Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich's had big big populist plans. He was going to tax those big bad businesses -- on "gross receipts" -- to fund universal health care in Illinois. It was the perfect idea. The national liberal media was clamoring for it. Universal Health Care was destined to be the key campaign them in the '08 elections. Roddy said he was he going to fight "the fight of the century" in defense of his plan to impose a $7.6 billion "gross receipts tax." "These corporate guys, they can't avoid this tax," said Roddy, playing David to the big BAD Goliath corporate guys, only interested in the bottom line. It was perfect. There was just one teensy eensy problem. He had to, you know, get a bill passed. So the House, controlled by Roddy's party voted...and the score? 107-0. Hmm....can we say "waxed?" http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010071
Well you do make a good point (finally). Taxes and corporate taxes will rise once we go to UHC. Business will not be happy and we have to be creative to keep them from leaving. See, the Socialist countries have lower Per Capita Incomes than we do for a reason. edit: cue liberals to talk about administrative costs.
Personally, I would like to find a market based or at least semi-market based solution to the problem for the insurance gap. It bothers me that those who do not work receive government health care (through Medicaid) while the working poor are often uninsured.
Two tiered system, you and I have already agreed on this in the past. Basic services for the uncovered and the option to pay for better services.
Now I see why Karl was banned from the poli forum. His threads get taken over by the veggie homos within 5 posts.
You see, this is one of the problems with a lot of liberals/leftists who are into the "causes" -- you know, greenieness, "affordable health care for all" and such like sentiments. Pure naivete. They fail to recognize that life is full of tradeoffs, and that the candidates who are so appealing in one area may have deep deep flaws in other areas. They are shocked -- SHOCKED!! -- that such things could be true. And it gets to the true deep irony in their positions -- they rage against hypocrisy, for many of them a sin that's worse than acts of immorality -- and then find, lo and behold, those who they support are just as guilty, even more so in some instances, as the people (generally conservatives) who they loathe. George Bush is indisputably flawed, and has made serious errors in a lot of areas, but bottom line he is a politician pure and simple. When we elect anybody, in the end, all we can hope for is the best of a bad lot, all tradeoffs weighed against each other. Getting the Democrats in power is hardly a panacea. In some cases, particularly when it comes to economics and taxes, it's worse. Tradeoffs my liberal friends. Tradeoffs.
Fair enough, but clearly Bush's flaws outweigh whatever benefits he brought to the table. He has a decent and realistic immigration reform plan, and I like his pick for the head of the NEA. The economy has performed pretty well for a certain chunk of the country, but Bush's only contributions to that end were a tax cut on dividends and the appointment of a quality successor to Greenspan. I suppose his lavish spending helped matters, but conservatives seem loathe to admit that Keynes still has some value. Ah yes, the 90s, when the crush of taxes destroyed our economy. How I longed for the stunning economies of Republicans like Nixon and Ford. The notion that Democrats always harm the economy and that Republicans always fix it is politically simplistic and has no basis in history. For example, the economy under Carter sucked ass, but Carter also kick-started the recovery by putting Volcker in the Fed.
"Outweighed?" According to whom? YOU? You're awfully awfully quick to judge what will take the verdict of history to determine. For example, what happens if the nascent Iraqi democracy takes hold? Wouldn't you WANT that? Or are you so invested in the notion that Bush is awful that failure would simply be confirmation of your view of him? Don't forget, too, the appointment of John Roberts as chief justice. And Alito. In the end Presidents are known for a few good things and few bad things. Carter's appointment of Volcker and Camp David are about it for him. Of course, what was truly horrible about him was his "vision" of America. Thank God we got the corrective of Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton wound up taking up CONSERVATIVE free-market principles -- NAFTA, welfare reform. And ultimately rejecting the socialist health care vision of his wife. He had to. It's what this generally conservative, generally capitalist country wanted.
I don't know anyone aside from Karl who thinks the Democrats ruin the economy and the Republicans fix it. However I would like to point out that the "recession" of the start of this decade had major indicators in the late 90's. Most economist were hoping Clinton would cut capital gains taxes with his (fake) surplus around 1999.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't think either party "ruins" or "fixes" the economy. Our economy has a vibrant life of its own that no politician, frankly, can screw up too much now. Oh, they can hold hearings on "oil price gouging" but in the end, markets win. I do think, however, that some politicians with certain views can do more harm than other politicians if they can execute policy that conforms with their views. Hiliary's health care is the perfect example--it would have been a catastrophe. Meanwhile, Bush's tax cuts are an example of GOOD policy. They didn't "fix" the economy, though they certainly helped.
Believe it or not, the left hated Hillary's health care proposal. The right hated it because it sounded like socialized medicine (it wasn't), and the left hated it because it was an ogre with concessions to the insurance industry that involved a complicated solution when a simple solution would have sufficed. Although I firmly believe in nationalized health care of some sort or another, I worry that her program would have been akin to Bush's expensive Medicare "reform." That's true. They helped me buy a bottle of water the other day. They allowed poor Paris Hilton to finally afford a decent diamond-encrusted Blackberry.
I'd like you to know that Berry Goldwater was a vegetarian and so was Ronald Reagan, G.H. Bush, Bob Dole, Richard Nixon, JC Watts, Abraham Lincon, Newt Gingrich and Thomas Sowell. Give or take about 9 of those names.
My wife says that men should never date women who are vegetarians. As for me, I love animals, they are delicious.
Hardly anyone I know eats meat anymore regardless of political idealogy. I gave it up about 10 years and I don't intentionally look to date non meat eaters but all the girls I've dated since eat very little to no meat. Same with my male friends, a few republicans and a few democrats and most are a-political. You know, eating alot of red meat is not good for you.
OK, I made it up. But we'd still better keep an eye on that guy. They go along all nice, eating grass and stuff, and then POW! they eat a 1-year old child.