Republicans don't give a CHIP about children's health care

[k9bfriender]

@Bricker

It appears we disagree on what “His path,” is.

I decline to adopt your ideas of that path.

Well, your life, I can’t well tell you how to live it. Just make sure that you don’t have regrets.

Well. Yes.

It’s true that many, most even, on the GOP side of the aisle do just that. I can’t deny it.

But I support them for other reasons. No politician will be an exact match for my desired outcomes and beliefs. Most Republicans are pro-death penalty, and I disfavor the death penalty. But I have to pick someone to support. On balance, Republicans match more of my ideas than Democrats do.

But in a debate with me, with can’t ascribe each and every GOP position to me merely because of the frequency with which I align with the GOP.

No, but I can ascribe to you the positions that you defend. If you had said, “Yeah, though I support these politicians on other things, I do not on this one”, then I would not ascribe that potion to you. When you defend those positions, then I do.

No, see, that’s factually wrong.

A vote for a member of a party is not a endorsement of each and every position taken by that politician. It’s merely the best available choice from the offerings. Surely you’ve heard voting described as “choosing the lesser of two evils?”

You seem to think that even though that’s a common response to the slate of possible ballot choices, it’s fair to impute to me each and every position held by my “lesser evil,” choice.

No, just to what you endorse and defend. Call up your congresscritters if you disagree with them on these issues. Tell them you suport them on others, but on these, you feel that their positions are not in line with the part that you can support.

If you defend their actions on these issues, then you can be ascribed to holding these positions.

I would, except that they’re usually worse. They want to perpetuate poverty by handing out free stuff instead of helping create a level field where success will raise everyone’s standards of living.

Poverty is forever. There will always be the poor. It is perpetuated by the fact that there are people. It is how we treat and handle these people who fell through the cracks of our capitalist system that judges the character of our society.

I can agree that there are some forms of aid that are counter productive. Anything with cliffs in it, for instance, directly disincentives people to work, because working gets them less. If we want to have a talk on the best ways of reforming the safety net structure, that’s a great discussion to have. But just blanket saying that the poor should get out of poverty on their own, and that alleviating the worst consequences of poverty perpetuates it, as well as ascribing the motive of wanting to perpetuate it, is not a useful debate.

Gosh, did I upset your widdle Republican-bashing party with an objection to being called evil?

That’s not quite a threadshit. Check your SDMB liberal privilege.

No, you threadshit by dropping the strawman “Who cares about the money? We have A Cause! If you oppose my Cause, you are Evil!”, which is not what the OP said at all.

He did not call you evil, he said that the republican party is the party of evil. And that is a valid opinion, depending on your definition of evil. The party has been taken over by people who will remove healthcare from poor children to contribute towards paying for a tax cut for the wealthy. He considers that evil. If you agree with that transfer of funding, then you may too fall under that umbrella of people who care more about their short term self interest than the country. I don’t think of that as evil under a rigorous definition, as evil is hard to define, but as shorthand, sure, evil works.

It is your choice as to whether you defend evil or oppose it. It seems as though you have made yours.

[RTFirefly]

@Bricker

Do you aggressively proselytize? Why not? Is your failure to push everyone you meet an example of not letting the Lord into some area of your life?

Or are you confident that the Lord’s presence in your life does not mandate proselytizing?

I’m not at all sure you mean anything intelligible by that word. There is no area of my life marked ‘proselytizing.’ It’s something that happens across my life, as the Spirit moves. I talk about the Lord a lot these days.

The reasons I am not sure you mean anything intelligible by ‘proselytizing’ is the use of modifiers like ‘aggressively’ and expressions like ‘push everyone I meet.’ Why would I want to push everyone I meet? That sounds hostile. Do you serve a hostile God?

And I don’t know what you mean by ‘aggressively’ proselytizing, but the picture that goes with that phrase in my own mind is the sort of proselytizing that scares people away, rather than bringing them in. That seems to defeat the purpose.

Anyhow, you’re missing the point. If there’s an area of my life that I’m excluding God from, that is not defensible. You seem to think it is. I am not saying that never happens to me - I already said it’s a given that it does - just that doing so represents a failure, rather than an appropriate choice.

I’m confident that the Lord’s presence in my life does not mandate forming public policy for a secular country based on His law. You cannot force grace upon the unwilling.

Again, you seem to come back to this odd belief that your one vote is a mandate.

And while you cannot force grace on the unwilling, you can ensure that the hungry have food, and that the sick can be cared for. Call it what you will, last time I checked, Jesus was in favor of those things being done. If secular people want their government to do these things, at the very least those of us who love and serve the Lord should stand aside and let them do it, and rejoice that the needs of the needy are met, as the Lord desires.

[GIGObuster]

@Fugazi

Nope. I’m no economist, I was just replying to what was posted. Looked pretty solid to me. Do you dispute it? Do you have some other studies that show what was posted from the IMF is wrong?

It is not likely to be wrong. I actually have seen more factual and non leftist magazines like Foreign Policy point out that many economists still mention trickle down economics as an economics zombie idea.

Five Zombie Economic Ideas That Refuse to Die

The Trickle-Down Hypothesis: the idea that policies that benefit the wealthy will ultimately help everybody.

Unlike some of the zombie ideas discussed here, trickle-down economics has long been with us. The term itself seems to have been coined by cowboy performer Will Rogers, who observed of U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s 1928 tax cuts: “The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover … [didn’t] know that money trickled up.”

Trickle-down economics was conclusively refuted by the experience of the postwar economic golden age. During this “Great Compression,” massive reductions in inequality brought about by strong unions and progressive taxes coexisted with full employment and sustained economic growth.

Whatever the evidence, an idea as convenient to the rich and powerful as trickle-down economics can’t be kept down for long. As inequality grew in the 1980s, supply-siders and Chicago school economists promised that, sooner or later, everyone would benefit. This idea gained more support during the triumphalist years of the 1990s, when, for the only time since the breakdown of Keynesianism in the 1970s, the benefits of growth were widely spread, and when stock-market booms promised to make everyone rich.

The global financial crisis marks the end of an economic era and provides us with a position to survey how the benefits of economic growth have been shared since the 1970s. The answers are striking. Most of the benefits of U.S. economic growth went to those in the top percentile of the income distribution. By 2007, just one out of 100 Americans received nearly a quarter of all personal income, more than the bottom 50 percent of households put together.

The rising tide of wealth has conspicuously failed to lift all boats. Median household income has actually declined in the United States over the last decade and has been stagnant since the 1970s. Wages for males with a high school education have fallen substantially over the same period.

Whatever the facts, there will always be plenty of advocates for policies that favor the rich. Economics commentator Thomas Sowell provides a fine example, observing, “If mobility is defined as being free to move, then we can all have the same mobility, even if some end up moving faster than others and some of the others do not move at all.”

Translating to the real world, if we observe one set of children born into a wealthy family, with parents willing and able to provide high-quality schooling and “legacy” admission to the Ivy League universities they attended, and another whose parents struggle to put food on the table, we should not be concerned that members of the first group almost invariably do better. After all, some people from very disadvantaged backgrounds achieve success, and there was no law preventing the rest from doing so.

Contrary to the cherished beliefs of most Americans, the United States has less social mobility than any other developed country. As Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution have shown, 42 percent of American men with fathers in the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain there as compared to: Denmark, 25 percent; Sweden, 26 percent; Finland, 28 percent; Norway, 28 percent; and Britain, 30 percent. The American Dream is fast becoming a myth.

Although liberal, what Paul Krugman noticed about the history of this idea is a valid one, it was found not to work as expected by few when applied:

Opinion | Zombies of Voodoo Economics (Published 2017)

And now we’re seeing it on taxes. Mr. Trump has promised to unveil a “massive” tax cut plan next week. This announcement apparently came as a surprise to his own Treasury officials, who obviously don’t have a plan ready. Still, one thing is clear: Whatever the details, Trumptax will be a big exercise in fantasy economics.

How do we know this? Last week Stephen Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told a financial industry audience that “the plan will pay for itself with growth.” And we all know what that means.

Back in 1980 George H. W. Bush famously described supply-side economics — the claim that cutting taxes on rich people will conjure up an economic miracle, so much so that revenues will actually rise — as “voodoo economic policy.” Yet it soon became the official doctrine of the Republican Party, and still is. That shows an impressive level of commitment. **But what makes this commitment even more impressive is that it’s a doctrine that has been tested again and again — and has failed every time.

Yes, the U.S. economy rebounded quickly from the slump of 1979-82. But was that the result of the Reagan tax cuts, or was it, as most economists think, the result of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve? Bill Clinton provided a clear test, by raising taxes on the rich. Republicans predicted disaster, but instead the economy boomed, creating more jobs than under Reagan.

Then George W. Bush cut taxes again, with the usual suspects predicting a “Bush boom”; what we actually got was lackluster growth followed by a severe financial crisis. Barack Obama reversed many of the Bush tax cuts and added new taxes to pay for Obamacare — and oversaw a far better jobs record, at least in the private sector, than his predecessor.

So history offers not a shred of support for faith in the pro-growth effects of tax cuts.**

Oh, and let’s not forget recent experiences at the state level. Sam Brownback, governor of Kansas, slashed taxes in what he called a “real live experiment” in conservative fiscal policy. But the growth he promised never came, while a fiscal crisis did. At the same time, Jerry Brown’s California raised taxes, leading to proclamations from the right that the state was committing “economic suicide”; in fact, the state has experienced impressive employment and economic growth.

In other words, supply-side economics is a classic example of a zombie doctrine: a view that should have been killed by the evidence long ago, but just keeps shambling along, eating politicians’ brains. Why, then, does it persist? Because it offers a rationale for lower taxes on the wealthy — and as Upton Sinclair noted long ago, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

BTW the cite I pointed with commentary about the IMF report came from FastCompany. Not a commie magazine at all.

[The_Tooth]

@Bricker

In the real (non-liberal) world, hypocrisy means asserting one position and then practicing another.

What are the two contradictory positions I have asserted? Don’t create some position that you feel I have. Positions I have asserted. Where is the hypocrisy, specifically?

Specifically? Between your ears. I see no point in explaining to you what’s already been explained to you, you’ll just deny the hypocrisy and declare that no, you’re not being inconsistent. Now: which cousin? I can probably provide photos if that’ll help you to choose which little girl gets to watch her sister die for the sake of your ideology.

[Kinthalis]

Who the fuck gets a tax cut and says: Oh yeah baby, let me higher more employees!

Not anyone in charge of a successful company. Their hiring is almost always dependent on the demand they have to meet in their industry.

[running_coach]

@Kinthalis

Who the fuck gets a tax cut and says: Oh yeah baby, let me higher more employees!

Not anyone in charge of a successful company. Their hiring is almost always dependent on the demand they have to meet in their industry.

Hey, after the success of supply-side economics, there was nowhere to go but sideways.

[septimus]

@Bricker

… I will assume you’re not smart enough to understand it.

But surely you can grasp this: I don’t say how you should live your life. Follow any rules you can get away with.

Empty your head of the idea that I follow any religion that commands me to apply it’s dictates to public policy. I do not. Got it?
…
Nope. All the same argument. I say that public policy should be guided by the text of our written law, and that written law crafted by our elected officials. Not religion, not your fervent whining that some moral imperative that your tribe alone can perceive allows you to overrule the law, nothing else.

What about appointed officials? Was the unilateral signing of a $300M contract with Whitefish Energy just fine in your book? In the absence of sensical answers from you, I’ll assume you’re happy that your lovely “conservative” voters picked Gorsuch for the WH and get the Interior grifter (etc. – recall that Susan Collins was the ONLY GOP Senator to vote against Betsy DeVos.)

This is what makes Bricker’s views so contemptible. He quotes case-law, and insults those who refuse to parrot it back to him, all the while ignoring[SIZE=“2”] (or pretending to ignore? how ignorant is he, really?) that the Congress and Administration he’s so proud of, isn’t upholding any morality (Christian or otherwise) — their main job is to help their rich friends steal money with both hands.[/SIZE]

What’s going on now, federal government wise, is that*** Trump and others have acquired new kleptocratic powers. This is the Scandal,*** … but Bricker just replays dodges he learned several decades ago, reading Ayn Rand and/or in Seminary debates.

Slow down everybody! Think about: The eradication of CHIP is just another of many GOP plans to subvert government (all science and regulatory budgets have been decimated and then decimated again), and to steal money, for themselves and their fellow ruling class. You needn’t be a Marxist-Leninist to see that there is some truth in this model. Congress and Trump don’t plan to spend the money on a “kajillion more worthy projects” — all this loot is expressly to fund tax-cuts for the rich. (And make no mistake about it: the tax-cut is aimed directly at the rich and very rich.)

Bricker prattles his old-time snake oil, not even aware those remedies are useless given GOP corruption and depravity. He really is smart enough to know better but, unless he’s been o___ us all along, his seminary and legal training have done him no good — or, more likely, flawed his thinking directly. He’s left with no situational awareness about present-day America and its political impasse. Sad.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Bricker

But here’s the thing: you have no standards at all, except outcomes you want. If judges take the power you’ve handed them and rule in ways you don’t like, you declare their judgements illegitimate. So for your method, it really doesn’t matter: you hate the strict reading of the Constitution, except when it comes to the Second Amendment, and then, the stricter the better.

I’d prefer it if you just say, “Hey, screw the Constitution, let’s do what I want.”

I have to congratulate Bricker for legitimately having a defensible, cohesive set of legal beliefs. And for simultaneously defending them even in cases where that set of legal beliefs leads to fucking abysmal results:

@begbert2

Also sucks to be a poor kid. But who cares about them? Slaughter them all and use their bones for kindling.

I mean, I’d sure hate to have to defend my mental framework in a case where my beliefs lead simultaneously to the belief that a program for providing health care for children was a bad idea, but slashing taxes on the super-rich is a good idea. I might have to reconsider whether my mental framework isn’t fucking horrendous.

@Bricker

Never once did I say that CHIP was unconstitutional. So I’m not sure which argument you imagine you defeated, but it wasn’t mine.

Well then I missed your actual argument, I guess, because it sure does seem like that was your argument.

@Bricker

I don’t need to defend it as a wise policy choice.

But I do need to defend it against the claim that it’s evil.

You know, there might be some connection between the two things. Like, let’s say that a policy choice is made which ends a program which does something important, does it reasonably cost-effectively, and whose removal will leave tens of millions of people - disproportionately poor children - in the lurch. Is that a wise policy choice? Is it evil? The two questions are directly connected. By all means, let’s spend our resources wisely. If there was some argument being made that CHIP was wasteful, or didn’t do what it was supposed to do, or that we could use those resources better, that’d be one thing. Or, as you put it:

@Bricker

Sure, it’s evil to let children suffer and die, if their suffering and death can be alleviated without some other sacrifice. But that was never the option.

There’s a scene in the movie “Dave,” where Dave, impersonating the President, derails a Cabinet meeting in order to “find $650 million,” to save a homeless shelter. He asks one Cabinet secretary about some item in his budget, and the man protests that this item is important. “I’m sure that’s important,” Dave says. “But I don’t want to tell some eight year old kid he’s got to sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their car. . . do you?” Defeated, the secretary agrees that he doesn’t either.

That scene was presumably meant to highlight how simple these kinds of things really are, and if not for entrenched Washington interests, we’d be funding homeless shelters and CHIP programs right and left.

What that scene actually does, though, is highlight the fundamentally simple understanding that the writers seem to have about programming federal expenditures, just as the above assertion from you reveals a similar simplistic view.

I guess all of this argumentation works if CHIP is a shite program. If only things were that simple, huh? General consensus is that CHIP did something important, worked pretty darn well, and has no business going away. And to the point I stopped reading (page 3) you’ve offered exactly zero argumentation as to why CHIP ought to go away, other than “it’s unconstitutional”, which apparently is not actually an argument you were forwarding, so yeah, zero argumentation.

Because at the end of the day, CHIP is a cost-effective, important government program that does something everyone with half a soul agrees needs doing, and which nobody else will do. And if you want to do away with a program like that, you’d better have a damn good reason. Because otherwise, the result is gonna be a lot of dead children. And you can have good reasons for a lot of dead children, don’t get me wrong (we’re not spending every cent we have on the Against Malaria Foundation, after all), but without those good reasons, what you’ve got is a consequence of a bunch of dead, impoverished, sickened, or otherwise harmed children. And if we can’t call that evil, I don’t know what we can call evil.

@Clothahump

Then let’s move on to Article 1, Section 8, which says EXACTLY what the government can do (enumerated powers)?

And then finish up by reading the 10th Amendment?

Clothy, when’s the last time this interpretation of constitutional law was considered valid? 1929-ish, right? Why do you think that an interpretation of the constitution that hasn’t been considered valid or relevant for almost a century should matter to this discussion? Even if you’re technically right, it’s still a really bad argument in practical terms.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Bricker

It appears we disagree on what “His path,” is.

I decline to adopt your ideas of that path.

I really am curious how one gets anything resembling “Just let the damn poor kids die” out of **anything **Jesus said.

[Bricker]

@The_Tooth

Specifically? Between your ears. I see no point in explaining to you what’s already been explained to you, you’ll just deny the hypocrisy and declare that no, you’re not being inconsistent. Now: which cousin? I can probably provide photos if that’ll help you to choose which little girl gets to watch her sister die for the sake of your ideology.

How many unborn children died for the sake of your ideology?

Do you understand that my view of your support of abortion means that I think your ideology is leading to millions of legal, sanctioned deaths of innocent human children? Sure, you reject that view. But why is your view the winning one? Because it’s legal?

Ok, then so is defunding CHIP. If that’s the rule, how can you complain? I’m doing what you’ve made clear is acceptable: enshrining the lack of caring for human life in law. Are you just complaining because you don’t get to have your way, and have every debate under your worldview?

[Clothahump]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Clothy, when’s the last time this interpretation of constitutional law was considered valid? 1929-ish, right? Why do you think that an interpretation of the constitution that hasn’t been considered valid or relevant for almost a century should matter to this discussion? Even if you’re technically right, it’s still a really bad argument in practical terms.

Not really. The single worst problem we have in this country is the raping and pillaging of the Constitution by progressive over the last century. We need to fix that and undo the damage.

[Ann_Hedonia]

The “Make America Great Again” proponents all seem to be yearning for a reversion to the life the way it was in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Mostly they point to cultural issues, longing for the days when minorities and women didn’t threaten their white male ascendency and everyone wore uncomfortable clothes.

But they ignore what was possibly the most important feature of the times - the HIGH marginal tax rates (as high as 91%) of our nation’s top earners. These taxes funded things like the space program, the interstate highway system, the war on poverty. These programs were a great source of pride for our country and provided the foundation of the idea of American exceptionalism. These tax rates were not an aberration, the were the very heart and soul of America’s greatness.

And businesses, both large and small, thrived during this time. And so did their employees. Because, IMHO, when you have a system that makes it impossible for individuals to accumulate great amounts of wealth then businesses are MORE likely to do things like reinvest and pay their workers well. They become less profit oriented simply because they can’t pocket the profits.

You get the country that you’re willing to pay for, and an army of assholes in red baseball caps isn’t going to change that

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Clothahump

Not really. The single worst problem we have in this country is the raping and pillaging of the Constitution by progressive over the last century. We need to fix that and undo the damage.

Yeah, you don’t have to be white guy to vote anymore. Get the fuck over it.

[septimus]

@Clothahump

Not really. The single worst problem we have in this country is the raping and pillaging of the Constitution by progressive over the last century. We need to fix that and undo the damage.

Can you expand on this? Which specific raping and pillaging was so problematic?

When I type “raping and pillaging of the Constitution” into Google images, top hits include “Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” and “US Military sexually abused at least 54 Colombian children.”

[Ludovic]

@Kinthalis

Who the fuck gets a tax cut and says: Oh yeah baby, let me higher more employees!

Not anyone in charge of a successful company. Their hiring is almost always dependent on the demand they have to meet in their industry.

I’m not convinced that this is never true, but even if there is a small effect, it’s dwarfed by the positive effects of having a social safety net so people have enough money to circulate in the economy, ensuring health care access so people are healthy enough to be productive, and having a smaller debt which increases confidence in the ability to repay.

[The_Tooth]

@Bricker

How many unborn children died for the sake of your ideology?

Do you understand that my view of your support of abortion means that I think your ideology is leading to millions of legal, sanctioned deaths of innocent human children? Sure, you reject that view. But why is your view the winning one? Because it’s legal?

No, it’s because if you get your way you can say “I’m happy because I got my way”, but it would be legal to force women to have children against their will, with all that entails. If I get my way you say “I’m sad because I didn’t get my way” but all those women who were chattel in the first half of this paragraph are now free to live their lives as they see fit.

Ok, then so is defunding CHIP.

I didn’t say mine was the right way because it was legal. You asked me the question, then answered it yourself. You don’t need me here, you can argue with the imaginary Tooth in your head. Turning my argument around doesn’t do your argument any good either, because whereas I’m entirely fine with a woman who doesn’t want an abortion you, on the other hand, are cool with condemning one of my cousins whether their parents share your views or not.

Anyway, enough of your straw men. This conversation is over. Give my regards to my doppelgänger.

[Bricker]

@Ann_Hedonia

Yeah, you don’t have to be white guy to vote anymore. Get the fuck over it.

A true product of liberal education programs. Can’t read.

[Bricker]

@The_Tooth

No, it’s because if you get your way you can say “I’m happy because I got my way”, but it would be legal to force women to have children against their will, with all that entails. If I get my way you say “I’m sad because I didn’t get my way” but all those women who were chattel in the first half of this paragraph are now free to live their lives as they see fit.

Also if you get your way, unborn women get dead. And they never have even a chance to lead their lives anywhere.

I didn’t say mine was the right way because it was legal. You asked me the question, then answered it yourself. You don’t need me here, you can argue with the imaginary Tooth in your head. Turning my argument around doesn’t do your argument any good either, because whereas I’m entirely fine with a woman who doesn’t want an abortion you, on the other hand, are cool with condemning one of my cousins whether their parents share your views or not.

Anyway, enough of your straw men. This conversation is over. Give my regards to my doppelgänger.

He’s so much more reasonable than you are, so I really had no choice.

[running_coach]

@Clothahump

Not really. The single worst problem we have in this country is the raping and pillaging of the Constitution by progressive over the last century. We need to fix that and undo the damage.

Photographic proof requested.

[Bricker]

@running_coach

Photographic proof requested.

I had to throw my copy away; it was all torn and damp.

I think his point relates to the destruction wrought by the discovery that the Constitution contains lots of substantive provisions visible only to liberal judges. Probably written in the margins.