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| I have no idea what they are protesting. |
There are a couple of things to consider here. Religious
organizations are to some degree state/federally funded organizations. Their tax-exempt status means they receive
services and benefits funded from taxes you and I pay. Just from that fact
alone, they should be forced to follow government guidelines. The same logic would apply to drug testing politicians that want to drug test welfare recipients. I am okay with fair.
Anyone with medical insurance can choose not to use
contraceptives. That should be the decision of the insured and not controlled
by the Church or any business for that matter. Healthcare should not be a
cafeteria-like option where employers would dictate employee options. The options should be the
same for everyone and everyone should get to make their own choices. A recent report (Guttmacher Institute) shows
that only 2 percent of Catholic women, even those who regularly attend church,
rely on natural family planning. So clearly the congregation is not in step
with the Catholic hierarchy.
If the argument is based on the morality of funding
something a person/organization would be morally opposed to, then what about any number of activities funded by our tax dollars like the Iraq
War or Iran Contra affair or authorized interrogation practices that are
illegal under U.S. and international law that many including myself strongly disagree with?It is clear that the major religions are male dominated. There is a long history of ongoing female oppression. I for one would like to see what women would do if they held the power. What would the Catholic Church’s position be if not only did the pope wear a funny hat, but had a nice pair of heels to match?
Don't be so sure the heels aren't already in play. It's a long robe, Joe.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting about the uproar is to contrast it with the hundreds of pedophilia cases exposed over the last few years and the corresponding muting/finger pointing/blame deflection followed by the church and the bishops. As several studies have shown, morality is in the eye of the beholder. It is immoral to prevent a pregnancy with a rubber but not to shove your dick into some 10 yr old's opening - pick one.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's sister divorced her first husband in the 40's after he went bonkers and had to be committed to the nut house. She later met and married a Catholic man (she and my dad were Presbyterians). The Catholic Church excommunicated him over his marriage to a divorced woman. Now, how does this work with the Newtron, he is clearly a serial adulterer and has been divorced twice - whey isn't he being excommunicated? To be fair, at the same time they excommunicated my uncle they allowed some Hollywood star in the same situation to do some kind of penance and marry without being kicked out of the church - so this isn't new behavior for the rich and privileged.
I also agree completely with CoD's point on churches being subsidized by our taxes. If they don't have to pay property taxes or corporate income taxes then they should stay the fuck out of politics.
I agree with the Church's position, but not for any of the reasons you discussed in this posting or reasons that have been mentioned in the news lately. I have an opinion on the constitutionality of these specific mandates, but I'm going to keep these opinions to myself. Besides - I'm not a Constitutional Lawyer, so what would my opinion w.r.t. the application of the constitution matter here anyway..?
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that health care coverage should be universal. Why should it be? Different groups have largely different health coverage needs - wouldn't you agree? That said if medical research, medications, and Dr's costs were all free and we could provide everyone all the health care coverage at no costs - I'm all for that! But today we have to make some choices between cost/benefits, which depends heavily on the needs of the group being covered. Otherwise, you end up with a one-size-fits-all plan where the coverage provided is excessive and too expensive for some while not enough for others.
For example, I wouldn't want to be lumped into a health care plan that had to consider stunt teams the likes of Jackie Chan et. al, or X-Treme Sports people that bungie jump or sky dive, or crazy scientists that test toxic chemicals for a living and occasionally blow "stuff" up on accident;-) Conversely, I'm sure the personal trainers and other employees of any Gym would rather not be lumped into the same health care plan as someone who likes to play with dangerous power tools and sits at a desk 8+ hours a day for a living.
Even when taken to a company perspective, the system is not perfect. You still have some employees with too much coverage and costs, and some employees with not enough. But at least when managed at the company level, the variation and waste is minimized.
There's also the very real situation today where the Obamacare for the minimum level of coverage required is too high and too costly, that companies have to cut back on staffing. Before Obamacare, these companies balanced employee benefits with the number of employees in order to keep as many employees as possible.
I tried, but I couldn't resist getting involved in the philosophical part of this discussion.
ReplyDeleteJust one correction to start off with - you're comment CoD "..they should be forced to follow government guidelines." doesn't apply. No one is ignoring the government guidelines, they're just questioning the constitutionality of the guidelines.
Also, your logic comparing this discussion with drug testing for welfare recipients is a bit "apples and oranges". This discussion is about what the govt. can force an organization to do, the drug screening is about making sure one is not doing something that is illegal. Two different things.
But the comment I want to have fun with is some of your logic, which Medina64 seems to agree with, that basically says an individual or organization subsidized by the government has to follow government guidelines (or as Medina64 put it "..stay the f?ck out of politics" -- BTW: very nice, no anger there...).
First, the "govt" makes $0 money - nada - nothing. All of the "govt" money comes from the taxpayers. Now, since the amount individuals and corporations pay varies significantly, it's mathematically certain that some individuals/organizations are subsidizing the government (i.e., net adding) and some are being subsidized by (i.e., net subtracting) the government.
So if we were to apply your position that individuals/organizations that are subsidized by the government should be forced to follow the govt. guidelines, then it should be logical to say that those subsidizing (i.e., paying for) the govt. should be allowed to create those guidelines. Correct?
Of course, this is all nonsense. I just wanted to walk you through it because obviously, "what" individuals should be allowed and/or forced to do is much more complicated than simply looking at it from whether they're adding to or subtracting from the govt. There are morality standards we all have to live by, and they're not just "..in the eye of the beholder". People cannot be allowed to live by whatever moral standards they choose.
In context of this discussion, it just means you can't compare an individual being required NOT to take illegal dangerously addictive drugs to get federal funding, with forcing a religious organization to provide something that goes against a moral belief that a significant percent of the US population have.
You also can't compare these religious rights with those of a taxpayer that doesn't agree with war. The constitution protects freedom of religion (i.e., that the government shall not establish a religion in order for citizens to freely establish and express their own), it does NOT allow you to simply avoid taxes because you don't support a war. In fact, it says the govt. can do whatever it has to pretty much in order to protect US citizens including establishing and deploying a military and raising taxes to do it.
Back on point. What I lastly find interesting about this discussion is to me, the issue is about the constitutionality of Obamacare itself. Specifically, that the govt. can force an individual and organization to buy a private product and dictate the minimum that product has to be. The kicker is the entire argument just about is that it costs me (mr. taxpayer) when someone with no insurance shows up in an ER needing medical attention. Since it costs me as a taxpayer, then the govt. (on behalf of me) should be allowed to force everyone to have a minimum level of health insurance. This amazes me because with this criteria, there's no limit to what the govt. can tell you what to do and what to purchase. If this gets accepted by the Supreme Court, it will be the most significant loss to our civil liberties in my life time - probably in history.
JF – good point on the need for different coverage and I agree, instead of universal I should have said basic. A plan that covers dr visits, hospital, surgery, prescription and birth control, all basic components of decent healthcare . With varying deductibles it can be tailored for single owner/employee coverage or for an IBM. You are right there shouldn’t be a one size fits all.
ReplyDeleteBirth control is a health care issue and a woman’s right. I would venture to guess that the people that work in Catholic run companies aren’t making a lot of money to begin with and the 98% of woman who use birth control would want the coverage and can ill afford to pay for it.
I don’t even want to start on what happens if those people start having kids because they can’t afford birth control. The is such a disconnect between the conservatives who rail about birth control or talk about the sanctity of life but complain bitterly about the resulting outcome of poor people having unplanned or unwanted kids like food stamps or welfare.
to your comments below
“But at least when managed at the company level, the variation and waste is minimized...."the "govt" makes $0 money - nada - nothing. All of the "govt" money comes from the taxpayers. Now, since the amount individuals and corporations pay varies significantly, it's mathematically certain that some individuals/organizations are subsidizing the government (i.e., net adding) and some are being subsidized by (i.e., net subtracting) the government."
And here is really the basis where you and I often differ – you believe in the company and I believe in the government (would you agree with that?) – I think the government is the functioning body of our society. That it ensures that there is a common good – like the EPA or FDA to watch over our water, food and healthcare. The nature of companies is to maximize profits. They function within our society and are allowed to profit in doing so.
The government provides protection domestically and internationally, running the financial system and making trade agreements with other countries. All services the companies use in the pursuit of their primary and often sole function . It’s the governments job to protect us from the certain outcome of companies’ nature in their pursuit of money. You are seeing that now in China, unregulated industries just polluting the hell of things. There has to be a balance and protection.
and your other comment
"So if we were to apply your position that individuals/organizations that are subsidized by the government should be forced to follow the govt. guidelines, then it should be logical to say that those subsidizing (i.e., paying for) the govt. should be allowed to create those guidelines. Correct?"
So in my world view the government operates with the greatest good in mind ensuring basic protections. Those that subsidize the most (say Apple or Koch brothers) have the opportunity to do so because they operate within our society but that doesn’t give them the right to run our society. There is plenty of freedom for the subsidizers for them to get better health care coverage or gold plated toilet seats.
There's also the very real situation today where the Obamacare for the minimum level of coverage required is too high and too costly, that companies have to cut back on staffing. Before Obamacare, these companies balanced employee benefits with the number of employees in order to keep as many employees as possible.
Health care costs are an issue and again to the nature of companies – should health care be for profit? Obamacare may not be perfect but I don’t think the problem lies in mandating basic coverage like insuring children until 26 but the increasing commercialization of healthcare. There is a great piece on that from called “A Healthy Bottom Line: Profits or people?
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n4/healthy.html
Dude! This is whatum I'm screaming. U want fed dollars and no taxes u do what gov says. Cherry picking or buffet freeing. U can't have ur cake and out democracy too BTW this is Angus
ReplyDeleteOK, I need to add some more to this. However, I want to add a sliver more to what I said in the latest DiMaggio post. My use of the word fuck does not necessarily indicate anger. Where I grew up in WNY it was considered a decorative word used to make the conversation more interesting. Same when I was in the USAF, “Pass the salt” became “Pass the fucking salt” in order to lighten up our otherwise dark and boring existences.
ReplyDeleteFirst, a minor point – I appear to be reading too much Politifact. Not all government revenue comes from taxes. A small but nontrivial amount comes from Federal Reserve investments and loans, elective fees for natural parks, toll roads, etc, and royalties for oil/mineral extraction on federal lands.
About churches and charities, they are not supposed to be involved in political actions - http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=161131,00.html . The laws on this are over 50 years old and were last strengthened in 1987. I feel that the Bishop’s activities the past few weeks have come very close to, if not crossed into, engaging in political activity. They are free to do that but then give up their tax free status. That was my point in the earlier comment. The line appears to be very broad and loosely enforced, look at Pat Robertson, which is fine with me – but just quit acting like you are in some third world country.
I now want to consider a hypothetical. The Jehovah’s Witnesses (my paternal grandmother was one) believe that blood transfusions are against the wishes of the Big G. Now, suppose you work for a JW charity – they don’t believe in college so we don’t have to worry about that one. Should they be allowed to forbid blood transfusions under their medical plan? If yes, who pays when someone needs a transfusion – say after a car wreck? And, let’s pretend this charity is not in a place with jobs, but in some dumpy ass small town and that it will be hard to find another comparable job.
Lastly, I think the elephant in the room is that all these religions interpret the Bible or other doctrine in their own way. Great, I don’t care – but that should not be taken into account for implementing health policy. Christians made Mormon polygamy illegal – total and complete religious freedom legalizes all sorts of stuff, from polygamy to burning at the stake. However, in the past it was decided that we could impose limits on religious freedom in several areas - given that, why is setting minimum health care guidelines wrong?
anyone who knows me knows that Medina64's creative and habitual use of the word fuck is merely an early childhood indoctrinated bias we share.
ReplyDeleteI have to do this in 2 posts - sorry for the long answer.
ReplyDeleteFirst (CoD), I'm not for the "company" I'm for the individual. For health care, it's too expensive for most people to get their own insurance without getting a "group" discount. The smaller the group that can afford a health care plan, the better because it generally means the individual has more control. If the individual can't afford to go-it-alone, the next preferred grouping is the college they're attending, the company they work for, the church they go to, or any other "large enough" group that would get the health care costs affordable. At each larger group, the individual control is reduced until at some point - you get a government defined system. One note: From your comment that individual control can be managed with deductibles, and you generally state you've researched greatly these topics before disagreeing with my points. So I'll say it this way - your simplification of this problem into merely a deductible difference seems slightly ill-informed. If you've done the research and ran the numbers on this issue to make this brief/concluding statement, please provide it.
Second (CoD), birth control is a health issue the same way that wearing a rain coat out in the rain is a health issue. Both are about individual choices and the consequences. But let's be really honest here - "birth control" is used so individuals can have lots of sex without getting (or staying) pregnant. Until one is pregnant, this is a family practice and individual responsibility issue. If your argument is that birth control is preventative health care, so is a gym membership. Should the government provide free gym memberships as well?
Third (Medina64), birth control is not at all the same as a blood transfusion. Some birth control aborts a fertilized egg when in most cases the woman's life is in no danger. A blood transfusion in some cases is needed in an emergency just to save one's life. The JW's issue with it is simply that they don't believe in taking in any blood. Not providing birth control simply means one has to get their birth control somewhere else for free or pay for it, which is generally very affordable. Not allowing blood transfusions may be life or death, and it's not as if someone can get blood for "free" or additional health insurance for "very affordable" costs.
Which brings me to a key point on this whole discussin of Obamacare "forcing" companies to provide free birth control: It's all nonsense. Birth control is already free at many clinics throughout the U.S., so there's no need for Obamacare to provide it and force it on the companies/insurance companies. Obama is just once again playing politics instead of governing.
To be continued...
This last point is not about this one specific topic, it's just something I realized in this discussion. CoD, I finally have you figured out. It took some time because your views were inconsistent, some didn't make sense, and you never did "clearly articulate" your position as you stated you would back in October. So I had to read between the lines and leverage from our many off-line conversations.
ReplyDeleteBasically, you want the government to force everyone to do what you think, and to provide everyone whatever they want for free. Of course, I'm sacrificing a small amount of exaggeration to be brief but I'll just go through a few of your own posts:
In this post for example, you position is the government should make all decisions and birth control should be provided for free because it's a health care issue and presumably good for your health. But on another post, you say the government should provide drug addicts their drug of choice for free, which is clearly NOT good for one's health. So you're not really for the "health" part of "health care", but definitely for providing people what they want for free.
On this post you're pretty clear in saying that the government should make many major decisions in terms of how one lives their lives (health, financial, food and drug, environment, education..?). Yet on many other posts and in our off-line discussions you've stated corruption in the government and acknowledged major mistakes made by the government: decisions leading to the financial crisis, the Iraq/Afghanistan war, and on a series of other issues. Of course, most of your criticisms are on the Republicans. In fact, I looked back at some of your posts and guess what - I can't find one where you criticize Obama alone for any issue. In cases you criticize him at all, it's with the inclusion of others to blame (with comments like "both sides are to blame" or "there's enough blame to go around"). Intersting, don't you think?
Not convinced? That's ok, because I also have your own words.
Many years ago we discussed taxes and your position was that individuals in your income bracket then should pay higher taxes. I pointed out that you can add whatever $$ amount you want along with your taxes - which at the time you weren't sending any extra, how about now? Your response at that time was "..people should be forced..".
Now, I know you'll probably get defensive and respond with a long post trying to "prove" me wrong. But there's no need to do that because I'm not saying your view is bad. I personally don't agree with it, but so what. Besides, you would be trying to convince me against something I've learned after analyzing many, many posts and (off-line) discussions over the past ~10 years.
Let’s begin using baseball movies – WRT your generalization of my political views as Bob Uecker's character said in Major League – justtttttttt a bit outside. I’ll just give you my version of the Crash Davis speech in Bull Durham
ReplyDeleteThe way to address the deficit is to raise taxes and cut entitlements. Social Security is not an entitlement but does need reform. Raising taxes to Clinton rates would be a good goal. When raising taxes as a way to address the problem is suggested often someone will reply as you did. Me sending in an extra money is not going to fix the problem, my entire yearly salary isn’t going to fix the problem either, nor the percentage of people who believe raising in raising taxes sending in extra money. It will take all of us. If we use the logic “if you suggest it then you are responsible for it” then Dick Cheney would have been shooting Iraqis instead of his friends.
Health care and my suggesting a solution to the drug problem are two completely different things. Health care is not free either, I pay a pretty substantial amount of money per paycheck as do the Jewish or Atheist cleaning ladies making minimum wage at the Catholic hospital. Birth control is an integral part of woman’s health. Practicing Catholics don’t have to use the birth control. And btw where is the sanctity of life argument when it comes to war? I wish the Catholics would spend as much time protesting that. At least they get a free ride on paying for the war as tax exempt religious organizations avoid ~100 million dollars a year in taxes (how that for welfare?). I subsidize them and the crummy war.
I have had plenty to say about Obama with anyone who has cared to ask – even a certain Fox News loving family member . It hasn’t come up here as of yet as I have had other “ fish to fry”, but since you ask – Obama’s first mistake was making health care a priority instead of the economy. Success with the economy would have paved the way for health care. He messed himself on the stimulus package, letting democrats make it into an ineffective pork package. He did not endorse his own deficit commission (Simpson-Bowles), an absolute shame. He has too many Wall Street insiders working for him and has not gone after those responsible for the crash. His first two years have been OJT and it has cost us. He was elected as an agent of change and instead far too often gave us same old same old. He focused on reaching consensus instead of leading. It now appears that he has recognized his mistakes and is now becoming the leader.
Inconsistent? I have my views and they have changed over the years, if you are referring to something I said in conversation 10 years ago then I have no reply. If you are looking for a single solution or a single belief that covers everything I can’t give you that either - whatever you have figured out works for you.
Relax... I was being brief and extreme to make a point, and also just to see if I can make your head explode :-)
ReplyDeleteThe point is that your views tend to be quite left - even left of Portugal when it comes to drug policies - and the democrats in general are pushing a "gi'me" mentality. You just happen to fall in the category of the democrats on certain issues. Of course not as extreme as I simplified it down to, but making a complete case would take far too much time and no one would care. I can use your response though to make a part of my case with your comment about increasing taxes to Clinton Era levels in order to reduce the deficit.
First, would it help? of course. But I hear this position argued almost constantly from the left yet almost no discussion in the way of real spending cuts. Why? I've run the numbers many times, and have seen enough comments/discussion from both sides that the only reason the left is pushing tax increases is for political reasons. Anyone that has gone through the numbers and is spending most of their time on tax increases vs. spending cuts, is not really interested in reducing the deficit and debt. I'll walk you through it..
Let's go with your Clinton Era taxes for example, and since all of Obama's comments about raising taxes has only been on those making > $250K, I'll assume your comments are as well. Now, I have to include those making >= $159,619 because the next/highest bracket starts at $380,354 which would not include all of the "wealthy" the let wants to increase taxes on. That said, we'll work with approximations but you'll see that it won't matter much.
The top group of earners paid an effective tax rate of ~25% in 2010 for a total of ~$606B. So their total adjusted gross revenue was ~$2.42T. The difference between the top 2 tax brackets between Clinton and today is Clinton [36% 39.6%] and 2011 [33% 35%]. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and just said let's increase the taxes by 5% such that the effective tax rate will go from 25% to 30%. From $2.42T, 30% = $726B for an increase from today $606B of $120B. Target deficit for 2012 is ~1.4T, so this is a deficit reduction of ~8.6% .. not much. To put it in perspective, the interest on our debt per year is ~$400B, or approximately 3x the deficit reduction with this tax increase.
Of course you can make this a 10% tax increase with $240B in reduction (~17% of the deficit), and on, and on...but at some point these tax increases will hurt the economy.
So at least 70% - 85% of the solution has to come from spending cuts, yet that's not where the left wants to focus on. The left is talking about spending increases actually and increasing taxes to pay for it. The problem is, the "wealthy" just don't have enough money to do that which makes the entire argument from the left almost purely political.
to JF - You address my position on the Clinton tax rates and reference that you don’t hear any discussion of spending cuts from the left. You clearly consider me to be on the left. If you going to discuss one of my positions then you should reference that I also wrote that Obama not embracing the Simpson Bowles report was a big mistake and in the past I have discussed that the Obama and Boehner Grand Solution proposed during the last debt ceiling hike was a good place to start. Thanks to Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, to name a few, that combination of tax hikes and spending cuts were taken off the board. The Obama and Boehner proposal contained $2 of spending cuts for $1 of tax hikes. A deal that would reduce deficits by as much as $4 trillion cumulatively over the next decade. Taxes need to be part of the solution. The Simpson-Bowles commission report also details cuts in discretionary spending and immediate reforms to reduce spending and make the federal government more efficient, i.e. selling government land, ending earmarks, reducing the size of the government workforce through attrition.
ReplyDeleteReturning to the Clinton tax code means just about everyone who pays now will pay more. The tax rates affect everyone across the board. It’s not just rate increases for the “rich.” The 10% bracket goes away, with the lowest rate reverting to 15%; the child tax exemption goes from $1000 per child back to $500; the “marriage penalty” comes back in terms of personal exemptions. Taxes on dividend income will go up, and all exemptions will be phased out as income rises. So the impact will be larger than your projections. Tax revenues stood at 15 percent of GDP this year, the lowest level since 1950. The Bush tax cuts were meant to be temporary and they became unaffordable when we engaged in two wars.
I don’t agree with all aspects of the Simpson Bowles commission nor do I agree with all parts of the Grand Bargain but something needs to be done and soon.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center “There's no clear relationship between taxes and economic growth” "Too many factors complicate the picture to draw clear conclusions about the taxes-growth relationship."
The rebranding of rich people as the “job creators” and the argument that if we raise their taxes they won’t create jobs is just nonsense. Clinton’s job creation % during his two terms was 2.6 and 1.6%. Bush II with tax cuts 0.51 and (-0.84%) The discussion has been Clinton tax rates which were sustainable and effective.
I just noticed this new round of comments and felt the need to add some more. WRT birth control/blood transfusions being different, that is not the point. The point is that a church has doctrine prohibiting some medical procedure – it could be anything, X-Rays, mammograms, anything. Does the church have the right to not allow employees of an organization affiliated with the church access to insurance coverage for those procedures? The JW case just makes it clear how improper it is to allow that to happen – banning contraception/birth control has been so politicized that the stupidity behind it is now lost. On a related note, my father-in-law lives in Sun City and my wife takes him to a brunch with several of his old friends every week. One of the usual ladies has been missing for a few weeks and my wife asked about her. Apparently she fell and broke her foot and went to stay with her daughter while she recovered. Well this person is a Christian Scientist, and they believe in healing through prayer, not doctors. So, she got gangrene and finally went to a doc where they had to amputate part of her leg. Now, I don’t want people who think like this deciding what will be available in insurance policies and what will not.
ReplyDeleteI’m also fascinated by JF’s equating requiring birth control to be included in insurance policies and legalizing drugs to supporting a gi’me state. I see these as conclusions based on reality. People are going to fuck, often they don’t want kids, they just want to have fun – we spent many centuries proving this is going to happen no matter what, go back 150 years and see how many women died in child birth after already having 5 kids. We may be even like bonobos, using sex to manage our society better. WRT to drugs, some percentage of the population is going to do them, period. So the question is, do we want to enable gigantic criminal empires, incarcerate people and destroy their lives and significantly reduce their ability to contribute to society, or just legalize them and provide a framework to live and drug if that is what they decide to do. Again, Prohibition proved how stupid is to try to stop this type of behavior – in addition we took a midsized criminal organization and turned it into one of the most powerful groups in the world and enabled them to do a lot more shit than they were doing. This isn’t lef/right/middle, it is reality.
Lastly, I’m always interested by the small government, increased liberty argument. I used to work with a lot of libertarians and conservatives and would hear that quite a bit. The issue that they could never resolve for me was this. We had all that in the 19th century – along with horrible working conditions, bad food, slavery, economic upheavals every 20 years, and basically lawless areas that were very dangerous. There was a lot more wrong but that kind of points the picture. So, we slowly and painfully began to pass laws and build institutions to deal with these issues. Were those people idiots? Should we just have kept doing what we were doing? Was working in a coal mine 70 hours/week under terrible conditions really liberty? I’m not saying the government is perfect, it isn’t, it’s a human institution. It needs constant mending, fixing, changing – just like companies (tell Kodak). But that is a much different view than what I typically hear, and I for one do not wish to relive “The Jungle”.
CoD - I only addressed one of your points because I didn't have time yet to address the others. You have to realize, you're just debating one person - me, I'm debating two - you and Medina64 (which I'll get to next time). You both clearly have much more time than I do and can post your +4,000 comments every other day. I'll try to finish up with this whole "tax and spending" issue here and get to your other points at a later date.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this before, but the point seems to have gotten lost. This seems like a great time to bring it back up, then I'm not discussing this topic again. As far as the federal budget, that's the responsibility of the Congress - not the President. The President can only approve or veto the budget. So if you want to give credit or place blame on federal spending issues, you have to look at which party controlled congress at the time.
Well, guess which party controlled Congress for the last 6 years of Clinton's terms? The Republicans. This is the time you and most others on the left keep saying fiscally the country should go back to.
You and others on the left have also complained about Bush spending. OK. Look up the numbers for the Federal debt as a percent of GDP from 2000 - 2008. It slowly rises from ~57% in 2000 to 63% in 2006 and takes a sudden jump to 70% between 2007-2008. Guess which party controlled congress from 2002 - 2006? The Republicans. Guess which party controlled congress from 2007 - 2008 (2010)? The Democrats.
As much as the left "worships" Clinton because of all the great financial conditions the US enjoyed during his time, it's a wonder why more people don't vote Republican. My guess is they failed US Govt. in High School and don't realize that it's the Congress' responsibility to come up with the budget.
I'm not going to keep doing the research to find real numbers that work in today's economy, then performing the detailed analysis and math to make my point, just for you to come back with a few talking points and numbers that have no meaning on their own. If you think raising taxes is the way to go and will make a significant difference on the deficit, work out the numbers and I'll listen.
One thing bothers me - you've criticized Bush's tax breaks more than once and even here as meant to be "temporary". But in those tax breaks includes prescription medication for the elderly (among other tax breaks I agree with) that you would get rid of, yet you want to provide drug addicts their drug of choice at tax payer expense. Perhaps your position is one based purely on $$, but at some point isn't there a moral obligation?
One quick note for Medina64 since we're on the topic of "free drugs": You may have been confused on my position. I'm not (necessarily) against legalizing drugs, I'm just against having taxpayers pay for them. I'll get to your other comments in another post.
to JF - you are absolutely correct regarding the control of the congress during Clinton's presidency. it’s actually pretty funny that Republicans have such a deep hatred of Clinton when in reality a lot of his agenda was GOP based – welfare reform, Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Clinton transformed the party of FDR into the party of “it’s the economy stupid”. Most of his social programs were small potatoes with the real meat being he was closer to being a traditional Republican than any current Republican candidates with the exception of Romney (who would probably govern like Clinton if not for being backed into the tea party corner). So when Democrats point back to Clinton we are really pointing back to a time that cannot currently exist as current Republicans have become social ideologues and a lot of their rhetoric has to do with getting rid of the EPA or taking woman’s rights back 50 years or that God will save us from global warming. They can claim fiscal austerity but it’s not their recent record. Congress is not solely responsible for the budget as the president has veto power over any proposed budget - Bush had the lowest number of vetoes since Warren G. Harding – Fiscally Bush certainly didn't act like a traditional Republican. If you look at http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/ you will see that the deficit decreased in a fairly linear fashion each year of Clinton’s presidency (including the Democratic controlled house period).
ReplyDeleteAnd btw - your killing me with constantly referring my taxpayer funded war on drugs solution without referring to any other financial impact. You need to remember I believe there would be tremendous savings from the resulting decrease in incarceration and law enforcement costs. Drugs are cheaper than prison and bribes. I know you didn’t like my proposal and I know it is not mainstream but the drug issue is unlike any other problem we face.
And again to Bush tax cuts, since 9/11 two unfunded wars costing approximately 1.3 trillion dollars. How is that paid for? What other war was not accompanied by tax increases? I didn't quite follow your last point to me regarding the moral obligation. And as to you fighting the war on two fronts here I'd much rather you debated medina64 anyway - he's way smarter than me.
OK, I’m going to make it easy on JF – although you might be interested to see how little time I actually spend on this stuff, starting your own little business takes a lot of time. I’m for legalizing drugs with some restrictions similar to alcohol. I haven’t thought about the gov buying them and can’t think of a good argument for doing that so I think we should basically equate drugs with alcohol and treat them as much alike as we can.
ReplyDeleteI don’t worship Clinton, he was a good politician and did a reasonable job. I think the same about Ike, Harry S., and actually Ronnie – although I didn’t agree with him on most stuff. I think a lot of the reason the economy was doing as well as it was under him had to do with the Internet bubble and the start of the housing bubble. The causes of the bubbles are something we can argue over (and, yes, I think it was mostly deregulation but Clinton played a part in that also) – don’t waste your time trying to deconstruct Clinton to prove a point to me.
Lastly, while I think the tax breaks for the wealthy need to be ended to help reduce the deficit I think there is another point that never gets discussed. I worked in England one time for about 4 months, lived in a neighborhood (Littlemore, near Oxford), and made some English friends. One of the things you see over there is how inherited wealth (often in the form of property) has fucked that place up. I worry that policies like the elimination of the inheritance tax will have the same effect here. The inheritors often are not creating jobs but simply preserving that wealth and using it to further their own interests. I don’t want Sam Walton’s kids to be homeless, but I also don’t want the sixth generation of Walton’s to be living on what Sam made and using it to lobby for their particular little interests, especially if those interests result in bad public policy. This, again, is not a criticism of rich people, I just don’t think it is good for the country in general. Looking at the big money flowing into PACS today it is clear that Citizens United has taken us back 100 years – remember, the reason we now elect Senators instead of have state legislatures appoint them is that the railroads controlled the state legislatures and put their guys into office. From the Civil War onwards there was a big fight to try to get money out of politics because it diluted the popular will of the people. With Citizens United we are headed right back to 1900 and I don’t think that is a good idea. As wealth accumulates in a smaller and smaller group of people this problem will only get worse.