Juan_Bottom wrote:thegreekdog wrote:Hundreds? Wow. Your list seems like less than hundreds.
Your list is irrelevant to the argument in any event. Your original assertion is that the Republicans didn't have a plan to reform healthcare/health insurance. They did have a plan, multiple plans actually. And you've provided evidence for that yourself. The best (in my opinion) Republican plan was to make the insurance market "more free." I've heard the assertion that the Republicans didn't have a plan many, many, many times from Democrats. It's simply not true. Thanks for proving that it's not true.
It is less than hundreds because, as I explained, those were ideas that made it through.
And your position that attaching a Republican idea onto the Democrats healthcare reform plan is the same thing as the Republicans having a plan is retarded. I was the one who said that the break room at work should be painted white. That did not mean that I was the one who worked out the plan to remodel the break room. I actually had nothing to do with it. Or am I just so darn naive?
Furthermore, their plan now is to return to the old plan, so that's that.
thegreekdog wrote:In any event, let's look at the problems with the Affordable Care Act:
(1) The Affordable Care Act increaes taxes without providing an incremental benefit. The law has 18 different tax increases that are imposed as follows:
(a) 40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" health insurance plans that are valued in excess of $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. The tax hike takes effect in 2018, after President Obama is gone.
(b) Increases the Medical Hospital Insurance portion of the payroll tax which increases the employee's portion of the tax from 1.45% to 2.35% for families making more than $250,000 per year.
(c) New 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income.
So?
"Raises taxes" does not make something bad.
thegreekdog wrote:One of the "savings" is the cuts ($575 billion projected) to Medicare. Ignoring whether there will be consequences to retirees over the cuts,
There is not a single cut in services in the Affordable Care Act.
thegreekdog wrote:The CBO itself noted that if the cuts were "implemented incompletely" then there will not be a fiscal savings.
This is from the "alternative scenario" report. Their first report was their assessment of the law as written, and not based on some weird alternative fiscal politics assumptions. Why wouldn't the cuts to useless spending be made? I don't know, and I don't know why the CBO decided to include political assumptions' in it's Marvel Alternate Universe report.
thegreekdog wrote: The chief actuary for Medicare also indicated that it is likely the savings in Medicare cuts will not materialize and the new spending under the Affordable Care Act will be added to the deficit.
Whaaat...
That report is like 38 pages long with an additional report that's like 20 pages long. I remember this because even I said "f- this" and didn't read it when it was posted to
being liberal for dissection. Your next sentence should have been an explanation of why the savings are impossible, instead of running with another person's opinion.
thegreekdog wrote:The president plans to implement the "non-cut" to Medicare payments to doctors in another law. Why? So he can say the Affordable Care Act is fiscally sound.
You haven't even shown that the law isn't financially sound. Pretty much everyone I've seen outside of Fox has been discussing how it is financially sound. Citing the
alternative universe report doesn't prove it for me or for most politically conscious people.
So if Obama is working to close any loopholes that may be pointed out, or whatever, I have no problem. It's good that the Democrats want to take care of business instead of ignore it or never admit to being wrong.
thegreekdog wrote:Okay, let's infer that there was a complete global financial crash if the second bailout hadn't gone through. Would that have been a bad thing in the long run given that we're on the precipe of another crash
Depending on how long of a time scale you're proposing, nothing matters.
It's so crazy to me that anyone would play down a Great Depression.
"Sure 8% of our population would have starved to death, that's a worthy price to pay to let the free market operate the way it's intended."America's Economy is recovering and the Stock Market is at an all-time high. I'd say that the stimulus was a success and that it was an easy price to pay.
thegreekdog wrote:So then we come back to why the bailouts were enacted in the first place. Let's say McCain won the election in 2008 and, as one of his first acts as president, signed into law the same bailouts that President Obama signed into law. What would you be posting about right now? I suspect you'd be posting that the bailouts were a complete failure and just a corporate boondoggle.
Why? pimpdave and I had this argument once before, he was for the Bush bailout and I was against it. I took the position that they should have used every minute to write up the best possible distribution plan, while he was concerned that the world was going to burn if we wasted our time. But by the time Obama did his stimulus plan, our opinions had reversed.
But anyway economic recovery going along alright and all that.
thegreekdog wrote:(1) Auto bailout - Government spent $79.3 billion assisting two companies (2!): General Motors and Chrysler. According to most reports, more than 1 million jobs were saved ($79,000 per job). It is arguable whether GM or Chrysler are out of the woods yet. Corporate boondoggle?
Why? There's millions of jobs tied to the manufacturing of automobiles, and we're going to get that money back. Both GM and Chrysler want to purchase the stock back from the government, who has said that they will sell it to them when they will get their investment back.
boogitty boogitty
I'm not going to expect them to pay all that money back within' 4 years when our economy hasn't even recovered.
thegreekdog wrote:(2) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - Government was projected to spend $787 billion, but spent $825 billion. The CBO estimates that the stimulus raised the number of employees by 1.4 million ($589,285 per job). Corporate boondoggle?
Which corporation designed this?
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/default.aspxThe amount that they claim to have spent on their site is less than the number you've provided.
And it was my limited understanding that many counties, towns, and businesses
were encouraged to apply for this money for infrastructure or repair projects. That something you said that you wanted, and you aren't even aware that Obama had also distributed millions for just that. I don't see why a graveled bridge on Lonesome road that was repaired would be a corporate boondoggle or why it would need full-time dedicated employees.
thegreekdog wrote:(4) HIRE Act - $17 billion cost with 10.6 million people hired. That's a pretty good rate of return, except that it is unclear how many people would have been hired without the HIRE Act. Corporate boondoggle?
Why is that a corporate boondoggle? What corporation designed this? And how do you know what it is if you don't have any idea what the return rate would be without it? It's like your saying that if a party does anything that is good for businesses or corporations then they have to be in the pocket of some fat cat. And you're saying this while using the words "likely" and "unclear how" all over the place.
Sure you can sit at your PC crying about how bad the government is and how everything is a bad "corporate boondoggle," but none of your reasoning even gives me the impression that you're aware of what the issues are or what issue you even have with the issues you're issuing. It's just loud noises that sound good if you don't listen to it skeptically.
thegreekdog wrote:(A) Democrat Alternative: Do the FDR New Deal thing and have the federal government hire people to build bridges or clean highways or whatever.
(B) Republican Alternative: Give money to the people directly.
The Republicans and Democrats supported neither of those things. Why? Crony capitalism.
Obama sent people checks directly and he cut the taxes by an average of 2K for 95% of workers. lol
And as I said above,
communities were allowed to apply for money for stimulus money for infrastructure projects. And his Jobs Bill was designed to raise taxes on those with incomes over 1million to pay for cities and states to keep teachers, firemen, and police officers on the job. So Obama did your A & B years ago, albeit not as a national goal. Your problem is just that you hate all government and know nothing about what you're bitching about. Even using google you're falling behind. It's like talking to the Tea Party in this B. "Everybody is a crony and only I'm smart about it."
thegreekdog wrote:(5) Barney Frank campaign contributions (contributors): Goldman Sachs ($16,500 in 2011-2012), SEIU ($10,000 in 2011-2012), KPMG ($8,000 in 2011-2012). Barney Frank contributions (by industry): securities and investment is number one with $79,050.
We've been over this before. Barney Frank's campaign contributions from banks are actually very low in comparison to others with his level of oversight. And neither he nor Chris Dodd actually need the contributions to run for office. The banks can try to buy their love, but since neither needs the money, it seems like a non-point smoke argument to me. If I were them I'd probably take the money too.
thegreekdog wrote:(3) The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (the biggest Wall Street lobby) expressed support for the law and has urged Congress not to change or repeal it in order to PREVENT A STRONGER LAW FROM PASSING!
What do you think the OofFR is? It was created by the Dodd-Frank Act and is acting independently to form it's own expository/regulatory process. The OMG Wall Street Lobby is also lobbying to shut it down. That's something that you've missed. It just goes back to my earlier point that Dodd Frank isn't about controlling or even regulating Wall Street. The rules included in the Dodd Frank Act simply say "X can't happen anymore, it's illegal now." It's the combination of the new rules and the regulatory committee (that hasn't even done anything yet) working together that form the foundation for actual oversight. It's not even about controlling whatever Wall Street does. Independent corporations can still control their own futures. It's just about making sure that Wall Street can't hold the world hostage again.
thegreekdog wrote:(2) Some experts argue that Dodd Frank does not end too big to fail. Moody's (you know, the ratings guys) seees the Dodd-Frank Act ending too big to fail by forcing bank creditors at the bank holding companies to take losses, but also sees the regulators enshrining into law that operating companies won't fail (i.e. will get bailouts again). This is from CNBC by the way.
The OofRF isn't even done forming it's own policies yet and already the Dodd Frank Act is useless in the face of unwavering financial journalism that ignores it's existence in the first place. ok.
thegreekdog wrote:As a percentage of the economy. AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE ECONOMY. Wages are not lower than they were in 1970 so stop saying that. It's misleading at best, and a blatant and purposeful lie at worse. I've seen the chart that shows the economy increasing dramatically while wages increase just a little. I don't like it either. But I don't see the wages decreasing. Sorry.
So the buying power of our money is decreasing exponentially. The wealthy continue to take larger shares of the wealth that we the workers make. They give us a raise of $1, which actually has the buying power of $.30 in 1970s terms, and you want to call that a rising wage. You're the one who's out of touch and dishonest, and I'm not sorry. Amid all these stories about the shrinking middle class and shrinking wages; I find it strange that you even think this is something to try to argue about.
I also don't know what your obsession is with whatever chart it was that I posted whenever.