So, you don’t want there to be equal opportunity for all? Only for those with high enough scores?
See above post.
What politicians use to try to get elected is not an answer to why would anyone expect that some random stranger must pay for anything for their kid.
If they are, they are wasting money.
No I used it to show that Germany isn’t the wonderful place you seem to think it is.
I wouldn’t know and am not going to go look for cites. I’ll just say that it would be the rare car accident that would cost any where near what cancer treatment costs.
I snipped out the next part because it was a bunch of quotes from different posts and responses that didn’t go with them. You’ll have to rework them to make sense.
“Professional and unionized sanitation workers” do not need to go to college. Besides, when I said collect trash, I meant the folks that work for the Parks Dept, cleaning up city parks, or the janitors that pick up at businesses.
Most of this doesn’t seem to go with what you quoted. Why should middle-class kids get aid? If their parents can’t be arsed to set up college funds for them, why should anyone else be responsible?
There was no deficit in the late 1990s. I meant that there was no continuous deficit. Nevermind also that I said the deficit “primarily” was caused by the recession, not that it was the sole cause and reason.
Yes, especially considering this is not the sole source of funding.
That just goes to show state and local taxes are generally regressive due to its rates, if those taxes were designed progressively as in the case of the federal income tax, then this fact would be lessened.
More and more stuff you want others to pay for and give you.
No I didn’t. I said previous to this:
I’m assuming you mean southern as in Southern California or as in the San Diego area?
Yes, as pointed out above much of the costs are administrative.
a) Because it is in the government’s interest to do so and b) because it results in labour shortages.
Unless of course I move to say South Carolina (or twenty-four other states by the last count) that hasn’t expanded Medicaid.
The question is can equality of opportunity be increased? For example do you really think equality of opportunity has not increased since the advent of public education and mass literacy beforehand which much of the population was illiterate? I really don’t understand your attitude that since perfect equality of opportunity is impossible, we shouldn’t do anything to achieve it.
Lol. I’m hardly a social democrat much less a communist (My ideology personally is a mixture of social liberalism and Christian Democracy). And since you said equality of opportunity unless I have the rich hand over their money is impossible, you’re basically saying that under the current capitalist system any real sort of equality of opportunity is impossible which is basically a Marxist view and leads to the conclusion for many that they ought to impose a new socioeconomic order.
It explains why so many people are poor.
So how should they live within means? Does this mean they shouldn’t buy a car which they need to drive to work or search for a job?
Nonsense, the entire point of restricting the freedom of contract via “right to work” laws is to woo businesses by attempting to suppress union power.
The empirical evidence suggests government money is generally spent effectively. Will there be some waste? Obviously but that’s the case in the private sector too.
No since by equality of opportunity, I mean those who show similar abilities should have an equal chance at succeeding, not that everyone should go to college since that would be an equality of results.
Ok then, to put in purely selfish terms, if the taxpayer suffers some sort of a hardship or crisis, they shall be entitled to aid also.
Some flues (as I myself experienced) are pretty nasty-in my case I was out of school for weeks freshman year and developed pneumonia on account of it.
Again I never said Germany is a utopia, just that it was better than the US in many areas.
Again, I never said everyone should go to college.
Because kids shouldn’t be at the mercy of their parents for college education.
Basic decent living standards to be expected in a rich society.
Backpedaling. You said the deficit was caused by our current recession. And it is the size of the current deficit that was caused by that recession, not the fact of having a deficit.
Really. You live in a dream world, don’t you? And I’ve only been asking about a fraction of the amount they want to fund Obamacare, which is hundreds of billions of dollars.
More backpedaling - what you claimed that cite would show was “due to the disproportionate share of the wealth the upper income people, most of the taxes is paid by them”. It doesn’t.
And what you said prior to that was “Sick and unhealthy workers end up being less productive or can spread disease or otherwise cause societal costs.”
Southern California - I am not as far south as San Diego, I’m in Orange County. Where we have a lot of experience with the effect of trying to teach children English in public school.
OK, so you don’t know what you are talking about then. You really shouldn’t be making statements regarding private insurance vs government run insurance.
a) Why?
b) Temporarily, but it also means an end to unemployment of anyone who actually wants to work.
What does that have to do with Obamacare?
Sure it can, if you want to live in a communist state where no one is allowed to be significantly better than anyone else. Of course, history shows that such financial setups don’t last long.
I don’t care what labels you want to put on it, the bottom line is that you feel you should have, at the very least, middle class advantages even tho you come from a poor family. Without having done anything to earn any of it.
Yup. Also explains why so many people are tired of paying to bail these irresponsible folks out.
Skipped right over that kids part, didn’t you?
Nonsense. I have never worked for a union and neither has my husband, and neither of us has worked a job anywhere minimum wage since we were in our early 20’s. Trying to keep unions from artificially inflating wages and benefits does not translate into wooing low paying jobs.
OK, you seriously need to come up with a cite for that one.
OK, then, if you want to back off that far, lets stay with what we have; kids who earn great grades and test high can earn scholarships. Any kid who works and saves money earns the opportunity to pay tuition to go to college. Any kid whose parents were responsible enough to create a college fund reaps the result of that responsibility. Or you can get student loans and start life with a pile of debt hanging over you.
As long as they didn’t create their hardship or crisis, sure. That what all those safety net programs were supposed to be about.
And you have healthcare, so obviously that didn’t make any difference.
No, what you said was Germany was able to provide the sort of social programs you want without having to go short on any other expenditures. It looks like the biggest thing they don’t spend money on is military - if you can get the US to quit going to war, maybe we could afford to hand people more stuff.
Really? So instead, society should be at the mercy of irresponsible parents even more than it is? Besides, you aren’t - I’ve already listed a bunch of ways you can go to college without expecting someone else to pay for it.
I don’t think I live in a dream world just because I believe that taxes actually can collect some money. And as I said there are other sources of funding along with savings from current health care costs.
Which is true.
I mentioned disease as one of several possibilities.
I happen to live in Orange County also. Again as I said this really depends on the area-some place like Santa Ana is going to have been trouble integrating non English-speakers than say Newport Beach or Irvine.
a) reduced tax base, smaller population of working adults having to support a larger population of elderly, lack of economic dynamism etc. and b) there may also end up being a lot of jobs with not enough of the positions filled.
Since there I might at least sign up for an insurance plan on the national exchange. In addition Medicaid expansion was instituted by Obamacare.
Yes because apparently increasing equality of opportunity automatically equals communism. :rolleyes: Here’s a simple question: do you think the equality of opportunity in the United States is greater than it was 200 years ago in 1813 and if so do you think this is a good or bad thing?
I don’t think these are or should be middle-class advantages (which would be things such as foreign vacations, home ownership, antiques etc. IMO)
Yup. Also explains why so many people are tired of paying to bail these irresponsible folks out.
No, I’m just pointing out there are factors besides people breeding like rabbits.
Then why would they want to ban certain types of contracts?
Most government spending occurs in three areas: the military, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid.
Scholarships often give out only limited funds (ie a few thousand dollars at best)-there are very few scholarships that are generous enough to entirely cover one’s college tuition and those of course are limited to only a handful of lucky students. And as I said jobs (especially the sort of jobs most college students would get) don’t pay enough to cover tuition either.
And I agree.
And suppose someone without healthcare had been under the same circumstance?
And I’m all for cutting military (and other unnecessary spending such as on the Drug Wars or farm subsidies) spending and letting our allies take on more of the burden of military spending.
Society spent plenty of money at the expense of irresponsible bankers too and I pointed out the flaws too.
I’m not doing it just for myself-there are plenty of people in the United States who do not have decent living standards.
You live in a dream world because you think we are going to get hundreds of billions of dollars anywhere other than just adding to the deficit.
Yes, it’s true that your cite didn’t show “due to the disproportionate share of the wealth the upper income people, most of the taxes is paid by them”.
Yes, and?
Funny. Earlier you lived in N Cal. I’m beginning to wonder if you are actually a 16 year old kid as well.
Those places don’t tend to have much in the way of non-English speaking children living there.
Again, do you read your cites or just the headings? It says right in it “the United States spends nearly six times as much per capita on health care administration as the average for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations. Nearly all of this discrepancy is due to the sales, marketing, and underwriting activities of our highly fragmented framework of private insurance” Those are not administrative costs. And since your cite seems to pull this out of his butt, it’s anyone’s guess if he is right or not.
Crap. A reduced tax base isn’t going to affect them if they also have a reduced population, and if this lack of breeding has been going on for awhile, they probably don’t have a large population of elderly to take care of. Even if they do, having to deal with that temporarily is far better than creating an unsustainable population just so you have a bunch of (you hope) tax payers running around.
Could be. OTOH, there will be less need as well, plus young healthy adults won’t have to settle for menial jobs.
The hell? You can sign up for Obamacare in any state.
If you keep wanting more and more for doing nothing, that’s where it leads. Did you bother to read the cite?
Obviously it is greater if for no other reason than black people are no longer slaves. And yes, that is a good thing.
Oh really? So people who earn enough money to be able to afford those things shouldn’t be allowed to buy them? What was that you were just saying about how you don’t support communism?
You do realize that communism is a financial idea, not a political one, right?
By trying to pretend that a single employed adult cannot afford a car?
For the reasons I already listed.
That is not a cite, nor does it have anything to do with “The empirical evidence suggests government money is generally spent effectively.”
Yup, those kids who get the best grades and score the highest on the tests.
And I said, you can work full time and then go to college. Or you can work part time, and/or get one/two/three of those little scholarships, and/or get student loans. Of course, those things require that you actually earn them, so it’s beginning to look like the problem here is that you don’t want to do any work yourself to get ahead.
Then, you don’t intend to sign up for Obamacare?
They’d be sick.
Cut first, then think about adding things to spend on.
And I straightened you out on that - go back and read it.
It disproves your assertion that I said the recession was the sole cause of the deficit.
Then why is the federal government getting increased revenues after the Bush tax cuts expired for those making over 400k? And why did the federal government lose revenue after the Bush tax cuts?
Even if tax burdens are not disproportionate the amount of the tax revenue that comes from the wealthy is owing to their disproportionate share of the income.
Thu I was talking of various societal costs that a person without health insurance would cause not just them spreading around a disease.
When did I say I lived in N. Cal?
I agree which is why I think immigrant populations should be more spread out.
That merely strengthens my assertion considering that it means most of the costs are the result of private insurance (and “administrative” is here used in the more general sense of spending not related to things actually related to healthcare).
Tiny percentage of natural increases are not “unsustainable” and the problem is that right now a large number of people are set to retire with few replacements in the labour force.
I meant in the context of if Obamacare had not passed.
No since communism calls for the public (or in reality) the state ownership of major industries.
Which proves that equality of opportunity can be increased.
I think I’m being misunderstood here. I meant that stuff like those are real middle class privileges and that stuff like health care should not be considered as such. I don’t mean that people shouldn’t be allowed to buy those things.
It is a mixture of both and considering I support the capitalist system, I’m not a communist in that sense either.
Depending on their job they may not be able to especially if they’re for example forced to buy a used car which breaks down easily.
Which really means they just want to attract low-wage businesses.
And shouldn’t you be the one presenting evidence, since you’ve asserted that government wastes large amounts of money?
How high should that be? To get a full ride one via scholarship pretty much need to get a 4.4 (weighted) and get 2350 on the SAT plus have some distinguishing trait (say set up their own charity or do some innovative work in bioinfometrics) or be one of the best players in a sport in the nation. But there are plenty of intelligent students who get high scores (say a 4.0 and a 2100 on the SAT) who would not be able to get such full rides.
As I said before, I’m willing to work part-time to pay for a portion of my college costs. All I’m saying direct grants need to be strengthened along with lower interest rates for student loans.
What does that have to do with anything.
And?
Not under the current economic conditions.
So if you were willing to bail out banks in order to help employees who might lose their jobs then why wouldn’t support helping out kids who lack resources due to the mistakes of their parents?
The hell? Go back and look at what you quoted, if not the discussion that led up to it. Qin was talking about getting funds to go to college, that’s it. It had nothing to do with med school or a BA or any of the other thinks you went on about.
Which means you are agreeing with what I said - if rich folks have a long history of being able to get out of paying their full tax, why would any intelligent person expect to get tens of billions of dollars from them for a new program?
Capable? Probably. Do you know for sure that all or even a majority of the kids that get handed things end up being a benefit to society? You are assuming that just because they go to college, they are going to end up well.
I don’t know, I am neither a banker nor a rich person.
No, I am against willy-nilly handing people things just because they fall into a certain strata of income, and I am definitely against the fact that almost all welfare revolves around paying to raise children. There is also a lot of fraud (which of course is hard to cite because, you know, fraud is illegal) but that isn’t the only reason why I think at least California’s welfare system should be radically redone. Like, WTF is it allowing EBT to be used at McD’s?
Welfare is what people get for nothing; you don’t have to have worked a day in your life to receive it. Unemployment insurance is paid into by your employer when you work, and is only available under certain terms. I think the employee also ends up paying taxes on the amount the employer pays but I’m not sure about that part.
For a cold or what people call the flu? Yes, if you mean going to the doctor type of treatment. Most of the time when I used to get those bugs at work and felt like living crap, I’d call my dr’s nurse and be told there wasn’t anything they could do about it because it was a virus.
As I said, you can get your yearlys from a doctor at Planned Parenthood. Or not get them. Neither my husband nor I have every had a yearly exam other than when forced to do so because of medication, but if you want to go in for that yearly, great have at it. Too bad others are now going to help you pay for it.
The stat is how many children people are having on average, not how many we expect them to have.
No, you didn’t read your cite very well. Your cite states that kids from low income families are 5 times as likely to drop out of high school than middle and high income kids. This cite and this cite shows drop out rates more clearly and states that by age 24, the drop out rate for low income kids is less than 10%. And again, (I swear, it’s an echo) no one is advocating that these kids should be handed checks along with their diplomas (even Qin). A lot of kids don’t want to go to college. Some kids really can’t hack it. Some only want to go for a certificate or an associates. If they show they are qualified, and colleges screen for that before they accept people, and they want to, then yes, throw money at it because it consistently provides a good return for the investment.
Losing one’s job has nothing to do with whether or not they were living within their means prior to that. The loss of the job only shows up how the person was living prior to that - if beyond their means, they are going to have bills coming in that there is no way they can pay. People living within their means have money set aside for emergencies, such as job loss and experts say it should be 3 - 6 months worth of living expenses.
When the recession first started, both my husband and I were out of work having both been laid off. We made the eight months without having to liquidate anything out of our retirement because we tightened our belts, and didn’t really have much we had to pay on. No credit card bills, no car payments, no home equity loan or second mortgage. And we still live that way, even tho if my husband gets laid off after next April, he could just retire if it looked like he wasn’t able to get another job. There is always a chance something will happen.
Everyone keeps saying that somehow the US government is going to change it’s ways and be efficient with our money, which I seriously doubt could ever happen, but no one ever says what they mean by that. What is supposed to happen that will make us more efficient?
You aren’t following the conversation here. I said that Qin wants taxpayers to pay to send everyone to college and pointed out all of the stumbling blocks there are for poor kids, which included my cite for how many don’t even finish high school. You picked out just that last part and said we aren’t talking about sending high school dropouts to college. OK, fine, I go with that (should have kept you on point) and said what you quoted, about how the next logical step in the welfare chain would be to spend money on making sure poor kids stay in high school and get good enough grades to go to college. Then you respond with the above? How does any of that apply?
So, I post a cite and you don’t even read it. OK.
Any information on where those students came from? Those stats mean nothing if it turns out that a vast majority of them came from families who had college funds for them and/or they worked to raise the money, as opposed to students who have had everything handed to them along the way.
Fair enough, but banks packaged bad loans in such a way that they could quickly resell loans they knew were no good. For what? So the rich could be richer. Screw people’s retirement or anything else that invested in what they thought was a valid deal when they were given false information. Most people don’t default and the more education they have, the less likely they are to. And the result is a college educated person that will contribute more to the community and better themselves and be in a position to bring their own children into the world with better circumstances. Sounds like a better gamble to me.