If there were more certainty around future government regulation (Obamacare and the Prez’s stacked NLRB come to mind), there would be more hiring. The cost of a Government job isn’t ‘nothing’ - it’s a borrowed dollar from China (and others), that must be paid back by the kids. That payback will constrain future economic growth and lower the US standard of living.
I would suggest that the previous bubble was a false economy - that people were too leveraged, that businesses weren’t saving enough, that people had too much house, that people too irresponsible and busted were buying homes when they barely should have qualified for a homeless guy’s extra cardboard box.
If you’re in the industry, then surely you’ve seen all the M&A activity recent - including a former company of mine, which just got swallowed up by GD, for about a $billion. There will be more of this. The point is, to say that ‘nothing’ is happening is foolish.
You know absolutely zip squat about what’s going on here and why. You may think you do, but trust me, as someone who fucking lives here in France: you don’t.
This is not intended as an insult or a put down - it’s intended as a strong suggestion to reconsider your opinions if these “facts” are what your opinions are propped up on.
If this is true (which I doubt) do you think the small amount of tax money you’d get from them is going to prevent them advocating programs which will give them big multiples of this? Hell, they might even want more, since they deserve it for paying taxes. Not that you should be worrying - if these poor people really had power, do you think the tax cuts for the rich would still be in force?
The point of the Jon Stewart piece was that this pittance was half the income of the lower income population. The Obama tax cuts are meant to be stimulative. I suspect infrastructure spending might be more effective, but the political climate distorts reasonable decision making.
The well off person doesn’t mind spending getting cut (except corporate welfare, of course) because he doesn’t use much of it. Who is going to support spending cuts when they mean they fire the cop who used to patrol your not very safe neighborhood? Which has happened in California.
The reason we’re in a deep hole is that medical spending is out of control, and we are spending a lot more than other countries. This was happening before, and is getting worse. The real solution would be to go all the way, but HCR might help, likely be better than the status quo, and much better than the Republican alternative of trying to keep the poor from healthcare - where poor especially means working poor, with too much for Medicaid.
Bullshit. The risk picture isn’t bad because of “regulation uncertainty”, it’s bad because no one’s buying anything because the economy is in the shitter and the big players are happy with that.
No, it’s the cost of taxing some nervous idiot’s cash reserve, IMHO. I’m just as happy to pare down the debt as you are–in the proper time and place. Mid-recession is NOT that time and place.
Similarly, lowering taxes or keeping them stable doesn’t help the recession if the people with money are going to stash it in reserves. Money in bank accounts doesn’t create jobs, and when corporations and richer folks are getting money currently, it’s going straight to the bank. Tax it instead.
And I’m one of those richer folks, according to the percentiles. Top 25%. Hell, you can push my bracket and every one above it another 10% higher and I’ll smile, especially if “LiebermanCare” (see, I can make up stupid names, AND they’re less misleading) is upgraded to something that provides a single payer public option instead of the halfway crap it currently is.
Because if it was health care uncertainty that was killing jobs, the rich would be CLAMORING for single-payer health care that came out of employee taxes rather than the current situation with ballooning health care costs and crappier outcomes. It’s not about that.
In other words, Obama heard all the wailing that high taxes were preventing the job creators from creating jobs, and decided to test it directly by cutting taxes exactly on those folks. And it turned out not to work. If cutting taxes on the folks who really do actually create jobs doesn’t help, how will cutting taxes on the lazy bums that make up the rest of the upper brackets do any good?
I think it would greatly help the situation. Not for all, certainly, but it moves the ball a big distance. Right now, we have the proverbial “3 wolves and 2 sheep take a vote on what’s for dinner”. A fiscal version of mob rule, so to speak. We can’t afford it. Even if we could afford it, it’s morally wrong. But we can’t, and I’m reasonably sure you know this.
Depends on how you define ‘well off’. The person making $75k, or $100k? They definitely feel spending cuts, especially to FSA.
If what you say is true, then they solved the wrong problem. In fact, they made it far worse (by creating less of an appetite suppressant in using medical services, with Uncle Sucker.. or more accurately, my kids’ generation… picking up the tab). If Obama really wanted to drive down the cost curve, as he said many times, then he would have been for tort reform, among other things. But he is bought and paid for by the Trial Lawyers (among other unions).
By the way, although I’m not a GOPer, I’d have to disagree with your throwaway statement at the end there; the Republicans don’t want to ‘keep the poor away from healthcare’, as far as I can tell - they just don’t want to have to pay for it, and/or don’t feel we can afford it.
Please re-read the post for context, including the ones it was replying to.
The point was, the tax code is already incredibly complex, and further re-jiggering like this can have at most a murky relationship to the stated purpose (while still costing the treasury spendin’ money).
PS Lazy bums? You mad bro?
PPS Whenever I hear the lefties talk about the ‘working class’, I have to chuckle. Having done both blue collar (fast food, gas meter reader, clerical drone for Merck) jobs and white collar/executive jobs in the past, I never worked harder than now. If by ‘lazy bums’ you mean the idle rich, I’m pretty sure that population isn’t as big as you think.
Sez you. I personally know 5 owners of SBs, all Gov contractors, who are reluctant to hire due to the coming healthcare requirements.
PS if your boy had actually passed a single-payer funded by taxes, instead of the abortion he and Harry Reid came up with on Harry’s conference room table, then at least it would be constitutional.
I saw that piece. I don’t think Stewart was talking about half their income, but half their net worth. Take away half of what they have in the world (not just what they make this year) and it’s equal to the revenue that would be raised by increasing taxes a few percentage points on the rich.
Is that how you see the current situation, the poor are the wolves? How about one wolf and fifty sheep take a vote on what’s for dinner. Who do you think gets eaten then?
I’ll give you a hint, it still ain’t the wolf.
Not only that, but when you consider how much total reform would cost it would have been exponentially cheaper to simply insure those that really can’t afford it. It surely wouldn’t have affected jobs like POTUS’ crappy plan to force every American to buy something.
Um, Kalifornia has a LOT of “services” they can cut to get the budget under control without touching emergency services, education (which they should not be involved in), and parks/recreation (among other valid services). They threaten to (or do cut) LEO’s, Fire, Teachers just to be dramatic and threaten the Kalifornians into supporting new taxes.
It’s getting really old and tiresome.
Huh? It’s getting more expensive because the eff’n lawyers are driving up the cost of being a medical professional! Dude, go talk to your doctor. Ask him what the number one cause of increased medical expenses is. I have, and it’s the threat of being sued. :smack:
Wow. Just wow. The real solution is tort reform and cross-border insurance.
And your tripe about Repugs wanting to keep the poor from getting healthcare is just stupid. For a fraction of the cost of public health care you could insure those that honestly can’t afford it, even those with pre-existing conditions.
By “lazy bums” I mean that portion of the rich who aren’t creating jobs. Which, apparently, is most of them, given that the tax break for job-creators didn’t have any effect.
Except tort form was examined and the actual effects are minimal. We could invest a years time into writing tort reform and the end result would be a 2% savings tops that’s assuming every claim paid each year so far has been fraudulent.
Despite what you may think the health care system doesn’t actual pay out that much in tort when you compare the amount of money involved there.
Then when you look at cross border insurance you may want to talk to your side of the isle. The Democrats brought up a bill/amendment to allow cross border insurance and it was blocked by the Republicans.
Perhaps you’re right overall, but I’m pretty certain on a private-practice level the few doctor’s I’ve talked to got out of it because of the cost to insure against being sued.
I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I can’t stand either party. I’ve been let down by both parties in the last 2+ decades and I’m just about out of options. When you consider the likes of Ron Paul are the closest thing I can find to my point of view (he’s a loon through and through! :smack: ) you can imagine how frustrated I am.
Then those guys don’t know how to properly file for an adjusted ICP, IMHO. We’re certainly picking up contracts left and right, hiring for them, and so are the bigger guys we subcontract with.
MY boy? I held my nose to vote for Obama–but damn sure I’m not voting for anyone who’s pro-evolution in schools or a climate change denier, so if the Republicans want my vote they first have to start governing instead of pointlessly obstructing, and secondly have to nominate Huntsman.
I prefer abject spinelessness to aggressive incompetence and obstructionism, hence I currently vote Democrat.
It’s getting more expensive because the eff’n lawyers are driving up the cost of being a medical professional! Dude, go talk to your doctor. Ask him what the number one cause of increased medical expenses is. I have, and it’s the threat of being sued. :smack: