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Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby patches70 on Sun Aug 12, 2012 7:59 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:
I don't understand the chart.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that Ryan's plan would not only raise the cost of Medicare, it would also reduce the amount of Federal government spending on Medicare.


Why don't you post a chart from this Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that projects the amount the Federal Government is planning on spending in Medicare (Note, not Medicaid, they are two separate programs).

Ryan isn't cutting any spending on Medicare. Obamacare on the other hand, is cutting somewhere between $500 billion to $700 billion over the next ten years.
That's already passed as you know and the cuts start taking effect in probably 2014.

Ryan isn't going to cut any Medicare, that's suicide.

The chart I posted is just total spending. Nothing about conditions or anything else. Just gross $'s. Ryan's plan increases spending on Medicare.

Now, this is important, Ryan plans to keep Medicaid spending flat. This is very important to this point-

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote:a deficit-reduction package would almost certainly make deep cuts in federal funds that support states and localities as they perform many basic public functions, including educating children, building roads and bridges, protecting public health, and providing law enforcement.


You see, Medicaid is funded mostly by the states, it's a huge unfunded mandate by the Federal government, of which the US government is famous for. If you were to go to any given State's budget, you'd find that Medicaid is probably the biggest cost in the budget. 25% or more for many States.
As you should know, Medicaid is a Joint Federal-State program. If the Federal government doesn't keep up with the costs, that is, not increasing it's share of the payments as the cost of the program invariably rises, indeed transfer's the costs of the program to the States.

You seem to be lumping it all in together and making assertions as evidenced by this-
JB wrote:They would simply push that cost onto the states.


You see, you are talking about Medicaid here, not Medicare. Medicare is a pure Federal Program, the States don't pay for it. The States do however, pay the lion's share of Medicaid.

If the Federal Government cuts Medicare, it doesn't matter to the States, they don't pay for it. It doesn't transfer crap to the States.

So please don't go lumping the two together and trying to make claims about Medicare that apply to Medicaid. Ryan isn't proposing cutting a damn thing from Medicare, quite the contrary. I looked at that site you mentioned, they seem to just be lumping together everything just like you are.
Think man, think! Post a chart from that site comparing Ryan's plans on Medicare alone and you'll see. Obama is cutting Medicare (for the benefit of other areas), Ryan is increasing Medicare (at the expense of other areas).
Either way, both plans end up at the same place, different policies that have the exact same results. Fiscal insanity.

Don't forget, everything about economics is about Trade offs. There is no getting around that truth.

Medicare, since the baby boomers are a big voter segment, is not going to be messed with. At least not any more than it is already being gutted by Obamacare.
Medicaid, on the other hand, the poor and downtrodden aren't so much of a voting block I suppose, and thus is ripe to be cut. Except this is going head long into Obamacare, which is expanding Medicaid by leaps and bounds at the expense of Medicare. Don't think for a moment this won't be played up to the old folks.

It's funny watching the lib talking heads contort in various fashions to hide this fact.
It's almost as funny as the conservatives bowing at the alter of Ryan's "courageous" fiscal stand when he makes no stand at all nor cuts the overall government debt a single cent. The national debt is going to increase at a very slightly less rate under Ryan's plans than Obama's, but either way, $20+ trillion dollars can't be paid back. Ever.

By 2021 just to service the debt is going to cost, per year, a minimum of $800 billion, and by some estimates $1.5 trillion. Just to service the debt!.

The US will be paying interest on debt that far exceeds the entire budgets of some 95% of the nations of the world. Talk about insane! It's hilarious if it weren't so tragic when considering what this means for the next generation.

Both Ryan and Obama plans don't do a damn thing to fix anything at all. Both plans are a sure course to complete fiscal collapse. There is no growing our way out of this. Debt is growing faster than GDP. There is no if's ands or buts about it. It is unsustainable.

But, all the while, there are people on this side and that side pointing fingers at each other when both the Dems and the Reps are complete idiots when it comes to our money. It's pathetic.



JB wrote: And isn't "freezing spending" irresponsible if the actual costs are rising?




Isn't spending money you don't have irresponsible?
Isn't borrowing money that you will never be able to ever pay back also irresponsible? (Not to mention immoral, unethical, fraudulent?)

The thing about government is when the crap hits the fan, finding someone who was supposed to be "responsible", tends to be quite difficult......
That applies to both parties obviously.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby patches70 on Sun Aug 12, 2012 8:21 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:[

And also, Ryan's "voucher program" seems to favor the government's pocketbook and not the elderly's. And isn't "freezing spending" irresponsible if the actual costs are rising?




This applies just as much (if not more) to Obama. Since he is cutting Medicare, a full Federal Program of which the States are not liable for, that favors the Federal Government's pocketbooks, obviously. Cutting Medicare only affects the elderly and those who are on Medicare, not those on Medicaid. And guess what, Obama (and the Dems passing Obamacare through legislative chicanery) is the one cutting Medicare.
And, by increasing the size and scope of Medicaid, of which the State are on the hook for, you see the spending by the Federal government is being "cut" by Obama by increasing the costs to the States.

Why do you think so many States are raising hell about Obamacare? Because their already tight budgets are going to get even tighter.

Any label you or anyone really, attempts to pin on the Republicans applies equally to the Democrats.

The sooner everyone realizes this and starts telling both parties to go to Hell, the better the nation will be in the long run. If we keep going down these fake partisan roads we'll all be too busy arguing which political party is screwing us the least and never see the damn cliff we are driving right over. The fall itself is pretty fun, it's that crash at the end that sucks balls.

Something I figure Americans will learn one way or another soon enough.

It's our own fault really. We want the government to start getting it's sh[b[/b]it together but at the same time tell them to not touch the sacred cows of the very programs that are the most expensive, then ain't never will things get fixed.
I mean, how can we expect the program of Medicare to stay the same forever? Same goes with all the Federal programs, eventually, painful decisions will have to be made. The longer we wait to actually fix the stuff the worse it'll be for everyone. There are no sacred cows when economic reality hits.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Neato Missile on Sun Aug 12, 2012 11:06 pm

BigBallinStalin wrote:Let's talk about the budget proposal and the conclusion, to which you seem to agree: "Paul Ryan's budget will drastically alter America's social programs for uncertain gain. "

Anything projected into the future is uncertain, so all gains in the future are ultimately uncertain. Anyone could say this about any budget proposal. So...

(1) why do you think the costs of Paul Ryan's budget plan are not offset by the benefits?

(2) what alternative budget plan seems best to you? Obama's, or whose?
Truthfully, "uncertain gain" was my attempt at speaking diplomatically. To me, Ryan's alterations will clearly be a loss; the other side has perfectly good reasons for thinking the opposite. As you say, without implementation nothing is certain.

Social Security and Medicare are American institutions, not welfare but rather a hard-earned reward for decades of productive citizenship. Their loss (or drastic reduction) would be a detriment to the people, but an acceptable one if it was the sacrifice necessary to create a responsible budget. Having said that, I really don't feel like Ryan has proven his case yet. His hesitation to cut military spending makes sense politically, but not ideologically. "Military spending is currently more than 4.0 percent of GDP and Representative Ryan has indicated that he wants to keep spending at its current levels or raise it," (Business Insider) which means that many other services will be cut, whereas with judicious defense cuts these services could merely be pared back.

More importantly, Ryan's budget is seemingly incomplete. It takes into account the "closing of tax loopholes" without specifying which loopholes would be closed, and as per the CBO report Ryan anticipates an increase of revenues from 15% of the GDP to 19% in the coming years, without explaining how the revenues would be generated. Hundreds of billions of dollars unaccounted for mean that right now, the Ryan budget is more PR move than anything. Hopefully the media spotlight will lead to a clarification of the finer details in the coming weeks.

The Green Party's budget (http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2012/economic-justice-and-sustainability.php) is closest to my sensibilities, in that it attempts to tackle the debt through cuts to military spending and corporate welfare, but I can't claim that it's more fleshed-out than the Ryan plan. I've seen it bandied about that "something (Ryan plan) is better than nothing (Obama plan)," and while it makes a good soundbite I can't agree. The status quo might be hopelessly corporatist and a little bleak, but that doesn't mean that the alternative would be better-- in fact, I believe that if Ryan's plan became reality, it would be notably worse.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:47 am

patches70 wrote:This applies just as much (if not more) to Obama. Since he is cutting Medicare, a full Federal Program of which the States are not liable for, that favors the Federal Government's pocketbooks, obviously. Cutting Medicare only affects the elderly and those who are on Medicare, not those on Medicaid. And guess what, Obama (and the Dems passing Obamacare through legislative chicanery) is the one cutting Medicare.
And, by increasing the size and scope of Medicaid, of which the State are on the hook for, you see the spending by the Federal government is being "cut" by Obama by increasing the costs to the States.

Throughout all of your posts you are forgetting to mention one thing: savings.

Obama is not directly cutting Medicare spending, he's saving money by cutting the provider's costs. Ryan's plan just cuts government spending. That shifts the costs to the people who use Medicare.
Medicare spending will continue to grow, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but ACA will slow that growth. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Health Foundation over the next 10 years, the federal government will devote about $500 billion less to Medicare than it would have without ACA.

CMS and the Kaiser Family Foundation tell ABC News that there will be no benefit cuts to Medicare. They say instead of Medicareā€™s being cut, there will be much more spending at the end of a 10-year window, but it does slow the rate of that growth. This is all unless Congress makes drastic changes to Medicare, for example passing House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryanā€™s Medicare Plan.

CMS saysā€”and Kaiser agreesā€”that spending will be reduced by getting rid of fraud and ending overpayments to private insurance companies. It sends a message to those insurance companies: Operate more efficiently.

source^

patches70 wrote:Any label you or anyone really, attempts to pin on the Republicans applies equally to the Democrats.

Republicans are Conservative.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:48 am

patches70 wrote:Why don't you post a chart from this Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that projects the amount the Federal Government is planning on spending in Medicare (Note, not Medicaid, they are two separate programs).

patches70 wrote:Think man, think! Post a chart from that site comparing Ryan's plans on Medicare alone and you'll see.

Because charts don't make statements true, they just make them easier to digest.
Mike Shedlock, the author of your charts, is a Conservative blogger/economist. . . I'm unsure how he put his charts together, but to me it looks like he ignored savings altogether, which has been a popular trick. This isn't thinking, it's regurgitating.
Also, there's almost no way you can trust a budget prediction spanning out into 2021.

patches70 wrote: Ryan isn't proposing cutting a damn thing from Medicare, quite the contrary.

Well I did say in that very post you quoted that Ryan would be cutting millions of senior citizens from receiving Medicare until they are 67, which when combined with the Mandatory retirement age of 65 would mean that Seniors would have to pay for their own insurance for a period of no less than 2 years. And he would repeal Obamacare, which controls how much money they can be charged for insurance, resulting in another rise in cost for Seniors.
Also, scroll to page 13 here. The Congressional Budget Office explains that the Ryan Plan would add $716 billion over 10 years and also increases Medicare outlays by $415 billion. I think that just about bankrupts it?
His plan also introduces the donut hole all over again. Obama's plan saved 2.1 Billion dollars on prescriptions, or $604 PER PERSON.

patches70 wrote: Obama is cutting Medicare (for the benefit of other areas), Ryan is increasing Medicare (at the expense of other areas).
Either way, both plans end up at the same place, different policies that have the exact same results. Fiscal insanity.

Obama is not cutting Medicare services, he cut how much could be charged for the services. His plan actually lowered the cost to the Federal Government and to the consumer. The Congressional Budget Office has also said that it will reduce our deficit. This is not fiscal insanity.

Ryan isn't increasing government spending on Medicare, he's lowering it. That's what he considers his selling point. He's locking the government's spending to match the growth rate of our GDP plus 1/2%. Everyone agrees that will fall short of the actual rise in costs of health care. The government will stop paying health care providers and will instead give Medicare recipients "vouchers" so they can pay the providers or insurers themselves. This means that while the costs go up and voucher spending will only match the GDP, Medicare recipients will have to burden the difference in cost themselves. And they will have to pay a lot more than what they pay now.

patches70 wrote:Medicare, since the baby boomers are a big voter segment, is not going to be messed with. At least not any more than it is already being gutted by Obamacare.

I just want to be clear on this because as far as I know all Obama did was lower costs, not interfere with services.

patches70 wrote:Except this is going head long into Obamacare, which is expanding Medicaid by leaps and bounds at the expense of Medicare.

Where and how much?

patches70 wrote:It's almost as funny as the conservatives bowing at the alter of Ryan's "courageous" fiscal stand when he makes no stand at all nor cuts the overall government debt a single cent.

The Ryan budget balances our nation's budget around 2040. Weirdly, the House Progressive Caucus budget balances it within 10 years, and even though Ryan helped shape it, he changed his mind and helped Republicans block it.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:50 am



This video is actually very sad.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:53 am

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/22085

For those of you who like to read,

This is where you can find the long-term analysis for Ryan's budget.



Is anyone else wondering how making every Senior citizen buy stocks for their Medicare plan going to work out for the 1%?
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 12:59 am

Ludicrous and Cruel

Paul Krugman wrote: Many commentators swooned earlier this week after House Republicans, led by the Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan, unveiled their budget proposals. They lavished praise on Mr. Ryan, asserting that his plan set a new standard of fiscal seriousness.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Well, they should have waited until people who know how to read budget numbers had a chance to study the proposal. For the G.O.P. plan turns out not to be serious at all. Instead, itā€™s simultaneously ridiculous and heartless.

How ridiculous is it? Let me count the ways ā€” or rather a few of the ways, because there are more howlers in the plan than I can cover in one column.

First, Republicans have once again gone all in for voodoo economics ā€” the claim, refuted by experience, that tax cuts pay for themselves.

Specifically, the Ryan proposal trumpets the results of an economic projection from the Heritage Foundation, which claims that the planā€™s tax cuts would set off a gigantic boom. Indeed, the foundation initially predicted that the G.O.P. plan would bring the unemployment rate down to 2.8 percent ā€” a number we havenā€™t achieved since the Korean War. After widespread jeering, the unemployment projection vanished from the Heritage Foundationā€™s Web site, but voodoo still permeates the rest of the analysis.

In particular, the original voodoo proposition ā€” the claim that lower taxes mean higher revenue ā€” is still very much there. The Heritage Foundation projection has large tax cuts actually increasing revenue by almost $600 billion over the next 10 years.

A more sober assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. It finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.

And about those spending cuts: leave health care on one side for a moment and focus on the rest of the proposal. It turns out that Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are assuming drastic cuts in nonhealth spending without explaining how that is supposed to happen.

How drastic? According to the budget office, which analyzed the plan using assumptions dictated by House Republicans, the proposal calls for spending on items other than Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ā€” but including defense ā€” to fall from 12 percent of G.D.P. last year to 6 percent of G.D.P. in 2022, and just 3.5 percent of G.D.P. in the long run.

That last number is less than we currently spend on defense alone; itā€™s not much bigger than federal spending when Calvin Coolidge was president, and the United States, among other things, had only a tiny military establishment. How could such a drastic shrinking of government take place without crippling essential public functions? The plan doesnā€™t say.

And then thereā€™s the much-ballyhooed proposal to abolish Medicare and replace it with vouchers that can be used to buy private health insurance.

The point here is that privatizing Medicare does nothing, in itself, to limit health-care costs. In fact, it almost surely raises them by adding a layer of middlemen. Yet the House plan assumes that we can cut health-care spending as a percentage of G.D.P. despite an aging population and rising health care costs.

The only way that can happen is if those vouchers are worth much less than the cost of health insurance. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2030 the value of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a private insurance policy equivalent to Medicare as we know it. So the plan would deprive many and probably most seniors of adequate health care.

And that neither should nor will happen. Mr. Ryan and his colleagues can write down whatever numbers they like, but seniors vote. And when they find that their health-care vouchers are grossly inadequate, theyā€™ll demand and get bigger vouchers ā€” wiping out the planā€™s supposed savings.

In short, this plan isnā€™t remotely serious; on the contrary, itā€™s ludicrous.

And itā€™s also cruel.

In the past, Mr. Ryan has talked a good game about taking care of those in need. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs that mainly serve low-income Americans. And by repealing last yearā€™s health reform, without any replacement, the plan would also deprive an estimated 34 million nonelderly Americans of health insurance.

So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isnā€™t a good-faith effort to put Americaā€™s fiscal house in order; itā€™s voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large helping of mean-spiritedness.


http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... story.html
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:00 am

Krugman's very skilled in rhetoric.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Night Strike on Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:08 am

Paul Ryan stands against lies and gimmicks in Obamacare (in 2010):

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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Victor Sullivan on Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:26 am

Why should we care that much who the vice presidential candidate is?

-Sully
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Night Strike on Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:53 am

Victor Sullivan wrote:Why should we care that much who the vice presidential candidate is?

-Sully


Because it's really the first concrete decision a presidential candidate must make to indicate how they may govern if they win election. Bush picked Cheney and Obama picked Biden because those VP picks were seen to shore up an area the presidential candidate was weak on: military and foreign affairs. Romney picking Ryan indicates that Romney is looking to run on a platform that includes concrete ideas on how to cut government spending to restore fiscal sanity rather than just running as "Not Obama".
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby heavycola on Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:56 am

BigBallinStalin wrote:Krugman's very skilled in rhetoric.


Isn't he the guy who predicted the subprime meltdown?
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby rockfist on Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:36 am

Symmetry wrote:
rockfist wrote:Given that most of what our government spends its money on is at best waste and in most cases immoral - it would be immoral to pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to. It is immoral to advocate higher taxes. If Romney paid only 14% the question isn't how do we get him to pay a higher percentage - its how do we limit everyone to that percentage at most? Any taxation beyond a minimal amount is just state sanctioned theft.


I'm not sure I give your given on this one- looks like you're starting out from an ideological premise and ending up at your ideal outcome, then fitting in logical steps, which are kind of a stretch, to fit.

Where's the waste, if you had to look at a table of gov't spending?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_revenues_and_spending

Hint- just saying "most of it" ain't gonna do you well, unless you're Paul Ryan, where it gets you a nomination for VP, just like Sarah Palin.

And which parts are immoral?


I am starting from the view that all government spending is waste. It is not up to me to prove it is, it is up to the government to prove to me that it is not - or I will be voting for those who want to lower taxes and cut spending as should every other American. The government is taking our money to fund its spending. If you want something from me - prove that you deserve it - if you can't or won't the answer is no.

It is immoral to take money from one person and give it to another. It is moral and right for people to freely give money to those in need, when the government compels it - it becomes immoral.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby AndyDufresne on Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:53 am

Night Strike wrote:
Victor Sullivan wrote:Why should we care that much who the vice presidential candidate is?

-Sully


Because it's really the first concrete decision a presidential candidate must make to indicate how they may govern if they win election. Bush picked Cheney and Obama picked Biden because those VP picks were seen to shore up an area the presidential candidate was weak on: military and foreign affairs. Romney picking Ryan indicates that Romney is looking to run on a platform that includes concrete ideas on how to cut government spending to restore fiscal sanity rather than just running as "Not Obama".


I think he just liked the way they looked together, plus the alliteration of their names (it is always a strong crowd drawing factor).


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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby AndyDufresne on Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:34 am

This just in, Paul Ryan drove a weinermobile in college.

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We'll have to re-evaluate his stance on franks and morals.


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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby jonesthecurl on Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:32 am

Doesn't matter now: Cain is back. Maybe he'll pick Palin as VP.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:45 am

heavycola wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:Krugman's very skilled in rhetoric.


Isn't he the guy who predicted the subprime meltdown?


A lot of people did, but most who were aware of it murmured about it while continuing to play the game until the very end.

This guy Peter Schiff wrote this book Crash Proof on February 26, 2007, which strongly warned of that upcoming meltdown but also showed strategies for mitigating one's losses and/or for profiting.


Here's a list of Krugman predictions from 1998, assessed by Tyler Cowen: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... tions.html

I can't find much else about Krugman though, as far as predictions are concerned, and with someone reviewing them.


Here's Cowen in 2005 talking about overinvestment in housing:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... ved_i.html
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby thegreekdog on Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:07 pm

I was a little surprised by Paul Ryan being the presumptive nominee for vice president. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it makes sense, I guess. He's the poster-boy for taking anti-Obama stances (as opposed to Romney, who is the poster boy for taking pro-Obama stances, until he becomes a presidential candidate). Ryan is seen as the "smart guy" who, compared to Joe Biden, is going to seem brilliant. Ryan is sort of the opposite of Sarah Palin: he's smart, doesn't "talk funny," and doesn't have the cache as a social conservative (although he is).

I was thinking Romney would choose someone with a non-rich, female, non-white person feel just to balance shit out. But I guess the Republicans aren't going for that again.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:14 pm

rockfist wrote:I am starting from the view that all government spending is waste. It is not up to me to prove it is, it is up to the government to prove to me that it is not - or I will be voting for those who want to lower taxes and cut spending as should every other American. The government is taking our money to fund its spending. If you want something from me - prove that you deserve it - if you can't or won't the answer is no.

It is immoral to take money from one person and give it to another. It is moral and right for people to freely give money to those in need, when the government compels it - it becomes immoral.


Are you a libertarian?

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the three spending programs that are hot topics at this point in the thread, and there's nothing "immoral" about them. People pay into them their whole lives and they deserve the full benefits of the programs. And I hope that when I reach the age of retirement that most young people feel the way that I do. That old man in the video got arrested for espousing as much. I find his red-hot bravery heartening.

Now you might call Medicaid a wasteful program because it pays for hospital visits for poor children and such, but these kids will be full citizens one day. A country's success isn't measured in how much money a single person can make, but in how it treats it's own people. This country is wealthy, it doesn't do the country good to lock that wealth up in 10 individual bank accounts.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby thegreekdog on Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:21 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:Now you might call Medicaid a wasteful program because it pays for hospital visits for poor children and such, but these kids will be full citizens one day. A country's success isn't measured in how much money a single person can make, but in how it treats it's own people. This country is wealthy, it doesn't do the country good to lock that wealth up in 10 individual bank accounts.


I'm not sure the country is wealthy (if you define the country as being the US government). If certain individuals in the country are wealthy, I suspect the measurement of their success is how they've been treating people. Maybe that's what you meant to say. I mean, apart from the assumption that people who support Medicare and Medicaid do it because they want to treat the people of the country well (and not for, you know, selfish reasons).
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby rockfist on Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:37 pm

Juan_Bottom wrote:
rockfist wrote:I am starting from the view that all government spending is waste. It is not up to me to prove it is, it is up to the government to prove to me that it is not - or I will be voting for those who want to lower taxes and cut spending as should every other American. The government is taking our money to fund its spending. If you want something from me - prove that you deserve it - if you can't or won't the answer is no.

It is immoral to take money from one person and give it to another. It is moral and right for people to freely give money to those in need, when the government compels it - it becomes immoral.


Are you a libertarian?

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the three spending programs that are hot topics at this point in the thread, and there's nothing "immoral" about them. People pay into them their whole lives and they deserve the full benefits of the programs. And I hope that when I reach the age of retirement that most young people feel the way that I do. That old man in the video got arrested for espousing as much. I find his red-hot bravery heartening.

Now you might call Medicaid a wasteful program because it pays for hospital visits for poor children and such, but these kids will be full citizens one day. A country's success isn't measured in how much money a single person can make, but in how it treats it's own people. This country is wealthy, it doesn't do the country good to lock that wealth up in 10 individual bank accounts.


I am a proud libertarian - are you a statist? Those are three programs that never should've been born, but now we need to figure out how to reduce the spending on them before they implode. The current levels of growth are unsustainable. Statists should be more interested in figuring out how to keep the programs alive than anyone else.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:57 pm

rockfist wrote:
Juan_Bottom wrote:
rockfist wrote:I am starting from the view that all government spending is waste. It is not up to me to prove it is, it is up to the government to prove to me that it is not - or I will be voting for those who want to lower taxes and cut spending as should every other American. The government is taking our money to fund its spending. If you want something from me - prove that you deserve it - if you can't or won't the answer is no.

It is immoral to take money from one person and give it to another. It is moral and right for people to freely give money to those in need, when the government compels it - it becomes immoral.


Are you a libertarian?

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the three spending programs that are hot topics at this point in the thread, and there's nothing "immoral" about them. People pay into them their whole lives and they deserve the full benefits of the programs. And I hope that when I reach the age of retirement that most young people feel the way that I do. That old man in the video got arrested for espousing as much. I find his red-hot bravery heartening.

Now you might call Medicaid a wasteful program because it pays for hospital visits for poor children and such, but these kids will be full citizens one day. A country's success isn't measured in how much money a single person can make, but in how it treats it's own people. This country is wealthy, it doesn't do the country good to lock that wealth up in 10 individual bank accounts.


I am a proud libertarian - are you a statist? Those are three programs that never should've been born, but now we need to figure out how to reduce the spending on them before they implode. The current levels of growth are unsustainable. Statists should be more interested in figuring out how to keep the programs alive than anyone else.


Right on, rockfist.

It's interesting how some people fail to be logical consistent when it comes to theft. It's an involuntary exchange made under the threat of force, and so is taxation. Call me crazy, but theft is immoral to me, and since theft is taxation, then taxation is immoral. (same with deficit spending which ultimately relies on taxes and/or depreciating one's own US dollars).
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby thegreekdog on Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:00 pm

Most statists have a good idea on how to keep those programs going - tax people more. I'm just saying, it's not like statists don't have ideas in mind; it's just that politicians don't like saying "let's raise taxes" because then their chances of reelection dwindle.
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Re: Who is Paul Ryan and what does he stand for?

Postby Juan_Bottom on Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:03 pm

rockfist wrote:I am a proud libertarian - are you a statist? Those are three programs that never should've been born, but now we need to figure out how to reduce the spending on them before they implode. The current levels of growth are unsustainable. Statists should be more interested in figuring out how to keep the programs alive than anyone else.


Wow that is incredibly short-sighted.

Before Social Security, almost half of all Senior Citizens lived below the poverty line. Today it's less than 10%. It's done everything it was designed to do.

I can't even begin to understand how you rationalize that this country doesn't need Medicare or Medicaid.

I'm not sure why you think that these programs are unsustainable. I don't believe that you've ever looked into why Social Security or Medicare was loosing funds or what we need to do to replenish them. At a glance it seems you're opinions are reactionary rather than "let's find the best solution" because you've offered no information except that you're against the poor, elderly, and sick.


Libertarianism as a Philosophy requires ignoring great swaths of history (AMERICAN HISTORY) and the state of world Affairs. Somalia has free markets, and the Wild West also had Libertarian freedom. None of this is a good thing. As a Modern Philosophy, it reminds me of the Communist-Socialist push that came following the great Depression. Except today we have a Libertarian push after the great recession. It all looked great on paper, but thank God smarter men prevailed.



Nice sig. What part of the Constitution do you think that I oppose? The part that says the government has the right to tax you?
I'll make-up my own too, but I'll give you an option. Do you prefer I put your name after "I despise the coloreds" or "The elderly are an unnecessary drain on the productive."
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