Push,
Ok, so “non-negotiable” actually means “negotiable”. And we’re back in Postmodern Push world, where you get to make words mean whatever you want. You’re nothing if not predictable.
But we can cut to the chase - what do you think we should do with Social Security?
Privatize it? Keep it, but scale it back, make it smaller? Keep it status quo?
[quote] pushharder wrote
Oppenheimer, “non-negotiable” can easily mean that "we aren’t going to stop aggressively seeking these goals until they’ve been reached. We will not negotiate to quit the fight for these ideals."Â [/quote]
Hilarious. Seriously, this deserves some kind of award.
But one other point that will get lost in all of Push’s (intentional) smokescreens - regardless of whether they achieved them instantaneously or over time, the Tea Party positions that I highlighted are not mathematicallypossible, all together. Something will have to abandoned to make the other ones doable.
And to be sure, I don’t hate the Tea Party. Far from it, I admire the original expression of it. But that movement got co-opted by incompetent far-right wingers that were not necessarily representative of the original movement.
So, I don’t hate the Tea Party - they just need to be keep away from running anything important.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
the Tea Party positions that I highlighted are not mathematically possible, ALL TOGETHER. [/quote]
the Tea Party positions that I highlighted are not mathematically possible.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
To summarize; cut taxes on people who are still doing ok under their present tax burden…
[/quote]
What does “doing ok” mean?
Are you one of those folks who thinks the government “lets” too many people, or even the right amount for that matter, keep their property?
[/quote]
I’m one of those people who understands that if you want people to take you serious enough about the national debt and the budget–so as to allow you to restructure/cut the entitlement that even tea party folk don’t want cut–you don’t propose cutting taxes on the guy who’s deciding where his off-season/vacation home should be.
You will NEVER convince them to let you lay a finger on their entitlements (because budgetary doom) while also proposing to cut taxes. Especially of the upper middle/upper income.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Yeah, privatize it. If Tea Partiers or Pelosi-ites or anyone else howls let their howls be exposed for what it is: greed.
However, a phase-in or phase-out of some kind would seem to be the right kind of “compromise.”
[/quote]
Ok, but what about in reality? Because that proposal doesn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell.
To my way of thinking:
A strong military does not have to mean that we spend 40% of the world’s military budget and play both international cop and nation rebuilder for those countries that we militarily destroy;
If we are going to have nationalized medicine (we already do thanks to ACA, Medicare, & Medicaid) then the facilities need to be governmental facilities staffed by government caretakers in place of allowing insurance companies, doctors/hospital chains to make profits on top of expenses, and various pikers that are cheating the system through over billing, double billing, fraud; [Hate the thought of this actually, but,]
The Federal civilian workforce of 2.1MM workers has a compensation of $120,000
yearly vs private sector average of $67,000 - so are we saying there is no where to lower this?;
Why do we have to continue with a negatively unbalanced budget fueled by deficit spending? So we can police the world, pay off governments not to radicalize, ransom the future by borrowing to send charity to corrupt areas that have never in history had neither any affluence nor lack of a dictator?
Or where our deficit issue really is - telling people we are going to give them tens (maybe hundreds) of $TT of Social Security/Medicare payments above what they paid in which is estimated $200-600,000 per family, at the same time that 12 payers per recipient is now 3 per (2 per when any of us retire). Should this really not be addressed or do we renege on $???TT of promissory notes by telling their holders we have 1/2 of the naval tonnage and airplanes to complement our world best land and sub nuclear force & to piss off;
The 2013 Federal and combined state revenues were $4TT (~24% of GDP) - so we need more tax revenue than Total GDP of any other country in the world except China or Japan (just missed their 4.8) and yet still need more? Is it wrong to suggest this is insanity that you and I pay for and needs discussing and acting upon;
Lastly Corporations have voted with their feet - the profits are not coming back to be cut down by 1/3 for the pleasure of filing a US return.
Where and with whom should we look for solutions to this ticking bomb that threatens America’s very existence?
"If we are going to have nationalized medicine (we already do thanks to ACA, Medicare, & Medicaid) then the facilities need to be governmental facilities staffed by government caretakers in place of allowing insurance companies, doctors/hospital chains to make profits on top of expenses, and various pikers that are cheating the system through over billing, double billing, fraud; [Hate the thought of this actually, but,] "
Google “Veteran Affairs” (VA) in google news…
You will set R&D on ground breaking drugs back 100 years if you take the profit incentive away. Do you want a cure for cancer at a price or no cure?
I suppose we can let the church do it again 
"Lastly Corporations have voted with their feet - the profits are not coming back to be cut down by 1/3 for the pleasure of filing a US return. "
All you’d have to do is cut corporate rates enough to more than offset the higher cost of labor. You could even factor in transportation savings. It’s really not that complicated, but people don’t know how to use their brain when it comes to taxes for some reason. Over tax corporation in a highly regulated economy and they leave. It’s that simple.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
"If we are going to have nationalized medicine (we already do thanks to ACA, Medicare, & Medicaid) then the facilities need to be governmental facilities staffed by government caretakers in place of allowing insurance companies, doctors/hospital chains to make profits on top of expenses, and various pikers that are cheating the system through over billing, double billing, fraud; [Hate the thought of this actually, but,]Â "
Google “Veteran Affairs” (VA) in google news…
You will set R&D on ground breaking drugs back 100 years if you take the profit incentive away. Do you want a cure for cancer at a price or no cure?
I suppose we can let the church do it again ;)[/quote]
[Hate the thought of this actually, but,] - this was my last fragment before your reply. I do hate it, but we are in a no man’s land of government setting pricing (see a hospital bill for reference), determining the procedure and sequence for specialist healthcare.
I don’t like how it is going, but I doubt we will ever put this Genie back in the bottle. IMO we will have full blown socialized medicine in future.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
"Lastly Corporations have voted with their feet - the profits are not coming back to be cut down by 1/3 for the pleasure of filing a US return. "
All you’d have to do is cut corporate rates enough to more than offset the higher cost of labor. You could even factor in transportation savings. It’s really not that complicated, but people don’t know how to use their brain when it comes to taxes for some reason. Over tax corporation in a highly regulated economy and they leave. It’s that simple.[/quote]
We are not disagreeing. You are merely being much more eloquent than I
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
…you don’t propose cutting taxes on the guy who’s deciding where his off-season/vacation home should be…
[/quote]
Take this advice, my young friend: quit worrying about others with two homes “not paying their fair share” and more about a rising tide lifting all boats.[/quote]
At this point in my life I’ll welcome being called young any way I can get it. I’m more worried about the fact that the only thing this country will be able to afford is to service its debt and pay its entitlement obligations. I’m not worried about the hardship of the Clintons, The Romneys, etc. I’m just not really all that concerned at how hard the fellas down at the local yacht club here have it. In fact, I’m not sold on the idea that they couldn’t chip in a few more dollars if it would mean convincing the rest of the nation we are actually serious about there being some serious financial hurdles coming up. And since we’re serious, we’re serious about the need to restructure/cut entitlements. And I’m don’t mean cut them completely out of the picture, which is pure fantasy. Or phase them out, which is still pure fantasy. But, yes, we will have to deny some benefits, trim some benefits even more based on income, push up ages to collect, yadda, yadda.
What has absolutely no chance of maintaining even a second of an audiences time is “We’re going to ask you folks to sacrifice the entitlements (a loser already, even within the tea party) you’ve come to depend on because we’re just hurting so bad. Yep, we must scrape up and pinch every penny. Oh yeah, but them folks who are doing just fine, they’re just too burdened, so we’ll be mounting operation ‘I’ll be able to afford to buy my 16 year old kid the fully loaded version of the sports car she wanted.’ A tax relief program for the hurting upper-middle/upper income folk who have to settle for lesser luxury goods.” Yeah, cause that’s going to ever sell.
Having told a massive population in this nation that you intend to spend even 1 penny less than what was previously projected for their food, medicine, shelter, and old age funds because we just can’t do it anymore…And then, at the same, turning around and promising that Mr. Buffet will soon be relieved of his burdensome and miserable state! Right.
[quote]treco wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
"If we are going to have nationalized medicine (we already do thanks to ACA, Medicare, & Medicaid) then the facilities need to be governmental facilities staffed by government caretakers in place of allowing insurance companies, doctors/hospital chains to make profits on top of expenses, and various pikers that are cheating the system through over billing, double billing, fraud; [Hate the thought of this actually, but,]� "
Google “Veteran Affairs” (VA) in google news…
You will set R&D on ground breaking drugs back 100 years if you take the profit incentive away. Do you want a cure for cancer at a price or no cure?
I suppose we can let the church do it again ;)[/quote]
[Hate the thought of this actually, but,] - this was my last fragment before your reply. I do hate it, but we are in a no man’s land of government setting pricing (see a hospital bill for reference), determining the procedure and sequence for specialist healthcare.
I don’t like how it is going, but I doubt we will ever put this Genie back in the bottle. IMO we will have full blown socialized medicine in future.
[/quote]
Ya, I saw that. I was just saying the VA is what we’ll get and no thanks.
