Posted on 08/13/2012 12:45:27 PM PDT by facedown
There are many different ways to talk about Paul Ryan's Roadmap, but maybe the most useful is to imagine how his budget affects your budget. How much more money would you keep under his broad tax plan? How much more would you have to save to pay for health care. And for the low-income, whom -- as we'll see -- bear the brunt of Ryan's cuts: How alone would they be in Ryan's America?
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Sweet. The hates and lies have begun already.
Someone I work with...a big shot in the institution fired off a mass email entitled “13 things you should know about the Paul Ryan budget” or some such crap.
Essentially the same thing. Hate.
I can’t refute or respond, or I could lose my job.
True story.
The new boss at Yahoo is some young woman who came from Google. I am certain her politics influences how they "cover" news...just like Google.
There's no way the Atlantic would be anything but a Democrat shill and that's where this came from.
We have 49% of working Americans not paying income taxes. 1/3 of Americans, plus a bunch of wetbacks, are receiving welfare. This is the tipping point.
We need to figure out how to keep Obama’s people from showing up at the polls. I suggest a huge expenditure on malt liquor and crack the two days prior to the election.
“By contrast, half of those making between $20,000 and $30,000 would get no tax cut at all.”
BECAUSE THEY DON’T PAY ANY TAXES NOW!!!!!And the author knows that!!Some much of the “news” is just unadulterated propaganda.
Typical Fauxtlantic poseur douchebag overtweeting about his fantasy man LeBron James...
“I can’t refute or respond, or I could lose my job.”
You cant.
You could create an anonymous hotmail account and use it to complain about the political bias at your work and how it represents a hostile work environment. And refute the BS.
Typically government dependents of an overwhelmingly powerful nation do not accept cuts in their benefits until their military is no longer able to coerce those benefits from other nations.
Many Americans seem aware that that is the situation we are headed for.
Wheter enough I don’t know. It’s in the media’s interest to convince it’s consumers the gravy train runs for ever so the information that the current source of those goodies is empty is bring suppressed ny them.
“Medicaid spending would be shaved by about a third”
Thats just tinkering around the edges.
It’s past time everyone pays their own way in this world or quit taking up space on the planet!!!!
? How would I do that?
Well, speaking as someone who for many years has contemplated creating a small manufacturing business (and the jobs that would in turn create), but has always decided against doing so, please consider the following.
First, your suggestions do not address the main reasons I choose “no”. I decline because I have watched (and in one case participated in as a fairly high level employee) other businesses with far more resources than I could attain in a reasonable time frame be literally strangled by excessive gov’t regulations and oversight, litigation & other legal costs (no matter how conscientious and diligent the owners / managers were). Add in taxes & related costs. This doesn’t even address the “headache factor”. And it does not fully address the fact that IF I am successful, most of what I’ve earned will be taken away. At some point, unless one is young and can create a great deal of success in a short time frame, it is not worth it. We have gone well past that point, IMHO.
Now as for tariffs, I am generally inclined to say that if the above things did not so tilt the playing field, tariffs would be a minor issue at most. If the playing field were remotely level regarding taxes, litigation, regulations, and such, and if intellectual property was properly protected, then let others do what they are efficient at, and I’ll use my good ‘ol American ingenuity to find an area where I can excel. With a few exceptions, my view is that high tariffs do not level the playing field, they twist it. Usually this is to the disadvantage of the consumer.
Turning to in my own case, if I did start my mfg. business, higher import tariffs would destroy any chance of my success. The vendors I would depend on no longer exist in the U.S., and they are not coming back, either. Not for a small start up, or even a bunch of small start ups, given the present business climate as described above. This is true in area after area after area...
Now, if you want to increase tariffs by, say, 5%, and use that money to greatly step up incoming inspections, investigations of whether foreign suppliers are gross polluters, and so on, I’d go along with some of that.
Turning to the requirement that all military parts be made in the U.S., that sounds good, but again it is not efficient. Perhaps it should apply to final assemblies, and certainly it should apply if there are immediate security concerns, where we literally need to keep a secret or an advantage. However, in general I think it would be better to simply require military vendors to guarantee deliveries for some time well into the future. If it is determined at any point that they cannot, they will be parachuted with life preservers and short knives into shark infested waters 200 miles from land. I would add that supplies and sources of certain rare materials and such should be maintained as “essential” National Security assets. Possibly in rare cases they would need to be specified or even subsidized to maintain U.S. production. Neodymium, as in neodymium magnets, comes to mind. However, this is a detail. One size fits all regulations usually do more harm than good.
Close the border? Well, that depends on exactly what you mean, but in terms of stopping illegals, reducing the demand for their services here (jobs), and reducing the other incentives for them to come here (ie., gov’t benefits), would be more effective. Deport the illegals? Same thing. Deprive them of income & benefits, and they will leave, for the most part. Set up positive citizen and legal alien identification and truly severe penalties for employers who employ illegals, and I.D. counterfeiters: After a few “examples” the employment side of the problem will fix itself.
H-1b’s? We may no longer be a country who wants to draw the “poor and huddled masses”, but we WANT the best and brightest from other countries to come here. Give them incentives to stay, too. They are a powerful asset. Get this U.S. economy on track, and an excess of H-1b visas will cease to be a problem.
Glass-Steagall? Perhaps, but I would like to see a serious debate from both sides on these pages.
Well, we had that (good quality care at 2/3 the cost) not very long ago, and a lot less cost than that, even just 10 years ago. What's the CORE reason for the change? Gov't plowing ever more money in, and at the same time manipulating the system to make ever more people dependent on gov't help.
It is true to some extent that the insurance companies have been opportunistic in this situation, but they are NOT the source of the blood in the water.
Of course, the statement (at least as it pertains to Medicaid recipients) "that's a valid reason not to vote for him." is true for those recipients in the short term. It is also a fundamental flaw of democracy. As Jefferson said (paraphrasal), "Once the people discover that they can (in effect) vote themselves $$ from the public treasury, that Democracy is doomed."
He's cutting the program that helps the poorest of the poor. This is why the GOP got kicked out of Congress the last time they had control.
Now, THAT is complete baloney. The GOP got kicked out partially because of a war that had become unpopular, and partially because they became no better than the rest of Congress / forgot why we sent them there. The GOP by and largely participated willingly in the creation of an ever growing % of the people, especially middle class people, dependent on the gov't in one way or another, and notwithstanding, in general became just as disliked as the rest of Congress. That in turn was exacerbated by the majority of the media, and the seeming helplessness of the GOP in getting out any kind of effective arguments, especially when it came to "uh, maybe we are spending too much..." For most voters, it becomes "I don't like any of them, so I'll vote for the ones who will help ME the most." The very poor always go that way - the difference was in the middle class.
But unemployment is "a side effect of global capitalism more than a progressive government."
You actually believe this Yahoo crap? It's more nonsense, or, should I say, more propaganda for the masses. Look around, what big states are in the worst shape? Illinois. California. New York. Now just what do they have in common that Texas does not have (so much of)? This is not to say that socialism can never work, economically speaking. Germany has done well, but they have a long history of something like it (they never really had a free-wheeling democracy like ours in place.) And, Germans have an incredible, stubborn work ethic that goes way back. Their productivity during WW2, until the very end, even though virtually every able-bodied man was at the front(s), and the country was bombed from one end to the other, was amazing. But, socially and politically, the freedom lovers left & came here, and the rest of the country is not only relatively homogenous, it basically IS on the other side of the planet.
Ryan focuses on the wrong thing at the wrong time and ends up making us poorer as a result.
"Us"? Well, I can sympathize - I was laid off and then losing money for over 1-1/2 years trying to start a small business (not manufacturing). It got pretty tough. Worse, if you are self-employed and then the business fails, there is no unemployment compensation. (Luckily, the business started doing well enough to get us by B4 I ran out of my rainy day and retirement savings, but if it were to fail now, we'd be in deep doo-doo.) Look, sometimes choices have to be made. Even if you are right about "globalism", the decline of the U.S. manufacturing base occurred over decades, and cannot be quickly reversed. In the meantime the country is going bankrupt. Basically, we can go with something like Ryan's plan for Medicaid, and other changes, or we can go belly up. Which do you prefer?
Well, we had that (good quality care at 2/3 the cost) not very long ago, and a lot less cost than that, even just 10 years ago. What's the CORE reason for the change? Gov't plowing ever more money in, and at the same time manipulating the system to make ever more people dependent on gov't help.
It is true to some extent that the insurance companies have been opportunistic in this situation, but they are NOT the source of the blood in the water.
Of course, the statement (at least as it pertains to Medicaid recipients) "that's a valid reason not to vote for him." is true for those recipients in the short term. It is also a fundamental flaw of democracy. As Jefferson said (paraphrasal), "Once the people discover that they can (in effect) vote themselves $$ from the public treasury, that Democracy is doomed."
He's cutting the program that helps the poorest of the poor. This is why the GOP got kicked out of Congress the last time they had control.
Now, THAT is complete baloney. The GOP got kicked out partially because of a war that had become unpopular, and partially because they became no better than the rest of Congress / forgot why we sent them there. The GOP by and largely participated willingly in the creation of an ever growing % of the people, especially middle class people, dependent on the gov't in one way or another, and notwithstanding, in general became just as disliked as the rest of Congress. That in turn was exacerbated by the majority of the media, and the seeming helplessness of the GOP in getting out any kind of effective arguments, especially when it came to "uh, maybe we are spending too much..." For most voters, it becomes "I don't like any of them, so I'll vote for the ones who will help ME the most." The very poor always go that way - the difference was in the middle class.
But unemployment is "a side effect of global capitalism more than a progressive government."
You actually believe this Yahoo crap? It's more nonsense, or, should I say, more propaganda for the masses. Look around, what big states are in the worst shape? Illinois. California. New York. Now just what do they have in common that Texas does not have (so much of)? This is not to say that socialism can never work, economically speaking. Germany has done well, but they have a long history of something like it (they never really had a free-wheeling democracy like ours in place.) And, Germans have an incredible, stubborn work ethic that goes way back. Their productivity during WW2, until the very end, even though virtually every able-bodied man was at the front(s), and the country was bombed from one end to the other, was amazing. But, socially and politically, the freedom lovers left & came here, and the rest of the country is not only relatively homogenous, it basically IS on the other side of the planet.
Ryan focuses on the wrong thing at the wrong time and ends up making us poorer as a result.
"Us"? Well, I can sympathize - I was laid off and then losing money for over 1-1/2 years trying to start a small business (not manufacturing). It got pretty tough. Worse, if you are self-employed and then the business fails, there is no unemployment compensation. (Luckily, the business started doing well enough to get us by B4 I ran out of my rainy day and retirement savings, but if it were to fail now, we'd be in deep doo-doo.) Look, sometimes choices have to be made. Even if you are right about "globalism", the decline of the U.S. manufacturing base occurred over decades, and cannot be quickly reversed. In the meantime the country is going bankrupt. Basically, we can go with something like Ryan's plan for Medicaid, and other changes, or we can go belly up. Which do you prefer?
Well, we had that (good quality care at 2/3 the cost) not very long ago, and a lot less cost than that, even just 10 years ago. What's the CORE reason for the change? Gov't plowing ever more money in, and at the same time manipulating the system to make ever more people dependent on gov't help.
It is true to some extent that the insurance companies have been opportunistic in this situation, but they are NOT the source of the blood in the water.
Of course, the statement (at least as it pertains to Medicaid recipients) "that's a valid reason not to vote for him." is true for those recipients in the short term. It is also a fundamental flaw of democracy. As Jefferson said (paraphrasal), "Once the people discover that they can (in effect) vote themselves $$ from the public treasury, that Democracy is doomed."
He's cutting the program that helps the poorest of the poor. This is why the GOP got kicked out of Congress the last time they had control.
Now, THAT is complete baloney. The GOP got kicked out partially because of a war that had become unpopular, and partially because they became no better than the rest of Congress / forgot why we sent them there. The GOP by and largely participated willingly in the creation of an ever growing % of the people, especially middle class people, dependent on the gov't in one way or another, and notwithstanding, in general became just as disliked as the rest of Congress. That in turn was exacerbated by the majority of the media, and the seeming helplessness of the GOP in getting out any kind of effective arguments, especially when it came to "uh, maybe we are spending too much..." For most voters, it becomes "I don't like any of them, so I'll vote for the ones who will help ME the most." The very poor always go that way - the difference was in the middle class.
But unemployment is "a side effect of global capitalism more than a progressive government."
You actually believe this Yahoo crap? It's more nonsense, or, should I say, more propaganda for the masses. Look around, what big states are in the worst shape? Illinois. California. New York. Now just what do they have in common that Texas does not have (so much of)? This is not to say that socialism can never work, economically speaking. Germany has done well, but they have a long history of something like it (they never really had a free-wheeling democracy like ours in place.) And, Germans have an incredible, stubborn work ethic that goes way back. Their productivity during WW2, until the very end, even though virtually every able-bodied man was at the front(s), and the country was bombed from one end to the other, was amazing. But, socially and politically, the freedom lovers left & came here, and the rest of the country is not only relatively homogenous, it basically IS on the other side of the planet.
Ryan focuses on the wrong thing at the wrong time and ends up making us poorer as a result.
"Us"? Well, I can sympathize - I was laid off and then losing money for over 1-1/2 years trying to start a small business (not manufacturing). It got pretty tough. Worse, if you are self-employed and then the business fails, there is no unemployment compensation. (Luckily, the business started doing well enough to get us by B4 I ran out of my rainy day and retirement savings, but if it were to fail now, we'd be in deep doo-doo.) Look, sometimes choices have to be made. Even if you are right about "globalism", the decline of the U.S. manufacturing base occurred over decades, and cannot be quickly reversed. In the meantime the country is going bankrupt. Basically, we can go with something like Ryan's plan for Medicaid, and other changes, or we can go belly up. Which do you prefer?
Well, we had that (good quality care at 2/3 the cost) not very long ago, and a lot less cost than that, even just 10 years ago. What's the CORE reason for the change? Gov't plowing ever more money in, and at the same time manipulating the system to make ever more people dependent on gov't help.
It is true to some extent that the insurance companies have been opportunistic in this situation, but they are NOT the source of the blood in the water.
Of course, the statement (at least as it pertains to Medicaid recipients) "that's a valid reason not to vote for him." is true for those recipients in the short term. It is also a fundamental flaw of democracy. As Jefferson said (paraphrasal), "Once the people discover that they can (in effect) vote themselves $$ from the public treasury, that Democracy is doomed."
He's cutting the program that helps the poorest of the poor. This is why the GOP got kicked out of Congress the last time they had control.
Now, THAT is complete baloney. The GOP got kicked out partially because of a war that had become unpopular, and partially because they became no better than the rest of Congress / forgot why we sent them there. The GOP by and largely participated willingly in the creation of an ever growing % of the people, especially middle class people, dependent on the gov't in one way or another, and notwithstanding, in general became just as disliked as the rest of Congress. That in turn was exacerbated by the majority of the media, and the seeming helplessness of the GOP in getting out any kind of effective arguments, especially when it came to "uh, maybe we are spending too much..." For most voters, it becomes "I don't like any of them, so I'll vote for the ones who will help ME the most." The very poor always go that way - the difference was in the middle class.
But unemployment is "a side effect of global capitalism more than a progressive government."
You actually believe this Yahoo crap? It's more nonsense, or, should I say, more propaganda for the masses. Look around, what big states are in the worst shape? Illinois. California. New York. Now just what do they have in common that Texas does not have (so much of)? This is not to say that socialism can never work, economically speaking. Germany has done well, but they have a long history of something like it (they never really had a free-wheeling democracy like ours in place.) And, Germans have an incredible, stubborn work ethic that goes way back. Their productivity during WW2, until the very end, even though virtually every able-bodied man was at the front(s), and the country was bombed from one end to the other, was amazing. But, socially and politically, the freedom lovers left & came here, and the rest of the country is not only relatively homogenous, it basically IS on the other side of the planet.
Ryan focuses on the wrong thing at the wrong time and ends up making us poorer as a result.
"Us"? Well, I can sympathize - I was laid off and then losing money for over 1-1/2 years trying to start a small business (not manufacturing). It got pretty tough. Worse, if you are self-employed and then the business fails, there is no unemployment compensation. (Luckily, the business started doing well enough to get us by B4 I ran out of my rainy day and retirement savings, but if it were to fail now, we'd be in deep doo-doo.) Look, sometimes choices have to be made. Even if you are right about "globalism", the decline of the U.S. manufacturing base occurred over decades, and cannot be quickly reversed. In the meantime the country is going bankrupt. Basically, we can go with something like Ryan's plan for Medicaid, and other changes, or we can go belly up. Which do you prefer?
Yikes, sorry about the multiple posts! I could not seem to leave the posting page. Mods, can you please delete all but one of those?
You got my vote.
Actually I think it can be reversed rather quickly. It takes labor to set up those plants. And if you put the rest of my recommendations in post 14 into effect, you can get unemployment down even faster.
And we won't go bankrupt if we get the economy back up. If we don't get the economy back up then cutting Medicaid isn't going to help. That's my biggest issue with Ryan, is he is focused on the wrong thing.
Go back and look at the deficit rates. What happened in 2008? The economic crisis. That's right. Then we started really spending. Tarp, stimulus, extended unemployment. Fix the economy all those go away while gov't revenues go up. Raise the tariffs, gov't revenues go up due to the tariffs, even before you start rebuilding your production base.
Perhaps, but there are a lot of reasons for cost changes, including additional regulations, technological changes, inflation, etc. I'm against any arbitrary cuts. A distinct "re-engineering" plan with clearly definable savings showing how is okay. But arbitrary cuts are stupid and will result in poor care.
A good redesign should automatically lower the cost without having adding additional limits to care.
""Once the people discover that they can (in effect) vote themselves $$ from the public treasury, that Democracy is doomed."
I don't think that statement applies to Medicaid. Care of the indigents was recognized as a civil duty of governments in western society as far back as the 1500's. There's a difference between care of the poor and voting yourself pork money.
The GOP got kicked out partially because of a war that had become unpopular, and partially because they became no better than the rest of Congress / forgot why we sent them there.
I'll grant you the unpopular war was part of it as was outspending the democrats. But the attempts to cut medicaid arbitrarily hurt them too.
"Us"?
Us = the nation. Focusing on entitlements and taxes instead of fixing the structural issues with the economy will make all of us poorer. The rich will be poorer, the poor will be poorer, the government will be poorer.
Fix the economy and some entitlements go away. Fix the economy and we can afford the entitlements we've committed to in the past. You're not fixing the economy by the things Paul Ryan is currently focused on. See post 14 for a starting list of what we need to do.
One point on regulations. The headache factor doesn't go away if you reduce taxes. Only if you eliminate them. And eventually industries move to automation so the regulations aren't as burdensome as you might imagine. Think payroll tax programs. Cutting payroll taxes does nothing for the headache factor. Eliminating payroll taxes would.
The headache factor is a lot more onerous on the very small business. It doesn't grow a lot as the business grows. I'm hiring people to take care of my Dad. Once again, I have to deal with the headache factor just like I was a small business, just to hire people in the home. So there is opportunity there.
Tariffs. The lack of tariffs makes overseas cheap labor more attractive. Our historical normal tariffs were 15%, at times they were up to 30%. Now they are 1%. Tariffs that low allow China to export their unemployment to us, take our jobs and manufacturing know how, and become our competitors. It's completely insane.
Tariffs would soak some of the Chinese profit for the benefit of our government, even as it returned jobs to our country. Instead of selling them debt, we'd be funding our government off of their goods.
Your argument that you can't start a business because all your suppliers are overseas is faulty. Doesn't make sense. If raw materials or parts are 50% of the product. You'd be paying tariffs on 50% not on 100%, which an overseas manufacturer would have to pay. It's still make sense to import the parts even if it's true they aren't coming back. The supplies certainly aren't coming back if we aren't going to even try to manufacture it here. This is a "we are too far gone to even try" argument, that I don't buy.
There would have to be some exceptions such as "rare earths" for the all military goods requirement. But we need a plan b for those anyway. Sounds like Obama is actively searching for alternative sources of rare earths. What da ya know, he is doing something right.
I disagree with you on the illegal employment side. We need both, prevention, deportation and enforcement on the employment side. Employment side alone is not going to work because by then too much money is involved. There's always going to be someone who turns a blind eye and allows dishonest illegal employer to run the legal employers out of business.
"H1b's...we WANT the best and brightest from other countries to come here."
True, but not while we got tons of unemployed. In many cases these people are not any more skilled than are own people, they are just cheaper.
Glas-Steagall. Debate is always good. You just had the former chairman of Citibank come out in favor of putting this regulation back in.
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