and enough Senators to filibuster. It doesn’t matter in the least that some of them are sane…they all vote as a block, and the crazies are driving the bus. So as long as you are holding your nose to vote for Obama, vote for a Democratic Rep. and Senator if you’re state is electing one this year.
AND: The effective interest rate is kinda low, but on average, SS pays out more in benefits than it collects in taxes from individuals who live to collect. Basically, most people do see a modest “interest” return on their SS payments. This is possible because 1) some people die without collecting any or much. 2)Payments by those undocumented workers you hate, and they don’t collect. 3)Surplus funds are invested in T-bills which have a modest yield. And 4) The administrative overhead is WAY lower than private investment firms.
It is one thing. It is the Citizens United SCOTUS decision that took the limits off MoveOn and other progressive groups, as well as conservative groups. I think most liberals are perfectly fine with your position. There are NO Billionaires threatening to spend 9 figures (100 million +) to elect democrats, as Sheldon Adelson has done WRT republicans. When you compare the magnitudes, it is ridiculous to claim “both sides do it.” Yes, it’s true: Republicans suck so bad that they need that kind of money advantage to have any chance of getting elected.
If they were here legally, then they would be entitled to minimum wage, could report abusive employers to OSHA, etc. US citizens might even take the jobs under those circumstances. This, of course, raises the price of lettuce to something like $5/ head and only rich people will be able to afford tomatoes. I guess we could give them H1B visas and allow much of the exploitation to continue, as it does in the tech industry, but you’d still probably have to raise the wages some.
The truth is that the Republican voting base hates illegal immigrants, so the pubbie politicians have to make noises condemning them. But they have to tread carefully, because if they come off as racist, then they lose the votes of Latino citizens, which is enough to swing the presidential election. In no case are they going to actually reduce illegal immigration, because the businessmen who fund the party depend on the cheap labor.
SS payments depend on an individuals contributions. It has been great that illegals have been subsidizing us for decades. Don’t bet on any change to that getting through congress. If it does, well then they will only be getting benefits that they payed for.
As for Amnesty for illegal immigrants…that was done once. Ronald Regan, right wing hero, signed theImmigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which, among other things
[QUOTE=Wikipedia article linked above]
-granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
-granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously.
[/QUOTE]
So the only time in recent history this thing you really, really hate was actually done, it was done by** the** most iconic president from the party you have mostly supported with your votes.
McCain wouldn’t have done anything about DADT. Obama got rid of it. It took him a while but he’s come out in support of gay marriage. McCain wouldn’t have done that. Life for some gay people is a little bit better because Obama is president and McCain isn’t. Things will get better, or at the least, not worse, for them if Obama is elected this year instead of Romney. That matters to me, and based on what you said in your post it seems like it should matter to you.
On your other two issues, no, Obama hasn’t done much to help you out there. But neither would McCain or Romney. At least with Obama you got something done that’s important to you. And those little victories help to change the political climate so that someday you can maybe get more little victories, and maybe eventually even the big ones.
I know that it’s frustrating, I suspect I want the same President that you do, one who is actually as far left as Fox News accuses Obama of being. It’s frustrating that I can’t have that President. But incremental progress is better than no progress at all, and it’s certainly better than going the wrong way entirely.
Thinking that staying at home is ‘giving two middle fingers’ to anything is ridiculous. Staying at home is just not doing anything. If that’s what you want to do of course that’s your right but don’t act like it’s something that it’s not.
To Kevbo - You’ve made some good points, and I’d like to debate them, but I’m leaving right now to go to my place up north–where I raise all of my own vegetables. And I’ve only voted Republican half the time.
To Really Not All That Bright - Maybe when I get back I’ll pose a thought experiment around a) Obtaining a false SS card, and b) Two brothers, one legal, one not, contributing to the same SS number.
Do you mean Ike? Or do you think Truman was a Republican?
Nothing stops you from obtaining a false card. In fact, that’s how most non-farm illegal workers get jobs. However, the number on the card will not have been established for the worker, so when he hits 65, the SSA is going to say, “who?”
I guess the brothers thing could work, but (1) the legal brother would be paying a higher marginal tax rate on the extra reported income, and (2) Social Security benefits are not directly proportional to earnings.
What point are you even making? Can you goddamn read? Talking to your buddies is not the same as statistics. I have studies. You have bad rumors and a nonsensical equivocation about the definition of “free.” Of course it’s impossible for healthcare to be 100% free, dumbshit! Some people are born really sick! Even healthy people are in constant need of preventative care and prenatal care and dental care.
Some people are unable to get a job with health benefits, because that’s how it’s always been done in things like retail and the restaurant industry. So people with problems that are treatable through preventative care don’t address them. They treat emergency rooms like their primary physician, because they can’t afford to get treatment until their health is in crisis. By this point, they’ve waited for days or weeks. A procedure that could have been treated cheaply last week can become an emergency requiring hospitalization today, costing tens of thousand more dollars to treat. And I defy anybody who isn’t rock-star rich to pay off a $20k (or $50k, or $500k) medical bill in less time than it would take to file bankruptcy and have it cleared from their record.
The unspoken notion that people in poverty (working or not) aren’t “good enough” for healthcare is a major factor driving the widening gap between the upper and lower classes in America. Everyone has a right to decent preventative medical treatment, whether they can afford to pay into it or not.
And at the end of the day, it is still cheaper to run UHC than it is to run the US system. The UHC provides better health care than the US does. And they do it for a lower cost. What the everloving *fuck *is there to support about our system? The freedom to die uninsured? The freedom to seek expensive treatment at an emergency room because many people can’t afford to go to a regular doctor? God bless America!
He wasn’t making some kind of value judgement about UHC in that post or implying that supporters are claiming it’s free when it’s not. He was purely addressing the question of why anyone would think it’s free; because some Europeans act like it’s free, thinking only about how they don’t have to pay at the door and forgetting about taxes.
It’s a mindlessly pedantic observation that really didn’t need to be made, but there you go.
One of the most important reason UHC works so well for others is that people go to the doctor before they get too sick. A spoonful of medical intervention before a shovel becomes necessary. For one reason or the other.
I’ve never understood claims like this. Let’s say lettuce is currently $1.50 a head, and $1 of that cost is migrant labor exempt from minimum wage. Suppose we pay them the minimum wage, currently $7.25/hour; they’re still going to pick more than 7 heads of lettuce per hour, so I don’t see where the big cost increase is coming from.
There are certainly other hypotheticals here, and I’m sure extending the minimum wage to agricultural workers would cause produce prices to increase modestly, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a hypothetical that results in a BIG increase in produce prices if we were to pay ag workers minimum wage. Can you help me out here?
You non voters do know that, lack of voter turn out, is a big part of how government, especially democracies, become so dysfunctional, right?
When less than 70% of the eligible voters go to the polls, let’s say it’s split, 50 -50, that means your leadership was actually chosen by only 35% of voters. That’s decidedly not what democracies were meant to be.
When you don’t vote, you are falling victim to the idiocy perpetrated by elected officials, the world over - that you don’t quite understand it, that it’s really more complicated than that, that your one opinion/vote won’t make any difference, the politician’s are all the same.
You live in the most powerful country on earth, enjoy a standard of living and personal liberty that other nations aspire to and you can’t be arsed to vote? Part shocking, part shameful.
Choose one issue, and vote entirely on that, if you wish. But please vote.
No, no, no. It is no secret at all where the money is coming from to pay for European style health care. OF COURSE it comes from taxing the citizenry. The only thinking adult anywhere that thinks it is “free” is the right wing straw man.
What DOES seem to be ignored is where the 2X + that we now spend on healthcare in the US comes from. Mostly it comes from employers and payroll deductions, as well as taxes for Medicare and Medicaid. That money is being spent NOW.
If you instead collected around 1/2 that money in the form of taxes and provided universal health coverage, (which every single industrialized nation besides the US seems to be able to manage to do) that would mean that half the health care budget would be available for other purposes. Like, for instance, paying the increased taxes needed to fund UHC, and you’d still have some left over.
Compared to what we now spend, not only is UHC “free”, it would put money in our pockets…unless of course americans are too stupid to be able to successfully implement a program that even Cuba can manage. Why do you hate America?
Or perhaps they are savy enough to comprehend that the cheapest insurance rates will be available to them as part of one large, unified group. It’s not free, of course. They pay insurance premiums (employers pay a portion, low earners get automatic coverage, etc.), just like you, it’s just way less. Oh, and it covers everybody, for everything. Oh, and we negotiate our drugs the same way and save tons. Oh and it’s one set of forms, which the hospitals handle, not the patient, another huge savings. It feels free because it’s nothing out of pocket (with some exceptions), and no one is bankrupted, looses their home, retirement funding or their kids college fun because they were so foolish as to get ill.
This. Hard choices, ugly choices, choices…these are a citizens duty. Lots of good men and women have fought for this, and we owe it to them. If you have to choose between two clapped out old whores, choose the one with less open sores. But choose, dammit! Choose!
I hate this argument. Anyone who would be persuaded by it already supports UHC. The better argument is what you said in the rest of your post: UHC is demonstratively cheaper. Companies like GM and state and local government are being crushed by rising healthcare costs of current and retired employees. It make economic sense to move to some form of UHC to lower costs.
Because there are a bunch of farmers that are barely making ends meet at the current wage (piece-work actually) rate. They are making only a few cents on each head of lettuce. They will lose money if they don’t pass on 100% of any increase in labor cost. But if they do this, then they will not sell any lettuce, as larger producers can absorb most of the increase. So they have to leave the lettuce growing business.
Now that the competition is gone, those larger producers can raise their prices. Indeed, they must, or there will be serious lettuce shortages, as the existing demand can’t be met by the now reduced supply.