Yet another shining example of someone telling the government to keep their hands out of their government-run healthcare.
Rebecca Kleefisch is the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, and is running an ad telling about her fight with cancer. She says “thanks to the highest quality health care system in the world, I won my battle with cancer.” She then goes on in the same ad to accuse her Democratic opponent of supporting a government takeover of the health care system because he voted for Obama’s health insurance reform bill.
The only problem? Kleefisch’s health care is provided by the government. She has health care through her husband’s plan, who is a state representative. She somehow fails to mention this. (Or that her opponent has never supported a government takeover of the health care system. But let’s not worry about trivial things like reality.)
I guess she is going after the crowd who screams loudly that they want the government to keep their hands out of Medicare. Either that, or she is thinking “I already have my wonderful government-run health plan, I don’t want anyone else to have it.”
33 Comments
Government run healthcare and the healthcare that the government got are two different things…
no u, Yes they may be two different things but think about why she was able to afford it.
She was accusing her opponent of favoring “government run healthcare” because he voted for Obama’s health insurance reform bill, which is no more “government run health care” than the health care she was praising.
Yep, that ad is hypocritical, no doubt about it. And you know I’m no fan of Obama care, but I have to call um as I see um, good or bad.
Maybe its something about 2nd in commands not being able to think before they speak ala Biden, this women, Quayle, etc.
patriotsgt: Everyone must have insurance. government will subsidize the minimum wage workers; therefore insurance can be removed from the work place. That has to be almost the highest unnecessary expense for employers. Minimum wage gives that person $15600 a year. I have no debt but I know I could not live on that and pay healh insurance of $6000 a year.
Now that employers no longer have to pay healh insurance, we can start to become competitive with the Chinese, Mexican and Indians jobs. These new employees at new jobs pay Income taxes. Yes, on $15600, these people pay income taxes. More jobs, more money coming into the treasury to subsidize insurance. What is not to like?
Ironically, the Democrats are not making hay out of this. I have not read this anywhere about lowering the cost of goods. Probably because the Unions would hate to see benefits removed from the work place. They don’t have to be removed. Just start a new business without Union or health care benefits.
To me it seems so logical. Many of these minimum wage workers have much worse health care plans than they’d have under ObamaCare (or the Republican plan of 1993)
Removing health care from employers would make the US worker more competitive with foreign nationals. Many of the foreign workers are getting free medical. When a company uses foreign labor, they are bypassing our health costs.
Ebdoug and Bert (where in the world is Ernie?)-
I am not opposed to health care reform, and even Uncle Sam picking up some of the tab for lower income citizens. However, those families making less than 47k pay no federal tax and in fact they get subsidies paid to them (they gov even budgeted this in the stimilus package). So most of the 30 million (now up to 50 million) uninsured and under insured are so because they cannot afford the price tag. Fair enough, but in the HCR, even though I have asked no less than 5 times on this blog, no one ca seem to tell me how we are going to pay for 50 million people at a CBO estimated 13k/person health care cost by 2015 under the new HCR. Even if we let Bush tax cuts expire for all (low and middle income) it won’t pay for it. In the original HCR bill the dems gave assumptions to CBO to get the cost to just under 1 trillion. That included the medicare Dr. fix where they planned to cut payments to Dr’s by 20%. Obama, if you recall, came out in May and said we have to fix/remove that because it would be a mistake to cut Dr pay. That measure alone was to produce 200 billion in savings. The HCR was supposed to reduce the deficit by 134 billion. So now we are 66 billion increase to our (this year 1.3 trillion deficit).
Question – what is the plan/ how would we pay for all this health care (all US workers est 250 million x 13k when 100 million pay no tax)?
2nd question/thought – The US health care system flawed as it may be is the best in the world. Where do all the socialized medicine Dr’s come to study/learn/train? Correct, the USA. Where do people under socialized medicine come for state of the art medical procedures, treatments, operations? Correct again, the USA. Now ask yourself why. Because there is risk/reward to improving medicine including drugs, procedures, artficial parts, stem cell research, etc. Really smart scientists, companies and doctors invest their lives and money and rightly expect to be rewarded. If we take that entrepreneurship away, ie gov’t run healthcare with it’s inherent limitations where will you go to get cutting edge operations or procedures?
Also, employee cost are just one of the additional cost US employers must pay that foreign competitors do not. (employee related expenses wages/ healthcare/retirement are in many cases the less expensive compared to environmental regulation/ green energy costs/ OSHA/ etc). Now I agree that these things are good for all Americans and indeed the world, but they are expenses that foreign companies do not have to pay (toxic sludge rivers ring a bell).
To truely equal the playing field we must create some employment/environmental tariff’s to increase 1.tax revenue and 2. level the playing field for US manufacturer’s. This will mean an end to $20 DVD players and probaly push the price to $50, but it will make us competitive and who knows may even spur foreign govs to invest in their own employees and environment instead of giving the US money.
I miss your point about people under 47K not paying Federal Taxes. My client with 12K pays Federal Taxes. I with my 20K did not because it was dividends and capital gains. My client has to walk to work to get a couple of hours work a day. She has subsidised rent. So many of my 140 tax clients had that 47K income, that I know they pay Federal taxes. Now change the picture to those who have children. They do not pay Federal taxes because of the child tax credit. Lower income ones get earned income credit.
Miller in Alaska and his family of eight children get all sorts of subsidies that he wants to do away with.
I happen to have to pay Federal tax on about 40K which will be about $5000 by my calculations. At least that is what I’m paying in estimated taxes. And that is with the dividend break and capital gain break.
Granted Ebdoug – I was speaking of families. I am not sure of single taxpayers. Many families under that 47K pay no tax and get money back. I realize there is descrimination against single folk and income taxes. If taxpayers don’t have a mortgage it also hurts them. Your the expert on taxes, so i’ll take your word on it.
What about the rest of my points/arguments?
pgt, why do you call it government run health care and how is this current health care bill going to reduce entrepreneurship ? Please tell us why you believe what you wrote.
Unless I missed the memo, I’ll be negotiating (and by “negotiating”, I mean taking what they give me) my company’s insurance plan next month with a private company, selling private insurance by private companies.
PatriotSgt, your argument is actually an argument for government-run health insurance in the US. We pay way more for our health care in the US than anywhere else in the industrialized world, and yet get worse results. You claim that doctors from other countries are coming here to learn.
Well that just means that we stupid Americans are subsidizing those foreign governments! You mean I have to pay extra and get worse results, so that our health care industry can train foreign doctors, who then return home and deliver better results for less money? Screw that!
ALCON: Wow, good morning everyone up bright and early are we.
Jonah – for my comment on Gov’t run healthcare, if we go to the single payer method that most progressives want, we will shut out private healthcare and begin to limit what drug companies and other inovators and inventors can earn for their reserach and development. We’d have no choice, but to keep costs down in a system where 1/4 to 1/3 of the insurance payers pay no insurance (subsidized). This will tie into my response to Sammy and IK as well.
Sammy – yes that is currently the way it works. But, unless I am just making up conspiracy theories, most progressives including Reid, Pelosi and Obama want to eventually take us to the single payer gov run insurance, and do away with insurance companies. This would become the Gov run healthcare we see in socialized medicine. There will be limits on what can be charges which will limit choices, it has to.
IK – Yes we have issues with our healthcare, we needed reforms; ie. can’t be dropped for existing conditions or just getting sick. But I beg to differ on the quality of care one receives at US hospitals. I live in a quality hospital rich area which includes, Johns Hopkins, University of MD Shock Trauma and St Josephs. NIH which you’ll say is 100% Gov run is also within 50 miles, however NIH gets alot of R&D money from private companies and private donations. The other 3 are not Gov entities. Hopkins is one of the best in the world, UMD developed the model for trauma medicine used in the US and world. So you’ll have to back up your statement that US healthcare gives “the worst results in the world”. You havn’t obviously watched people dying because of the crappy healthcare they get in their countries (i have). Also, why do patiens from other countries travel here for sensitive operations, experimental and cutting edge procedures. Why not get those things in their own country. Does anyone travel to italy for heart surgery. I know alot of Americans travel to foreign countries for plastic surgery, but those take a risk of infection and then they can’t sue. Come on IK, are you really going to say the quality of healthcare is greater outside the US. You’ve got to be kidding.
My opinion on it is this:
1. The “we have the best healthcare in the world!” and “other countries come to us for healthcare because theirs is so bad!” narrative is nonsense. Where is the actual data to back that up? The only thing I’ve heard about are single people that have been interviewed, typically by right wing “news” outlets. There will always be people on both sides of the spectrum, but by interviewing enough of a minority, you can fool people into thinking it is a mainstream idea. I heard about someone who “had” to come to America to get an operation on a brain tumor because of the wait time in Canada. Not surprisingly, there was a wait time because the tumor was not life threatening and the person in question just happens to be someone who wants to eliminate government healthcare in Canada.
Glenn Beck, before he came to Fox News, was in the hospital for some surgery and did a report on how awful the health care system was in our country. A year later (I believe) he was on Fox News. Shockingly, he ran the same health care stories, but the narrative had changed. Suddenly our health care system was the best in the world, and why were the socialist liberals trying to mess with that? I guess in a year’s time the system had undergone some drastic reforms.
2. I’ve had this discussion with a family member. Lets say I give you the benefit of the doubt. Lets say that in every country with government provided health care, it is awful. I mean, absolutely horrendous.
It is a fact that health care is tremendously important. It is also a fact that some countries (I would suggest even many countries) that have government provided health care are democratic in nature.
So my question is, given these 2 indisputable facts, and taking it as a fact that HC is indeed horrible everywhere and the people all hate it…why hasn’t it been changed to a private system?
The only actual response I’ve heard (non-factual, off the cuff response) is that once you’ve instituted something as a freebie, it is near impossible to get rid of it. To that I say, nonsense!
1032 – good morning. To the last part of your argument, european gov’s trying to even raise their retirement ages from 60 (lower then ours) to 62 is causing mass riots and protests from unions et al. imagine if their govs tried to go back to privatized healthcare. Look what happens here if anyone mentions reducing any entitlement or benefit.
To our healthcare, i’m not saying it is perfect or cheap. On the contrary it is expensive and not available to everyone. It is the best quality in the world and I can say the same back “show me stats on a higher quality healthcare system anywhere in the world” and I’ll become a believer. The hospitals I’ve traveled in the US have a plethora of foreign students, Dr’s and researchers from countries all over the world, who come here to learn (paying for the experience)or work and be taught. How many US doctors go abroad to learn techniques and procedures or for school? We do send many Dr’s all over the world to provide healthcare to those that have poor or none.
I think we need to improve our delivery, affordablility and access. These I agree are sometimes 2nd to that available in other countries, but quality is a different matter. Research and inovation is another matter. Ive traveled in no less then 10 other countries and my youngest son had to be treated in a foreign hospital. I as a Us Army combat medic with access to my aid bag, could have provided better care. It was cheap, $60 for the experience (as a foreigner not entitled to free care) which included medicine and the Dr’s fee. As soon as we got back stateside, I took my son to his pediatrician, who immediately ordered tests and told me to take him to a hospital while he made the arrangements. The Dr’ knew quickly what was wrong and they got him started on antibiotics right away and he was better in 3 days. It was not as cheap, it cost me some $120 in co-pays, but my insurance paid the rest. I’d rather get it right, quickly for a little more then wrong and who knows. Thats where I’m coming from.
But everyone is missing my point, which is great lets go to socialized medicine. How are we going to pay for it as I stated in earlier in #7. I know IK will say the CBO said it was fully funded (and Santa still delivers). We all know the CBO score Obama ordered to show the cost of just under 1 trillion. He also then recanted on the “Dr Fix” which eliminated another 200 billion in savings. I want to see how this will be paid for, especially with 30 million (now estimated to be 50 million)people most of whom cannot pay the full or any of the price. Can someone please answer the question.
You can certainly ask for statistics on a higher quality health care system in the world, and you will likely never get a response. That is because “higher quality health care system” is not a specific thing.
The WHO’s report in 2000 ranked us #1 in spending and 37th in provided health care. Do you think that in 10 years our health care has rocketed to the top?
More to the point:
1. The burden of proof is on you. You cannot make a claim, then shift the burden of proof by saying “prove me wrong!”
One of two things happened. Either you “feel” that our health care is the best, which makes your opinion personal and ultimately irrelevant, or you’ve seen hard data that points to us having the best health care and then came to the conclusion that it was the best. If it was the latter, please share that hard data with the rest of us.
2. How is it that you repeated a nonsense argument that I already identified in my post?
Imagine if the government here passed into law, at no cost to you, free weekly beatings for every U.S. citizen. Yes that’s right, entitlement beatings every week. I would say, gee, nobody likes to get beat up every week, so shortly afterward the legislation would be repealed.
But wait, that’s not possible! We would all continue getting our weekly beatings because it is an entitlement program! How could you possibly convince a population of entitled poor people to not want to get beat up every week at no cost to themselves?
The argument holds no water. Just because something is free doesn’t mean that people will put up with it. If the health care of a democratic nation was being dragged down into the depths because of legislation, that legislation would be repealed. Because people want good health care. Increasing the retirement age is a red herring, because then you are ACTUALLY taking something away from a population. If health care was that bad, repealing socialized medicine would be a benefit.
3. You ask, how are we going to pay for it? You already pay for it. Health care costs are skyrocketing. Hospitals are required to treat people before asking for payment for emergency services. If those people skimp out on the bill, guess who pays for it? You do. People go into severe debt and/or bankruptcy paying for long term treatment. A lot of these bills never get paid. Guess who pays for it? You do.
The higher these costs go, the more people that can’t pay their bills. And guess who those bills fall on? You. That is, until you get bankrupted by your medical bills as well.
PGT, Nancy pelosi and co will likely push for a nationalized health care plan if given the chance. But more than likely as long as BO is at the helm we won’t have that. But since we are talking about hypothetical situations, aren’t you worried that an ultra conservative tea party will push for privatized medicare, social security and even VA benefits or did they guarantee they won’t push for it?
From what I gather from your posts, it appears that you feel that the health care of lower income americans should not be covered through higher taxes from higher income workers? If so should we just leave them to fend for themselves or is the tea party proposing another solution. If I misunderstood what you are trying to write, then you should realize that a nationalized health care system that reduces the overhead costs associated with private health insurance will reduce insurance costs since shareholders and CEO salaries of insurance companies no longer matter. A nationalized health care system will most likely attempt to control drug prices, though a higher patient population due to everyone being insured will make up most if not all or more of the difference in revenue as a result of lower drug prices.
So writing that entrepreneurship will be adversely affected is an exaggeration since companies will in most cases have a larger patient pool to make money out of. There are other ways to induce entrepreneurship. For example, companies specializing in expensive medication like cancer, could get federal grants or higher tax benefits while companies specializing in less useful medication, like botox, can do it out of rich people’s dime.
Jonah – I am not against HCR and think there are many good parts to the bill that passed. However, I think there are many unanswered questions, costs, etc that need to be answered and I was not then nor currently comfortable with the Speaker of the House’s (3rd most powerful Democrat) quote of “we’ll have to pass this thing to see what’s in it”. Hello, then to see millions of people blindly say yes it is good, we don’t know whats in it either, but if Nancy and Harry say vote and Barack says it’s good we will support it. None of those 3 know whats in it, nor how much it will cost. Tell me, will we have a Health Care tax like SS and medicare. I’m fine with that, but tell me how much it’s going to be. My guess is no one knows.
I liken that to asking anyone if they would walk up to a house or a business with a for sale sign, do no inspection, don’t ask for a price, and say I’ll take it! Where do I sign. It’s crazy, 2400 pages in plain black and white and 6 months later no one still knows the final costs and how it will be paid for.
To 1032 – your blindly supporting the HCR taking Nancy’s word that we need to pass this thing to see whats in it. She doesn’t know and neither do you. I’ll use David Axelrods argument (Obama’s Sr, Political Advisor) when he charged that the CoC was using foreign money to fund political ads and Bob Scheiffer asked if he had any proof “do you have any proof they are not, Bob”. If you can tell me how much this will cost and how it will be funded, I’ll listen. As to 37th in provided care in 2000, I don’t know what that means; # peolpe, $ per person, outcome, Care per capita, help me out a little.
PS. I like this debate and appreciate all your thoughts. These are tough issues with tough questions and the better we understand the better we can fix things. Keep up the good work!!
Is D.I.N.O. a term yet? If not, I think I’m prepared to coin it…
PatriotSgt — so many republican talking points designed to create FUD. There is no way to know exactly what something will cost until you actually do it. That’s why it is called an estimate. Look at what Bush said that the “cake walk” Iraq war would cost us! Should we do nothing until we know exactly what it will cost us?
But that’s not the point. We have hard evidence that eliminating for-profit insurance companies will save us lots of money and give us better results. Medicare is far more efficient than private insurance companies. And pretty much every other big country has government controlled health insurance, and it (to varying degrees, depending on their system) works much better than our system for less money.
But what really cracked me up is that you claim (in comment 13) that single payer will limit what drug companies and other innovators can earn from their innovation. And then in the same post you point out an example where NIH works with private companies in a good way. Why can’t health insurance work like that? (I wanted to put in a whole discussion of inelastic markets and how they don’t work, which is why we have certain regulated companies called “utilities” and why monopolies are bad, and how maybe not letting drug companies get rich by charging whatever they want for lifesaving treatments might be a good idea, but it is too complicated for this discussion).
Lastly, one more time. Single Payer Health Insurance is NOT the same thing as Gov run healthcare or socialized medicine. England has socialized medicine — most doctors work for the government. Other countries, like Canada and New Zealand, have single payer where the doctors and hospitals are private.
By the way, here’s the WHO rankings for health care, along with links to the data: http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
As 1032 pointed out, we are #37 in results.
OK IK, perhaps I am misunderstand the difference between single payer and Gov run insurance, please enlighten me.
Yes, gov and private can work together and in cases like NIH where procedures and drugs can be tested or used in new ways it works well.
When they presented the HCR bill they put a price tag on it. Touting it even as costing just under 1 trillion, no estimate, a hard #. I’m just asking how it will be paid for, is that too much to ask? Costs change, we all know that, but you then figure out how to pay for it or spend the savings. I just want to know for the 3rd time inthis post how will it be paid for? A HC tax like SS, cutting from some other program, laying off 1/2 of all fed workers, how?
Ps. wouldn’t this be a boring discussion and blog if we all agreed about everything. 🙂
PGT, so am i to understand that your problem with the bill is that its 2000+ pages and hard to understand? I can sympathize with you if you are frustrated at the complexity of this bill but where I differ from you is that I am not frustrated enough to think about replacing middle right, middle and middle left politicians with extreme right politicians. My take is that the bill is that complicated because of our political system where each rep has to take care of his/her constituents and the bill includes several clauses satisfying every politician and his/her constituent. I wouldn’t mind replacing those politicians with more practical politicians who give more consideration to the nation than their constituents but to me giving ultra conservatives more power is more like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
As for pelosi’s remark, she did tell the truth. ITs a complicated bill which is why nothing happened with respect to HCR all these years. And you have republicans spreading FUD and while the democrats have tried to voice their version of the bill, for some reason the public seems to want to believe the republicans, and it appears you do too. The CBO is an independent entity. It has been fed certain information and based on that it does say that the bill is deficit neutral. What exactly would convince you otherwise? My guess is only a simple equation which says a + b = C and if the HCR was that simple then it would have passed a couple of decades ago. The numbers could be wrong but you seem to want the world. You want HCR for all and you don’t want everyone in the pool but at the same time all the i’s have to be dotted and the t’s crossed. Simple as pie.
I have to ask you since you mentioned that you can’t believe whats written on this board. Where did you get the information that the stimulus was a complete waste? It appears that you didn’t even know that there was a large portion applied towards tax cuts and the right information was readily available from non partisan news sites and you claim to be non partisan. Every reason you cite for supporting the republicans seems to be a right wing talking point so I have to ask where you mostly get your information from? I have to ask because like you I don’t trust whats posted on message boards. Thanks!
And PGT, once again since you were speculating about what could happen if Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts run wild, what are your thoughts about medicare, soc security and even VA benefits being privatized if conservatives come into power? Would you be ok with that?
The length of the bill is a classic non-issue. It is an appeal to the lowest common denominator. Disgustingly effective, too. If shorter things are good, I guess we can toss out a lot of classic literature. Hell, we can get rid of the Bible too. That’s one long book. And have you seen how long the dictionary is? Ridiculous.
There is no criteria to measure by. What’s a “good” length for a bill? What’s the average length of bills? Is shorter legislation better legislation? How long should a bill be that does something this drastic?
Most all of us haven’t read the legislation. Right wingers act like that is an indictment, either of the legislation or for us. It isn’t. We haven’t read the legislation because we don’t read legislation. When’s the last time anyone sat down and read through an entire bill? Even a short one? How many Republicans read through Medicare part D or the PATRIOT act? How long were those bills?
This is nonsensical distraction.
New study. The US has slipped from 24th in the world in life expectancy (in 1999) to 49th (now). The report blames the steep decline on “America’s deteriorating health care system, marred by ever-rising costs and growing numbers of uninsured and under-insured individuals.”
See http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/slips-49th-life-expectancy-study/
Alcon – As to the length of the bill I don’t have as much a problem with as what is actually in it pertaining to how it will get paid for(yes, I did download the bill and attempted to read it, god bless the people that actually wrote it, it wasn’t Nancy). For the 4th time, I’m OK with HCR and getting people who don’t have insurance or can’t afford insurance something that provides decent coverage and I;m even willing to chip in and pay some of their cost.
What part of my question don’t we understand. We know it will initially cost 1 trillion dollars. How will it be paid for. And no, I am not for changing/repealing SS or medicare, or VA benefits or retirement for Gov workers. My questin is how do we pay for all of it. No one seems to want to answer the question, or is it that no one can. The bill is not defecit neutral unless you use the pre-vote analysis based on the #’s fed to it by the whitehouse, which we know (from the Dr fix) is very inaccurate.
So, is it funded by a tax like SS and medicare or are all our tax rates going to 50%, or are they cutting out existing programs or laying off 1/2 the fed employees?
I googled ‘how will health care get paid for’. The first link had this chart and link.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/26066.html
I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t resist. How much does one drone cost? How many do we release per month? How much does it cost to repair oil spill damage because of unenforced regulations? How much does it cost to rebuild an economy that hot-shot scoff-laws have taken down on Wall Street? I could go on and on, but I don’t want to bore you — (hopefully you will read as irony, not sarcasm!)
PGT, I’m sure given what you posted before on HCR, you were already aware of the information on the link that 1032 posted. So assuming you were is it a distrust of government that makes you think the information on that website is not true and that HCR is not paid for or is my assumption incorrect and you have never seen that information posted before?
BTW here’s Dana Loesch, a tea party member, who says on camera that she is for abolishing soc security.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/03/larry_king_shuts_up_dana_loesch.php
So the question again remains. Even if we are dissatisfied with washington are we dissatisfied enough to vote in extremes into government?
PGT, Here’s a link about the forgotten tax cut in the stimulus bill. I guess you fall into the category of someone who didn’t know about it. Kind of surprising to me since you know a lot about the stimulus, except of course, the tax cut.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/politics/19taxes.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk
No Jonah, I will not vote for anyone just because they belong to a group. They must provide me some type of qualifications and/or beliefs that closely resemble my own or ones I can believe in. My voting record would show votes for Dems and Repubs, based on who I thought/think is the better qualified candidate.
I believe it is the responsibility to help those less fortunate or unable, I do not believe in helping those who can, but refuse to help themselves however I’m willing to give anyone a chance to prove me wrong.
We should not abolish SS, we need to fix and fund it, but the question is who and how. HCR is good for many and will improve the quality of life of our citizenry. What I’d like all to take away from this conversation is I am an easy to persuade, fairly level headed fiscal conservative who should be an easy target to convert. If the arguments you present cannot convince me someting is good/worthy you now know where the shortfall in explaining it to those less amenable to change.
To 1032 – thanks for being patient and not “walking out” on the conversation like the view ladies. The chart and breakdown link is what fiscal conservatives know is wrong with the healthcare bill. They want to cut expenses from medicare, which they will have to put back in (Dr. Fix). They want to raise medicare tax on the wealthy (along with allowing Bush tax cut for same group to expire) not going to be an easy sell. They want to reduce payments for less expensive home care (how will that save money), raise the 7.5% AGI floor for deductions allowable for medical expenses = a new tax to all. Cut 19 billion from education, after the teacher bailouts, hmm that will work well. Cut community living assistance (housing help for the poor) by 70 billion (you know they’ll put that back in and need to perhaps).
While it seems they came up with a nice tidy plan to get the #’s Obama wanted in order to “sell” it to the public, they used usual washington smoke and mirrors to fund it. Cutting medicare, education, assistance to the poor and other programs solves the problem on paper, but will they follow through and do it? They already recinded the Dr. Fix 196 bill.
This is where the supporters and Obama need to concentrate to get this message across and this is where they have failed. They are trying to convince people who think like me, not you. They need to stop telling me all the benifit details, which I am aware and tell me (and others like me) what the real deal is and how we’re going to pay for this “really”. When they are able to show concretely how, then many of us would likely become supporters. It’s just a different way of thinking.
To Patricia – Yes the president has authorized 21,000+ drone flights this year, which is a substantial increase (and needed) over the Bush allocation. I agree there are soooo many ways to save money in Washington. I often bang my head (working in Gov for a number of years) and wonder how we do business. Unfortunately, Gov does not work like business, they do not reward saving, just spending. Because spending more = more power for each Deptartment hence all the turf wars between DHS, FBI, ATF, Justice, Treasury, etc and all the scapegoating/fingerpointing when something goes wrong (gulf spill). Gov is the only entity where you get in more trouble if you don’t spend all your budget money (your’e not allowed to have any leftover or it might get cut from your next years budget).
Jonah – about #31 the $65 monthly savings for marrried couples was offset in my state by a 20% increase in sales tax and increase in Prop tax and an increase in sewer, environmental and clean water fees (taxes that don’t count as taxes, you know, looks better for campaigning).
I have to get a 2008 car inspected every 2 years for vehicle emisions at a cost of $14 and they don’t even hook it up to a machine, because they know it will pass (they waive the little dust rag around the window) and they pay people to man the 16 bay center for the 10 cars per hour that go through. But is is an extra fee “tax” they get me on. (3 cars x $14 every 2 years along with 150 reg fee every 2 years for each, for my priviledge to drive).
Sorry, going off on a tangent here.