OT: Politics Thread - Do Not Open Unless You Want to Argue

[awaz]

if everyone has enough money it becomes less scarce; therefore less valuable. The rich will never let the poor people advance because it isn't in their best interest. There is a reason poor schools are less funded and less able to educate children.

imo that's why there is such a gap. the rich dont 'let' the poor people do anything. the poor people have the capabilities themselves, they just rarely do anything with their opportunity. a good portion of them are content to live off the government because they are either 1. content doing nothing for themselves, or 2. have been conditioned to thinking they cant do anything useful and therefore have to live off the government

#2 normally comes after the person raising you has been a #1.

and the poor schools are less able to educate children because the children are joining gangs at 10 years old rather than trying to be educated. being educated is the hard choice for less fortunate people, and too few of them make the hard choice for it to be a legitimate place to spend money

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

True, however that's because these 'evil' companies and corporations are the ones who provide jobs (and income) to people. Raising taxes on them means less jobs for them to give out. Or they will pick up and leave the country all together. Costs will be cut some where. Same thing goes for small businesses.

This current recession has clearly demonstrated that it is not a direct correlation though.

A lot of companies laid off workers when the economy got tough, but some of those same companies are now posting record profits but haven't even increased their workforces back to what they were pre-recession.

 

[jerseyjigroe]

We do have one of the highest corporate tax rates however most of our companies pay a lot less due to a ton of loopholes.

How many of these corporations have shipped lots of job overseas in the past 25 years with their corporate tax breaks and if so are they even deserving of any kind of break?

Its semantics but I do not necessarily consider closing some loopholes as raising taxes.

Ah, we have finally found an area of agreement.

 

[dare2be]

My 97-year-old grandmother-in-law who has had relative good health (she only just stopped driving on her own within the last year or so) just suffered a mild heart attack and was taken to the hospital, where she had another more severe attack, and was life-flighted to another specialist hospital where she is currently being treated. She probably only has days left, yet in the back of my mind, "is it really worth all this expense?" Who is going to pay for all these procedures? It certainly isn't going to be her family as they are dirt poor.

 

[jerseyjigroe]

I don't know. I knew it was a small amount and wanted to find the total - it said 2% of all health care costs. I've seen studies of the factors for the INCREASE in health care and have seen malpractice insurance increases be in the 3-10% as a part of that increase. It depends who you ask.

In either case, the point is it is made out to be a HUGE factor in rising costs when it's not even in the top 3-4 factors.

The thing that exacerbates this are headlines. You will see this "Man Sues for $3.7 million for Stiches Taken Out Wrong." You understand you can "sue" for pretty much any amount you can find cause for. The headline you DON'T see is "Man Who Sued for $3.7 millions gets $3,200." It's not sexy. It doesn't sell papers. Sure some whacko jury awards an outrageous sum every once in awhile, but it's the exception. And that's what you see in papers, the exception. Not the normal everyday settlements that end in reasonable, fair amounts in well over 99% of civil cases.

The problem isn't necessarily the settlement amounts, it's the cost of the extremely expensive e&o insurance that they have to have in this sue-happy world.

 

[CatScrap]

How about the fact that annually the DOD has purchased over $15 million worth of refundable plane tickets that never got used and failed to turn them in for a refund. And these are only items that we know about.

 

[jerseyjigroe]

Isn't it rationed now, just privately - not publically?

Not like that. If you're covered, you're covered. There is no panel of people telling you can't have a surgery because you are too old, etc. Denying a loss that isn't covered in a policy isn't the same thing, imo.

 

[elocomotive]

The talk of death panels were in regards to the rationing of health care. That is a very big reason to be against socialized health care.

No they weren't. You've given a great example of my post above about the media clouding what the actual issue is with buzz words. Read more on "death panels" if you like.

And you are politicizing all your posts, Jersey. SOCIALIZING medicine is not inherently bad or good. It's balancing one set of values against another. Plenty of countries with socialized medicine live longer than we do, so it's not the devil. It's an alternative. And I'm not arguing for or against it, I'm just saying you are politicizing it.

 

[awaz]

I don't know. I knew it was a small amount and wanted to find the total - it said 2% of all health care costs. I've seen studies of the factors for the INCREASE in health care and have seen malpractice insurance increases be in the 3-10% as a part of that increase. It depends who you ask.

In either case, the point is it is made out to be a HUGE factor in rising costs when it's not even in the top 3-4 factors.

The thing that exacerbates this are headlines. You will see this "Man Sues for $3.7 million for Stiches Taken Out Wrong." You understand you can "sue" for pretty much any amount you can find cause for. The headline you DON'T see is "Man Who Sued for $3.7 millions gets $3,200." It's not sexy. It doesn't sell papers. Sure some whacko jury awards an outrageous sum every once in awhile, but it's the exception. And that's what you see in papers, the exception. Not the normal everyday settlements that end in reasonable, fair amounts in well over 99% of civil cases.

thanks elo. answers my question.

i guess what it boils down to is the insurance basically ends up having to pay lawyer's fees. which, even though its pointless sometimes, is a lot less of a cost than the 3.7 mil

 

[SLY]

Just prolongs the bleeding...

McConnell, Reid tweaking debt limit fallback plan to boost its chances - CNN.com

 

[elocomotive]

My 97-year-old grandmother-in-law who has had relative good health (she only just stopped driving on her own within the last year or so) just suffered a mild heart attack and was taken to the hospital, where she had another more severe attack, and was life-flighted to another specialist hospital where she is currently being treated. She probably only has days left, yet in the back of my mind, "is it really worth all this expense?" Who is going to pay for all these procedures? It certainly isn't going to be her family as they are dirt poor.

Sorry to hear that, Dare. I had a grandmother die at 98. If it makes you feel better, I know when her time came, she was ready for it and looking forward to rejoining her husband. Condolances.

 

[elocomotive]

The problem isn't necessarily the settlement amounts, it's the cost of the extremely expensive e&o insurance that they have to have in this sue-happy world.

I already talked about that.

 

[SLY]

Some good points in this article.

GOP wants Obama's unconditional surrender - CNN.com

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

interesting. i have a few questions, in no particular order.

1. what is a cap on social security taxes? i've never heard this before. there's like a limit on how much you can pay in social security? so, for simplicity, a guy making 100,000 a year pays the same as a guy making 1,000,000 a year because the percentage is capped?

2. the direct election of congress thing. i read this before and had questions, didn't read who posted it though haha. how do you want us to pick congress then? we vote on a party, republican, democrat, green, communist, whatever, and then they pick who the congressman will be? i dont really understand how that scenario would help things. from my limited understanding that would just make it a longer process, and would lead to more corruption with people only having to buy the party's opinions rather than a whole voting demographic.

3. elimination of local taxes. i agree that centralizing things would make it a lot easier in some respects, but i disagree that you would have less fighting over where the money goes. if everyone pays money into one central government, then the government has to dole it back out. and it can't be an even split, states like california, florida, ny, etc. need more money than say south dakota. just on sheer numbers. but even if you went to a strict population percentage breakdown that wouldn't account for the fact that michigan has to pay a bunch more in road care (cause of the winters) than say arizona does. and thus you have a basis for argument. plus then you have citizens of south dakota paying for california residents to have 7 lane roads instead of 6, which isn't exactly fair. maybe i'm misunderstanding you, or maybe we just have differing opinions, but i think eliminating local taxes would do more harm than good.

the rest i think i agree with. religious groups, corporations, death penalty (assuming the death penalty costs more than life w/out parole, but i've heard that from more than just you)

1. There is a cap on what portion of a person's income is taxable for Social Security. Right now, I believe it is $106K. So your first $106K you pay full SS tax. But anything about $106K isn't subjected to that tax. So proportionately, those who make less money are paying a higher tax rate because they are being taxed on 100% of their income vs. a high earner who is taxed on "only" $106K, regardless of whether they make 100x that.

2. The direct election, in other countries at least, generally reduces the length and cost of campaigns. In general, only the party leaders have their faces on promotional posters (think only for example, Boehner, Cantor, Reid, and Pelosi on posters, nobody else). Because individual candidates aren't trying to get their name known, they have less reason to campaign. And yes, you would vote for the party who would then choose the representatives. Regarding buying opinions, I guess that was one item I left out of my abbreviated list of ideas, is that all elections would be publicly financed. No individual contributions and no corporate money. Period.

3. I wasn't totally clear on my point, but yes, your roads example is right. I would expect it to be need-based rather than a simple % base, so the higher cost of maintenance would be accounted for, as would larger populations. And the unfairness already happens to a large extent, but in the reverse order people generally assume. In fact, the "blue" states generally (emphasis here because there are exceptions) pay more in federal taxes than they get in services while "red" states generally pay less in taxes than they get in services. It also would eliminate the need to have as many levels of bureaucracy, thereby reducing the total costs that have to be paid with those same taxes.

 

[awaz]

That money was already taxed every which way... Shouldn't be taxed at all. Handing money to your children or any estate should not be taxed at all whatsoever when it changes hands.

see i disagree with you there.. IMO those who dont earn money deserve to be taxed.. what right does John Smith have to the 100 million dollars over Sally Jones? John Smith's dad had a brilliant idea?

so John Smith has the right to live a life of luxury and expense, while Sally Jones has to work hard to scrape together a living?

Letting John Smith have the majority of the money is fine (and proper), but i see no reason why it shouldn't be taxed again

i get that you can look at it as John Smith's dad wanting to 'spend' his money on giving it to his son, and he should be allowed to 'spend' it however he wants. but in an economy like ours (aka needs a lot of help), that is one of the fairest places to take money from, IMO

 

[huskers1217]

imo that's why there is such a gap. the rich dont 'let' the poor people do anything. the poor people have the capabilities themselves, they just rarely do anything with their opportunity. a good portion of them are content to live off the government because they are either 1. content doing nothing for themselves, or 2. have been conditioned to thinking they cant do anything useful and therefore have to live off the government

#2 normally comes after the person raising you has been a #1.

and the poor schools are less able to educate children because the children are joining gangs at 10 years old rather than trying to be educated. being educated is the hard choice for less fortunate people, and too few of them make the hard choice for it to be a legitimate place to spend money

what opportunity do they have that they are giving up?

As far as education goes, I was shocked when my wife told me her school always gave her new books at the start of each school year. Our books were recycled and 5-10 years old. There is no way in hell I should have passed missing 52 days in a school year, but I did.

Obviously, the number 1 problem is parents..Parents don't give a shit so the kid doesnt. It's an endless problem that no one gives a shit about until that kid shoots up some white dude in a gas station hold up. Trust me..if you didn't feel like people gave two shits about you, you wouldn't make some of the same decisions.

 

[jerseyjigroe]

No they weren't. You've given a great example of my post above about the media clouding what the actual issue is with buzz words. Read more on "death panels" if you like.

And you are politicizing all your posts, Jersey. SOCIALIZING medicine is not inherently bad or good. It's balancing one set of values against another. Plenty of countries with socialized medicine live longer than we do, so it's not the devil. It's an alternative. And I'm not arguing for or against it, I'm just saying you are politicizing it.

Wikipedia and polifact are not unbiased sources. America is way bigger than a country like Denmark. It will not work in America. The end game with socialized medicine will be if they try to take away the option of having private insurance.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

Does this make you want to audit your government a little bit?

The Missing $25 Billion

Buried in the Department of the Treasury's 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government is a short section titled "Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position," which explains that these unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003.[2]

The unreconciled transactions are funds for which auditors cannot account: The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent. Blaming these unreconciled transactions on the failure of federal agencies to report their expenditures adequately, the Treasury report concludes that locating the money is "a priority."

The unreconciled $25 billion could have funded the entire Department of Justice for an entire year.

Amazing. As an accountant this type of stuff really does fascinate me. I don't get caught up with the usual circular debates because really it comes down to being held accountable for what money is being spent on.

 

[elocomotive]

thanks elo. answers my question.

i guess what it boils down to is the insurance basically ends up having to pay lawyer's fees. which, even though its pointless sometimes, is a lot less of a cost than the 3.7 mil

Yeah, that's not to say they don't get nailed with some million dollar suits once in awhile. It definitely happens. A few points (1) Yep, there are some dick lawyers out there and not every suit is gonig to be fair or equittable, but most area, and most never even go to trial. (2) Malpractice cases do serve an important function to keeping doctors doing their job right (lawyers face them too). (3) Sometimes, people's lives and income-generating ability are irrevocably ruined and it actually is deserved (there are some dick doctors out there too) (4) This is the whole point of insurance, we all buy in (health, car, house, etc.) largely never using it, but it covers catastrophic occurences so lives aren't ruined.

 

[elocomotive]

Wikipedia and polifact are not unbiased sources. America is way bigger than a country like Denmark. It will not work in America. The end game with socialized medicine will be if they try to take away the option of having private insurance.

You're making a conclusion, rather than stating an opinion and supporting it. An opinion on a topic I didn't even offer an opinion about. And you're not arguing with the facts provided, but with the source itself. So let's you and me just not bother here.