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Offline OldTrees

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg519741#msg519741
« Reply #132 on: July 09, 2012, 09:27:26 pm »
Quote
So both people paid a 10% (Total taxes/Total wealth) wealth tax?

well a tax system based on total wealth would have various issues, mostly cries of "why are you punishing me for saving"  so whatever tax system we have should be based on income, my suggestion was more of a metric to judge the system by, and the system we have is currently very very far away from that.
Ok.
I see 2 opposing arguments against that metric to consider.
1) A 10% tax hits a $100 person harder than it hits a $900 person.
2) The $100 person receives a larger percentage of benefit from government than a $900 person. (aka the $50 is worth more to the $100 person)
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Offline russianspy1234

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg519743#msg519743
« Reply #133 on: July 09, 2012, 09:30:01 pm »
Quote
So both people paid a 10% (Total taxes/Total wealth) wealth tax?

well a tax system based on total wealth would have various issues, mostly cries of "why are you punishing me for saving"  so whatever tax system we have should be based on income, my suggestion was more of a metric to judge the system by, and the system we have is currently very very far away from that.
Ok.
I see 2 opposing arguments against that metric to consider.
1) A 10% tax hits a $100 person harder than it hits a $900 person.
2) The $100 person receives a larger percentage of benefit from government than a $900 person. (aka the $50 is worth more to the $100 person)

and they balance each other out.
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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg531024#msg531024
« Reply #134 on: August 09, 2012, 12:59:53 pm »
Mitt Romney in a heartbeat. Obama is the second worst president in history behind LBJ. He has driven up the national debt, more people are out of work, he has stalled the recovery with things like Dodd frank and has socialized healthcare with obamacare.

Offline russianspy1234

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg531030#msg531030
« Reply #135 on: August 09, 2012, 02:34:39 pm »
Mitt Romney in a heartbeat. Obama is the second worst president in history behind LBJ. He has driven up the national debt, more people are out of work, he has stalled the recovery with things like Dodd frank and has socialized healthcare with obamacare.

Bush added a far greater percentage to the national debt.  When he took office, we had a budget surplus, and his tax cuts and spending turned that into the biggest budget deficit we've ever had.  The national debt was 10.66 trillion on the day bush left office, so he roughly doubled the debt, and thats only counting his years in office, not the policies like his tax cuts that are continuing to add to the deficit to this day.  The biggest contribution to the debt has been the bush tax cuts, the second has been going to war with nearly every country in the middle east EXCEPT the one that the majority of the people that attacked us were from.  And then there was the fact that Bush never actually counted what the Iraq and Afghanistan war costs, and thus the national debt didn't count them.  Has the national debt increased a lot under Obama? Yes, but, but the vast majority of it has been due to Bush policies, and in fact, had Obama changed absolutely nothing and just continued what Bush was doing, the national debt would be higher.

Secondly, thinking Obamacare socialized healthcare shows a willful ignorance.  Sure, it makes for a nice bumper sticker for your car, but it's not even close to accurate.  First off, there is a big difference between health insurance and health care.  Obamacare passed rules on regulations on how much health insurance companies are allowed to screw you over.  For example, I've almost always had health insurance, occasionally switching to different ones due to work situations.  A little while ago I switched insurances, and a few months after that, I got sick and ended up in the hospital for a week.  Had certain provisions of Obamacare not recently come into effect, my insurance would have been allowed to just drop me, and not only that, they would have been able to tell the hospital that they would cover me, and then refuse to pay after it was all done, so I would have been on the hook to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for treatment I technically could have gone without.  Seriously, health insurance companies used to employ people whose specific job it was to look at claims, and if they were for procedures that were too expensive, go through they're file and find a reason to drop them.  Google rescission, check out some of the stats on what insurance companies did to women who got breast cancer, and tell me that a policy like that should be legal.  What about preexisting conditions?  Should a baby born with a minor heart murmur never be allowed to get insurance?  What about women?  Before Obamacare, in many states, women would have to pay more for the same coverage as men, and even more than that if they've ever been abused.  That's right, being beaten by your spouse is a preexisting condition.  And those are just a few of the egregious policies Obamacare has stopped.

And then, there is the fact that you use "socialism" as if it is objectively bad in every situation.  Here's a fun little passage I like to show people:
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal power utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the Nation Aeronautics and Space Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshall's inspection, and which has not plundered all of its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log into the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advance Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD and because the government cant do anything right.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 03:00:35 pm by russianspy1234 »
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Offline OldTrees

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg531060#msg531060
« Reply #136 on: August 09, 2012, 04:54:49 pm »
Mitt Romney in a heartbeat. Obama is the second worst president in history behind LBJ. He has driven up the national debt, more people are out of work, he has stalled the recovery with things like Dodd frank and has socialized healthcare with obamacare.
Would Romney prevent the national debt from rising? No.
Would Romneycare be any different from Obamacare? Not really.
Would Romney be more socially intolerant than Obama? Yes.
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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg531312#msg531312
« Reply #137 on: August 10, 2012, 03:30:53 am »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.
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Offline OldTrees

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg531322#msg531322
« Reply #138 on: August 10, 2012, 03:52:24 am »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.
I share this opinion.

Obama has had a chance to push through his controversial legislation. Romney has not had a chance yet. I suspect that Obama might have fewer things left to push through than Romney has to push through. Furthermore this would mean the next election would not have an incumbent.
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Offline russianspy1234

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg533158#msg533158
« Reply #139 on: August 14, 2012, 08:19:45 pm »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.

and if theyre different you get almost nothing being passed, with a congress trying repeatedly (33 times last i checked) to put up a bill that not only has 0% chance of being passed in the senate, but has been promised to be vetoed by the president.
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Offline OldTrees

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg533166#msg533166
« Reply #140 on: August 14, 2012, 09:08:07 pm »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.

and if theyre different you get almost nothing being passed, with a congress trying repeatedly (33 times last i checked) to put up a bill that not only has 0% chance of being passed in the senate, but has been promised to be vetoed by the president.
Honestly, gridlock is much better than excessive controversial legislation. Gridlock prevents the expansion of government's power.
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Offline russianspy1234

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg533171#msg533171
« Reply #141 on: August 14, 2012, 09:45:59 pm »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.

and if theyre different you get almost nothing being passed, with a congress trying repeatedly (33 times last i checked) to put up a bill that not only has 0% chance of being passed in the senate, but has been promised to be vetoed by the president.
Honestly, gridlock is much better than excessive controversial legislation. Gridlock prevents the expansion of government's power.

thats what the supreme court is (in theory) for.  with the current political climate, the republicans will vote against anything obama supports.  most of the things obama has proposed were republican ideas to begin with.  mccain proposed a bill (dont remember the exact one...) that obama thought was a good idea and said he supported it.  mccain spent the next few months campaigning against it.  different parties controlling different branches in theory leads to more compromised and balanced legislation.  with the way things are going now, it leads to nothing being done, and we need things to be done.
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Offline OldTrees

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg533178#msg533178
« Reply #142 on: August 14, 2012, 09:56:11 pm »
At the moment I'm undecided as to who would be less bad, but the one thing I don't want to see happen is a single party (Republicans or Democrats) take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It's just too easy to get controversial legislation through, as happened recently with both Bush and Obama.

and if theyre different you get almost nothing being passed, with a congress trying repeatedly (33 times last i checked) to put up a bill that not only has 0% chance of being passed in the senate, but has been promised to be vetoed by the president.
Honestly, gridlock is much better than excessive controversial legislation. Gridlock prevents the expansion of government's power.

thats what the supreme court is (in theory) for.  with the current political climate, the republicans will vote against anything obama supports.  most of the things obama has proposed were republican ideas to begin with.  mccain proposed a bill (dont remember the exact one...) that obama thought was a good idea and said he supported it.  mccain spent the next few months campaigning against it.  different parties controlling different branches in theory leads to more compromised and balanced legislation.  with the way things are going now, it leads to nothing being done, and we need things to be done.
Gridlock prevents constitutional tyranny of the current majority. The Supreme Court (in theory) strikes down any and all unconstitutional laws.

There are indeed things that need to be done. In general there is less urgency for action.
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Offline Existencial

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Re: election 2012 https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=32197.msg534862#msg534862
« Reply #143 on: August 19, 2012, 08:17:42 pm »
Mitt Romney in a heartbeat. Obama is the second worst president in history behind LBJ. He has driven up the national debt, more people are out of work, he has stalled the recovery with things like Dodd frank and has socialized healthcare with obamacare.

Bush added a far greater percentage to the national debt.  When he took office, we had a budget surplus, and his tax cuts and spending turned that into the biggest budget deficit we've ever had.  The national debt was 10.66 trillion on the day bush left office, so he roughly doubled the debt, and thats only counting his years in office, not the policies like his tax cuts that are continuing to add to the deficit to this day.  The biggest contribution to the debt has been the bush tax cuts, the second has been going to war with nearly every country in the middle east EXCEPT the one that the majority of the people that attacked us were from.  And then there was the fact that Bush never actually counted what the Iraq and Afghanistan war costs, and thus the national debt didn't count them.  Has the national debt increased a lot under Obama? Yes, but, but the vast majority of it has been due to Bush policies, and in fact, had Obama changed absolutely nothing and just continued what Bush was doing, the national debt would be higher.

Secondly, thinking Obamacare socialized healthcare shows a willful ignorance.  Sure, it makes for a nice bumper sticker for your car, but it's not even close to accurate.  First off, there is a big difference between health insurance and health care.  Obamacare passed rules on regulations on how much health insurance companies are allowed to screw you over.  For example, I've almost always had health insurance, occasionally switching to different ones due to work situations.  A little while ago I switched insurances, and a few months after that, I got sick and ended up in the hospital for a week.  Had certain provisions of Obamacare not recently come into effect, my insurance would have been allowed to just drop me, and not only that, they would have been able to tell the hospital that they would cover me, and then refuse to pay after it was all done, so I would have been on the hook to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for treatment I technically could have gone without.  Seriously, health insurance companies used to employ people whose specific job it was to look at claims, and if they were for procedures that were too expensive, go through they're file and find a reason to drop them.  Google rescission, check out some of the stats on what insurance companies did to women who got breast cancer, and tell me that a policy like that should be legal.  What about preexisting conditions?  Should a baby born with a minor heart murmur never be allowed to get insurance?  What about women?  Before Obamacare, in many states, women would have to pay more for the same coverage as men, and even more than that if they've ever been abused.  That's right, being beaten by your spouse is a preexisting condition.  And those are just a few of the egregious policies Obamacare has stopped.

And then, there is the fact that you use "socialism" as if it is objectively bad in every situation.  Here's a fun little passage I like to show people:
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal power utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the Nation Aeronautics and Space Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshall's inspection, and which has not plundered all of its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log into the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advance Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD and because the government cant do anything right.

I have nothing against limited government. However, too much government destroys wealth. Government run amok is socialism. Once Obamacare is fully implemented going to be a flop. The costs are sky high. Government can not distribute health care efficiently because it does not have to compete. Competition brings prices down. People will end up having to wait months and months even to get crappy care. They can't get private care because they can't afford to pay more taxes. Plus our national debt will rise even higher.

P.S. DARPA didn't create the internet. It may have contributed some to the effort, but it sure as hell didn't create the internet.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2012, 08:22:06 pm by Existencial »

 

blarg: