If you are a liberal, the distance covered is never enough.

However, I will admit that the last eight years had me more worried about the police state. But. it still took a complicit Congress to allow it.

That is why I am now more concerned with a jerk too far left, we are running out of wiggle room and we just might not be able to right the ship.

 

You can't begin to know how sad, and then how angry a story like that makes me.

But here comes the ready reply: She should have been a better person, with a better job.

 

Why do you insist on using SS and MC as an example of excess?

They were both formed by sound reasoning. Both insurance programs were to be paid for by premiums collected in the form of FICA taxes. They replaced nothing, but developed a lot.

Until the Congress decided to award benefits from the funds to those who had not contributed or were otherwise ineligible, the programs were running quite nicely.

The current health care bill does not begin to resemble these programs.

Most of the conservatives I know, have no problem with everyone having the freedom of getting married. Just as long as all of the terms of marriage are met. Abortion is a different kettle of fish, there are those who feel that life begins at conception. In fact until the abortion rights debate came along the courts agreed with that idea. That last thing is not yet an option.

 

I used them as examples because you were referring to "entitlement programs" (Post #2225), and those are the two most obvious examples.

 

That is because of the compromises necessary to get anything at all.

 

How are they entitlements? Were they not prepaid by the recipients (original ones that is)?

Entitlements are usually thought of as benefits to persons who have not contributed to the fund paying them.

 

This is what I mean when I refer to sliding down that slope, get an inch, then make it a mile. Get folks hooked on a free lunch and then go for the whole pie.

 

Well, I guess you can define the word any way you want to, but when people say the phrase "entitlement programs" in public discourse, 99 out of 100 times they're referring to Social Security and Medicare. I didn't just make that up.

 

Unlike the welfare queen of Chicago, Sue really lived. There never was a welfare queen of Chicago. She was a fabrication Ronald Reagan invented during the campaign of 1980 in order to propagate the racist lie that government domestic spending programs do nothing more than take the money of hard working whites to fund welfare checks for black who choose not to work, who drive around in brand new welfare Cadillacs, and who eat T bone steaks purchased with food stamps.

 

Except when you try to paint the defense spending as the largest portion of the budget, then you conveniently drop SS and MC from the equation.

The fact that the FICA revenues have been incorporated into the general fund has forced the payment of SS and MC benefits into the general budget. Prior to this they were accounted for separately, so yes they would be considered budget entitlement numbers. Just as the benefit liabilities of an insurance company are shown on the balance sheet. But they balance each other out.

 

It's about values and priorities. Do we want to do it the Republican way, and spend a lot of money killing people, or do we do it the Democrat way, and spend the money keeping people alive?

 

Show me where I said that defense spending was the largest portion of the budget.

What I DO remember saying, repeatedly, is that we spend more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined. I stand by that.

 

We spend nearly as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, tenguy. Please explain what we get for that. How have we befitted from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?

 

I don't disagree with the thrust of your comment...but I have to add that while we may benefit in some way as a country from going to war, that is not sufficient grounds for doing it.

 

A long strange trip, indeed!

I have been following this thread from the start. I added comments and experiences where I thought was informative. The twists and turns that the flow of conversation has taken is amazing. I'm breathless from the ride.

The one dominating factor in the whole issue is FEAR.

One group is afraid of change and the other side is afraid without change. What is there to fear?

Fear of rising health care costs and rising insurance premiums? That will happen with or without a health care bill.

Fear of a deficit budget that will bankrupt our country? The money will be spent, health care or defense or bank bailouts or car company bailouts or decaying infrastructure; take a pick.

Follow the money. Who benefits from keeping us all afraid? Those elected that choose to become shouting heads for more dubious talking heads that spout partisan politics for a self serving interest?

Could the answer be that easy?

 

This is by far my most successful thread. I take a measureless pride in it.

 

How does that figure into it. The reasons for war have been discussed to death (no pun intended or appropriate), yet we have done it, how would you undo it?

As once said earlier, if you stop spending every nickel on the military, it would take 20 years to pay down the debt that is being committed to on the rest of the stuff.

Assuming that even you would choose to have some kind of military, with equipment modern enough to be effective, what do you think a reasonable cost to be?

We have also spend trillions on needless waste, bailouts of private sector matters, why did we do it? Now since we have, how do you undo it.

You love to talk about past mistakes as though the debt incurred will magically disappear. But that ain't how it works.

 

Really? You set your sights too low.

 

How did I miss this???

What a perfect example of why government health care will not work. The number of deaths claimed, BTW are estimates based on census figures, no actual number is available.


The veterans are covered under the VA health plan, it is a universal care plan run by the government, must not be very good. The article is a bit misleading, it says that Group 8 veterans (high income earners) are excluded, they are not. They do have a higher deductible however.

See the linked site to see why they can be eligible..

http://www4.va.gov/healtheligibility/Library/AnnualThresholds.asp

 

I can't speak to what category these folks fall into...but Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org said the other night that many veterans do not qualify for lifetime VA benefits because their condition has not been accurately diagnosed, or they may even be unaware themselves of the seriousness of their condition. Either way, they are in the gaps of the VA health care system.

Your statement reminds me of Bill O'Reilly claiming that there are no homeless veterans. Just because you (and he) don't want to see them doesn't mean they aren't there.