# I pit Senator Bunning for killing seniors **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 27, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594 "2010-02-27T01:34:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/161 "2010-03-03T17:46:31Z")
Polycarp–search my posts with the word “legitimate”–the most complete statement of my theory is probably the onm in a GD thread titled something like "what is a legitimate government function. Tacoloco–My philosophy is about what I think the government should do, it’s not about how much tax I pay. If the government only did what I want it to do, I would gladly pay higher taxes than I do now if it were ever necessary. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/162 "2010-03-03T17:50:29Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Tell me that you were forced to eat napkin sandwiches as a poor youth! In a leaded-paint sauce, it would seem. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/163 "2010-03-03T18:09:36Z")
Yeesh Duke. I don’t avoid questions I find uncomfortable. I just find it difficult to respond to your posts. You always start with this morass of bullshit that I have to untangle before getting to your question, and then your question no longer makes sense once I’ve shown that your premise was faulty. Also, you have an odd habit of stalkerishly quoting from my posts in unrelated threads. So, I’m done with you (other than to point out in later threads that I’m done with you, and why, for the benefit of other posters). If you think this means you “win” because I am unable to respond to your brilliant posts, then fine, you think that. Trying to have a discussion with you is like dealing with a creationist discussing evolution or something–your posts directed at me don’t even rise to the level of being wrong, they just have everything all turned sideways. If you want to ask me a question or ask me for a cite or just plain argue with me about something, then I will respond. But I’m not going to try to disentangle your mischaracterizing lead-ins anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/164 "2010-03-03T18:24:24Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > If you want to ask me a question or ask me for a cite or just plain argue with me about something, then I will respond. But I’m not > going to try to disentangle your mischaracterizing lead-ins anymore. But whatever windmill will you tilt at now? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/165 "2010-03-03T18:27:14Z")
Probably not. But the greater majority of us, I dare speculate, think that handing the matter over to private charities is the suggestion of someone who does not take the issue seriously, or suffers from some cognitive impairment. ---
**Author:** ![i\_am\_a\_scientist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f07891/32.png) [@i\_am\_a\_scientist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/i_am_a_scientist)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/166 "2010-03-03T18:52:18Z")
I could start a thread about how _Trans-Europe Express_ is my favorite Kraftwerk record and a healthcare shouting match would erupt in under 15 posts. It’s a Godwin’s-law-type-deal. I was enjoying the parts about Bunning being a butthole. Man, what a butthole, right? ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/167 "2010-03-03T19:00:59Z")
[QUOTE=Rand Rover] Muffin, people often respond to me by saying that I would sure like it in the Libertarian paradise of Somalia (i.e,. they have very little government there). It is of course a stupid-ass response. Somalia has essentially no functioning government–I want a government to provide for military and police and courts. [/QUOTE] > [@Polycarp](#): > > But why just those things? Actually, it’s not _just_ those tings. In one of the old culrlcoat threads, he said that he used a government student loan to pay for college. It’s only when a government action doesn’t benefit him that it ceases to be a legitimate function. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/168 "2010-03-03T19:41:02Z")
42fish, I’ve discussed that ad nauseum (maybe with your stupid ass, hard to keep track of all the stupid asses around here). There’s nothing hypocritical (or otherwise bad) about taking something from the government that I don’t think should have been provided in the first place. You aren’t even smart enough to make an actual argument to the contrary–you just say “he took student loans!” and think that’s an argument in and of itself. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/169 "2010-03-03T20:15:36Z")
To be fair to **42fish** , he didn’t actually use the word “hypocritical” in his post. He could have legitimately been making an observation about, uhh, let’s call it “convenience-based flexibility.” 😃 That said, I did once meet a Libertarian Party member, who refused to accept government-provided housing for himself and his new wife because he saw it as outside the purview of legitimate government expenditures (he was a warrant officer in the Army, IIRC). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/170 "2010-03-03T20:58:40Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > The reason that the prior budget cannot just be kept in effect is that the prior budget, by being tied to gnp rather than inflation or actual costs, mandates a 5-10% cut in payments yearly. I think you misunderstood my suggestion (if that’s what you’re referring to). The usual system is: the budget, allocating x mio for ministry x, y mio. for ministry y and so on, is passed let’s say on 28.2.2009 to run for one year. Some weeks before it ends, the politicans get together in parliament and start debating/ arguing on how much can be cut / needs be raised for health, education, military, welfare, etc. If they don’t finish their arguing to pass the new budget in time, then the old budget continues until they do. So if the new budget finally is passed on 10th of march, for 10 days no federal employees had to be sent home without money; no welfare receipents or seniors went hungry or ill. I mean, I only hear about one country, the US, in the news every damn year whenever a budget has to be passed, that x thousand of employees are sent home without paycheck- or in this case, welfare people go hungry and seniors can’t get medical care and doctors aren’t paid. In my country, the politicans are also arguing about the budget, but the police keeps on working and welfare people continue to eat and doctors get paid.\* - well, doctors have a delay of several months, but that’s the fault of the financial doctors association, which processes the claims from the doctors and passes them onto the insurance companies, then passes the money back, and keeps delaying things forever. Doctors are mad at this (they say) but don’t get rid of it for some mysterious reason. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/171 "2010-03-03T21:02:22Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > It’s a waste of time and money for the Dems to go after Bunning. He’s retiring anyway, so he’s not up for re-election. His constituents already know he’s an asshole. And by the time the Monday morning news cycle hits, the bill will be on the calendar for a vote, and indeed, will likely have been voted on because no one who actually is up for re-election wants to get caught dead holding it up again. If the voters, who elected Bunning to do a job - making good laws, not go to baseball games or play power games - and who, as taxpayers pay his wage, can’t punish him directly because he’s not up for election again, can the other senators put a fine on him for shirking his duty for a baseball game? Damaging the reputation of the senate or something? I don’t know if the workhours of a Senator are specified, or not, but surely going to baseball games for fun instead of a session is not his job description? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/172 "2010-03-03T21:16:49Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > But economic growth almost by definition creates more jobs. This is quite wrong. It used to be believed in the previous decades, because when business boomed, they also hired people for the production. But in the last two decades, both low-end (plastics to China) and high-end (computer programmer to India) production has been moved elsewhere. Now, when Walmart makes a billion profit, the jobs are in China, and the only jobs here are underpaid service clerks with no necessary skills, because they have to be cheap. Big corporations can make money simply by investing in the finance market, without making new jobs. Most of the new jobs created recently are of the cheap, low-skills, short-term variant. When efficiency lost a lot of jobs in the primary sector, factories in the secondary sector opened up. When the secondary sector automatized (robots and China), jobs opened up in the tertiary sector (computer programmers and such). Now these jobs are lost, too, overseas, but which sector is going to open up? This is why an overhaul of the whole system (e.g. citzens wage) is being proposed by serious scientists, and not only dreamy utopists. > [@](#): > > And yes there is a marketplace for talent - one that will provide either those benefits or cash equivalent, based on the person’s worth to the company. No. There are always more people out there, or companies more willing to hire an Indian with a different culture than a 50 year old (because of their prejudices, not because lack of skills) - that was in the last IT boom in the late 90s, before it crashed. People with high skills are unemployed because they are too old, or the wrong gender or whatever. Their files go into the wastebasket without being given a chance because there are new young people who just finished school eager to work for a pittance. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/173 "2010-03-03T22:31:33Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > There’s nothing hypocritical (or otherwise bad) about taking something from the government that I don’t think should have been provided in the first place. So i guess that even though I think stealing is wrong, there’d be nothing hypocritical about it if I decide to loot your mansion and your yacht? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/174 "2010-03-03T22:54:24Z")
Oof, swing and a miss 42fish. Keep trying to make a real argument, it’s entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/175 "2010-03-03T23:47:25Z")
> [@i\_am\_a\_scientist](#): > > I could start a thread about how _Trans-Europe Express_ is my favorite Kraftwerk record and a healthcare shouting match would erupt in under 15 posts. _Trans-Europe Express_?!! Man I am so _sick_ of listening to those train noises I need a doctor. And if there was universal healthcare, I could get one, rather than being railroaded by insurance companies from here to Düsseldorf city. :mad: 😉 Actually, I like TEE, and my country has health care, so this is just a joke. Shhh. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/176 "2010-03-04T00:05:39Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > This is quite wrong. It used to be believed in the previous decades, because when business boomed, they also hired people for the production. But in the last two decades, both low-end (plastics to China) and high-end (computer programmer to India) production has been moved elsewhere. Now, when Walmart makes a billion profit, the jobs are in China, and the only jobs here are underpaid service clerks with no necessary skills, because they have to be cheap. > > Big corporations can make money simply by investing in the finance market, without making new jobs. Most of the new jobs created recently are of the cheap, low-skills, short-term variant. > > When efficiency lost a lot of jobs in the primary sector, factories in the secondary sector opened up. When the secondary sector automatized (robots and China), jobs opened up in the tertiary sector (computer programmers and such). Now these jobs are lost, too, overseas, but which sector is going to open up? > > This is why an overhaul of the whole system (e.g. citzens wage) is being proposed by serious scientists, and not only dreamy utopists. > > No. There are always more people out there, or companies more willing to hire an Indian with a different culture than a 50 year old (because of their prejudices, not because lack of skills) - that was in the last IT boom in the late 90s, before it crashed. > People with high skills are unemployed because they are too old, or the wrong gender or whatever. Their files go into the wastebasket without being given a chance because there are new young people who just finished school eager to work for a pittance. We disagree then. I see companies in my area using H1 visas to import foreign software jocks because there aren’t enough native born ones. I see engineers being recruited from competing companies all the time. I see job listings for healthcare, education, energy, other admin-friendly positions. Now I’m in the DC area and we do better than most, mainly because, well, we’re better than most. Has there been an upheaval in jobs in this country over the last 24 months? Sure. But that will change, in time. Will the jobs be the same? Of course not. I’m sure the buggy whip manufacturers were pretty pissed when Henry F figured out that assembly line thingy. People who cannot adapt are fucked. Too bad, so sad. But that’s life. There are definitely more service jobs than before, sure. That’s evolution, especially at the lower end of the spectrum. The lower-skilled and lower-educated is getting screwed, and it will get a hell of a lot worse. Sucks to be them. Their historical jobs are now in Mumbai, or Shanghai, or sometimes taken up by a Salvadorian willing to haul bricks for 10 hrs for $30/day. And before you ask, yes I’m in favor of some kind of social safety net, for education and retraining. But it’s not a permanent lifeline - it should be a temporary boost. Otherwise human nature will get lazy and trapped in a cycle of Government dependency… which of course is what many American liberals want, as it guarantees a constant contituency for the Democratic party and keeps them in power (at the expense of their souls). ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/177 "2010-03-04T00:38:41Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Otherwise human nature will get lazy and trapped in a cycle of Government dependency… which of course is what many American liberals want, as it guarantees a constant contituency for the Democratic party and keeps them in power (at the expense of their souls). I have heard this repeated so many times and it completely flies in the face of my experience. I hang around liberal policy types a lot. We often talk about the optimum level of public assistance to ensure overall economic efficiency. What you typed has never even once come up. Can you cite even one person that holds that belief? I am honestly baffled that you believe that. Apologies if you were being sarcastic and that went right over my head. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/178 "2010-03-04T01:17:58Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > And before you ask, yes I’m in favor of some kind of social safety net, for education and retraining. But it’s not a permanent lifeline - it should be a temporary boost. Otherwise human nature will get lazy and trapped in a cycle of Government dependency. As someone dumped out of the job market by the current recession I agree, there should be a safety net for a temporary boost - _but there isn’t one!_ I would DEARLY love to retrain to another profession but there are NO training funds, no training programs out there for me. It seems that even though my current degree is obsolete/useless/unwanted the mere fact I have one _eliminates_ me from all job retraining/educational programs. Geez o’ pete, just help me get a freakin’ CDL and my chances of employment go up, but at this point I have _no money_ and there is no help for me to get such a thing. You don’t always have to pay for 4 years of college to make the difference here, sometimes just a little thing would get a person back to work and independent but there is _no help_ unless you’re a high school drop out or a single mother with school-age children. And I don’t want to cut the aid programs for those people, they need help, but a lot of other people who don’t have children or who went to school (to make “buggy whips”) now need help and yet there is _nothing_ for them. I can get food stamps. Great. I can eat. But my landlord won’t take food stamps (and it would be illegal in any case) and the wait for public housing in my area is _years_ long - there is no help for the likes of me for rent, utilities, clothing, or even frickkin’ _soap_ so I have proper hygiene for the job interviews I must go to. There is _no lifeline_, there is _no boost_, temporary or otherwise. When your unemployment runs out you’re on your own and you are screwed unless you can get charity or relatives or friends to help you out. So.. yes, let’s talk about a temporary safety net… of any sort… for those dumped out of the workforce and would like to get back into it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/179 "2010-03-04T01:26:29Z")
> [@kingbighair](#): > > I have heard this repeated so many times and it completely flies in the face of my experience. I hang around liberal policy types a lot. We often talk about the optimum level of public assistance to ensure overall economic efficiency. What you typed has never even once come up. Can you cite even one person that holds that belief? I am honestly baffled that you believe that. Apologies if you were being sarcastic and that went right over my head. well, maybe I’m getting whooshed. I know tons of people who think that. Yes, most of them are upper middle class and not on the dole. [after 5 seconds of google-fu](http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/02/08/1303150/liberals-perpetuate-cycle-of-poverty.html) > [@](#): > > The truth is that big government liberal policies have created a culture of dependency in our citizens who live in poverty (snip) > [@](#): > > The impoverished know that their subsidies will continue so long as they keep electing the politicians who promise them more and more. And these politicians will keep promising more and more handouts, without any real hope of economic improvement, so long as the impoverished continue to cast their votes for them. [after 10 seconds of google-fu](http://spectator.org/archives/2009/06/08/dependency) > [@](#): > > Imagine this: a campaigning lawmaker speaks to a rally and here is what he says: “Vote for me, folks, and I’ll make you dependent! That’s right, my fellow countrymen, you won’t have to do anything more than cast that ballot (ho ho), sit back and relax! My government will step right in to usurp, regulate, or control lots of things you could better do for yourselves! And we’ll do it with your money! There’s nothing in it for me, of course – except maybe a little political power (tee-hee) cause you know I’m a compassionate fellow who’s always looking out for you! But for you, there is the wondrous goal of being helpless supplicants dependent on government – and on me!!” [after 15 seconds](http://axisofright.com/2009/01/13/catholic-and-conservative-without-contradiction/) (this one is reasonably thoughtful, how to meld strongheld religious beliefs and doctrine with conservativism, which supposedly, according to the left, seeks to abandon the poor) > [@](#): > > The state creates a cycle of dependency which is an affront to the dignity of the human person. People are kept down by virtue of the social programs that exist, creating an incentive to stay poor rather than to lift oneself out. As a Conservative, I believe in everyone’s individual ability to succeed, and believe in lifting people out of their poverty rather than providing a check every month. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594/180 "2010-03-04T01:35:43Z")
OK, who’s going to tell him? I would, but I’m chuckling, maeks it hard to tpye. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-senator-bunning-for-killing-seniors/530594.md?page=10)