Onyma Report This Comment
Date: June 29, 2012 10:05PM

Textbook Conservative image, spelling mistake and all.

fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 12:34AM

was it supposed to say chimp instead of champ

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 11:12AM

You're going to have trouble finding anyone who will admit they voted for this chump.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 11:35AM

Why are you tanks so scares of a national healthcare scheme?

BodaciousPhil Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 12:20PM

@Woberto, It's because we're slowly but surely falling into Communism. It has nothing to do with a "good" government doing it's job, it has to do with the agenda of the current political fucks that want to control everything you do. These are signs that we're headed in the wrong direction.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 12:45PM

There is a big difference between socialism and communism.
Subsidising medical costs will prevent a massive surge in poverty.
The USA is doomed, ObamaCare will slow it enough to breed new soldiers.

fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 06:08PM

one thing is for sure, this is the biggest most wide spread tax in history, and it will diminish care throughout the industry

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: June 30, 2012 08:10PM

Sorry, not true. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (Reagan) is still the historical heavyweight.

BTW, the "spelling" error was using "not" instead of "now" as probably intended.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30/06/2012 09:24PM by BlahX3.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 10:58AM

The problem I have with the health care plan was how it was passed and the fact that everyone will be required to have insurance even if one can't afford it or you get fined and if you can't pay the "tax" then you will go to jail. There are people barely getting by on minimum wage who just can't afford insurance and some can't even afford car insurance. I have medicare so I am not worried about it for me but before I got medicare I went for years without insurance and know how difficult it is to balance budget even without insurance payments.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 12:11PM

It isn't supposed to work that way but I guess we'll see, that is if it doesn't get repealed before it becomes effective. It still might not make it in the long run.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 01:55PM

Most people work for someone else, so they don't actually "pay" taxes. The tax is withheld from their wages, so a healthcare levy just means their take home pay is less. For some, that won't be fun.
In Australia, if you have private health insurance, some of that levy is refunded to you with your income tax return. If you don't have private, your tax return is basically zero.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 04:35PM

If they take the money out of your paycheck then they still take your money.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 06:32PM

MY TAKE ON “OBAMACARE”
The tax that wasn’t a tax from the guy who promised no additional taxes for the middle class.

First of all I would love to see universal healthcare, I think any decent person would love to see universal healthcare, but as a practical matter somebody has to pay for it when the person receiving it is unable to pay for it. In our current economic and globe covering situation this will be impossible and instead of helping the poor will create more poverty.

I’ve spent my entire adult life working, raising my family, struggling to make ends meet with one foot in the middle class and the other in the poor class, straddling the line most of the time while as a single parent. I carried medical insurance when I was able but there were also times when I had to choose between providing my kids with a home, food, and clothes or purchasing the insurance. So under Obamacare, people like me will no longer have a choice, the family will go unhoused, unfed, unclothed, or all of the above but they’ll have medical insurance which will be helpful when the kids become ill from exposure and hunger. Then they can become wards of the state because their parents were so neglectful.

But wait, aren’t there assistance programs for people without enough income, won’t there be tax credits to enable them to pay? Why sure, and those people who weren’t on public assistance programs before they were forced to buy insurance or pay the tax will become eligible and get the help they need - everybody wins. Right? Except those programs are already overburdened and - drum roll please - funded by taxpayer money, so will require even more taxes to help the additional poor which will create even more poverty. Do we see where this is going? Looks like a downward spiral to me. We’ll be on the way to being a people totally dependent on the government for every need (which, by the way puts us even farther under the government’s thumb), a government which is already unable to adequately fund those public assistance programs, and the system will collapse. This health care plan will not ease the burden of caring for the poor and uninsured, it will create more poor and further drain the treasury.

So how do we even begin to fund a universal healthcare system for the people of the United States, something which I really do strongly believe in? We stop being the rich uncle and policeman for the rest of the world. We close our military bases in foreign countries (which cause a great deal of foreign resentment toward us anyway) and cease foreign aid for all but the most serious cases of disasters in other lands. We have to get our own home healthy and in order before we cause the collapse of our nation by maintaining this informal empire; bring our armed forces home and maintain their strength on our own soil to rid ourselves of the expense of maintaining and supplying those forces in distant lands, give to the needy in other lands through private donations not forced taxation, lead the world by example not by enforcement. In short we need to get back to the founding principles of our nation. Whether it be because of religious values or sectarian humanitarian values I believe universal health care is a noble goal, and I also believe that the intentions of most of the backers of Obamacare have been good intentions, but to quote Jesus, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” The only possible way to fund this is to cut spending elsewhere not add further tax burdens on an already economically beleaguered American population.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 09:38PM

How many returned servicemen would find a job these days?

quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 01, 2012 10:11PM

Notice I said to maintain the military's strength on our own soil. Didn't mention mustering anyone out. And on another post elsewhere on this site I pointed out that military personell could be placed in the reserves at full pay until they are able to find employment, assisted in finding employment, and it would still cost less than having all those bases scattered all to hell and gone. Why is the U.S. the only nation that has military installations in other nations all over the world, installations that foster a lot of resentment against the U.S.? Twenty years ago we won the cold war when the soviets couldn't afford it anymore, but we're carrying on as if it was 1975 and making ourselves indigents in the process.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: July 02, 2012 01:04AM

I hate Sunday backups. Takes a fuckin hour to post a comment.

I pretty much agree with you Q but the military-industrial complex and global policing by the US is not really the source of the economic woes in this country. It is a major contributor, I'll grant you that, but the real source is more basic than all the complicated political bullshit does its best to convince us of. They've got us all duped into thinking it's because of this party or that policy and choosing up sides and squabbling amongst ourselves when the real problem is greed, just plain and simple fucking greed and lust for power.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 02, 2012 09:05AM

Oh yeah, it's due a lot to greed, whether it's the fat cat's at the top making millions by manipulating the system or the losers at the bottom who just want to sit around and live on welfare (they're the same sort of people really), but that's a tough thing to fix in a (relatively) free society. We need to cut the budget somewhere and the largest cut I see possible is by reining in this global policy we got into in the wake of WWII. We don't need to be all over the globe, we're not wanted, and we can have a strong military ready to go where needed stationed right here at home. Also, active duty military personell account for about one half of on percent of the U.S. population so I don't see a problem finding stations for them at home - weren't there a lot of bases here deactivated a few years ago? There's a public works program; renovate those bases then bring home our kids to live, work and train there for when they're actually needed for combat.

And ditto on the Sunday backups - sometimes the site won't even come up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2012 09:17AM by quasi.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: July 02, 2012 12:02PM

I do agree with bringing our troops home and not mustering them out. Open the closed bases let the troops renovate them as most are more than qualified and save on construction costs. Let them train here and guard our borders at the same time.

I do not believe universal healthcare is possible under our current system of capitalism. Why do people become doctors and surgeons? For the money and when the amount of money they can make is reduced to a point that would allow universal healthcare then we will not get as many new doctors to come along. I don't think anything will really work unless we can somehow get away from all monetary systems. If the world didn't need money then things could get done just like in Star Trek series. That sounds like socialism to me.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 02, 2012 05:15PM

Get rid of the greed and socialism, capitalism, or whatever would work much better, but there's just to many assholes out there that want to take, take, take whatever they can get away with.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: July 03, 2012 10:16AM

I know you think it is the greed at the top and the bottom of the financial scale which is the problem but don't forget about all the people who work in the middle who think they have to get $50.00 an hour for their work. This is why America can't compete in the global market, our salaries make our products too expensive. As long as money runs the world there will always be greed in all tax brackets.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: July 03, 2012 11:53AM

Oh yeah, the greed thing runs the full spectrum for sure and that's a good point JG. Too many who are in the middle think of themselves as victims yet fail to see how they contribute to the problems.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: July 03, 2012 03:40PM

I was pointing out the ends of the spectrum but there is a full spectrum of people out there with a lot of greed.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: July 04, 2012 11:29AM

Do people really need 50 to 75 buck and hour to work in a factory?

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: July 04, 2012 12:20PM

Only in America I guess. The only ones I know of making that much are in US auto factories.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: July 05, 2012 11:16AM

Which explains why American cars cost so much.