This Is Not the America I Knew
November 7th, 2009 - 10:58 pm
How do you cure high unemployment and sluggish growth?
Proven methods include reducing regulation and lowering taxes.
So it comes as no surprise that the House has just approved one of (if not the) biggest increases in taxes and regulation after virtually zero debate and in the middle of a weekend night when almost no one is paying attention.
They’re cowards. Shrewd cowards, but cowards still.
JUST A THOUGHT: If no one has done the math on this one, I wish they would. Which is the greater number: Pages in the bill the House just passed, or the minutes spent debating it?
Ok, its officially time to start a campaign for Eugenics. Seriously, call me a racist, a Nazi, a Social Darwinist…I don’t care. This is insane. Has ignorance and laziness permeated the human race so much that logic and reasoning are on the verge of allelic extinction?
Dont bother with that Mike. It will be included when they turn this over to one of the 108 new beaureus that are created when it goes into effect.Remember ,Eugenics is a feature,not a bug.
Wonder what the unemployment numbers are going to look like when 1/6 of the nation’s economy goes toes up?
There’s still the senate…
I hope Pelosi’s freak-face melts off from botox poisoning.
I guess you didn’t get the memo – the current economic meltdown was caused by lack of appropriate regulation, and one of the worst tax system (using the word system is being generous) in the industrialized world.
Mr. Cao had a choice between Dishonor and Defeat. He chose Dishonor. He will be defeated.
Hardly any time debating this? Try four months, and years and decades before that. The idea that there was going to be a vote was announced on Wednesday, there was a march against it on Friday, and it’s not like this was a weekend surprise. Plus, what was going to happen to stop it, some calls to C-Span?
The Republican act is getting tiresome: “I object” time a thousand while other Congressmen are speaking, John Shadegg doing a ventriloquist act with a staffer’s baby (I think the baby should have been dressed up like Charlie McCarthy,) and the nonsense about how big the bill was. Until this week, the Republican bill had zero pages.
This bill is quite sucky, but it has just enough support to pass while protecting some Democratic Congressmen from strong opposition expected in some districts. Passage was nearly a sure thing, the only question was who would draw the short straws and give their opponent an opportunity to use an aye vote against them.
Debate over health care reform = debate over this particular reform?
Hmmm…interesting concept.
There was a time when America had a liberal and a conservative party. Now we have 2 progressive/left wing parties. both pushing TARP/Stimulus aka Marxist solutions. Not the proven solutions you talk about. No one but Palin supports less government and a top tax rate of 28%. Once more for clarity *no one but Sarah believes what you say!* We’ve com a long way the last 9 years. The wrong way
I didn’t see many specific items being brought up by Republicans on the floor, only Little Maddie and some boorish bullpucky designed to get campaign money to some Republicans. Debates require alternative ideas, and the Republicans have proven over and over that they don’t have any. They only want to stop this at all costs, and have thus far failed.
That one-sixth of the economy should be deflated anyway. Yes, it will affect stocks and bonds and some unemployment will result, but it needs to happen if the entire country is going to get better. Plus, if anyone knows anything about government (a notion that is selectively forgotten and remembered according to the proposals on the table,) it will not go poof! into thin air. Government healthcare will be more efficient, but still employ a lot more people than necessary to push that paper around.
That translates to 50,434,890 unemployed, or an unemployment rate more than 17%.
7. jon:
U R NUTZ
I hope you become one of the unemployed. But even that, I know, can’t change the mind of a liberal jihadi.
If I get unemployed but have health insurance, I’ll cash in my retirement savings and pension and go into business for myself.
Also, Cybergeezer, I don’t see a direct comparison between population and the economy. “U R NUTZ” indeedy. Plus, the one-sixth of the economy isn’t the private insurance portion, especially when so many are already working for government or getting government health insurance (the elderly, disabled, some children, government workers, families of government workers, the military, et cetera,) will continue to get coverage and pay for it while millions more will be entering the system using federal funding to pay for private plans. Sounds less like a portion of the economy going poof! than a portion of the economy getting further entwined in our lives.
We both think that’s bad, but for very different reasons.
My husband’s in that potentially 1/6 of the economy about to be decimated by this ridiculous bill. Thanks for taking it so lightly, Jon.
Next, can anyone tell me a SINGLE federal program that’s been “more efficient” than a private one? The idea of an “efficient” federal program is SUCH a daydream!! Private programs HAVE to be responsible for a bottom line, if they don’t turn a profit then they go out of business. Federal programs have no such trouble, if they don’t operate properly, then they just keep rolling on.
Anyone familiar with Medicare Part D, and the way the deductible, coverage gap and catastrophic levels of coverage are manipulated? It’s a shell game…and what we’re potentially in for, should this “reform” come to pass.
1. Mike Scarborough:
Some sort of weeding out of the clueless and sub-human is in order. Sub-human as in an amoeba-level survival impulse that propels people to vote for whatever program offers 15 seconds of self-preservation as opposed to 15 years of self-development. If we can’t require an extremely basic test in Civics and Economics to register to vote, perhaps we could require it to graduate high school.
>If no one has done the math on this one, I wish they would.
I wish they’d do enough meth to make their heads ‘splode.
Oh, ‘math’.
14. jon:
You just proved you know nothing about small business; Small business is what’s going to be hit the hardest by Obamacare, and all else Obama.
Try reading some news that’s not all liberal and blowing smoke up your rear.
Well, after all of the small businesses fold there will be all of those new government jobs to take their place!
Oh wait…
Who’s going to pay for the gov’ jobs?
“If I get unemployed but have health insurance, I’ll cash in my retirement savings and pension and go into business for myself.”
That ought to be interesting, given what you’re endorsing.
1) Thanks to your Barack Obama and his tax plans, you’ll take at least a 30% tax hit on your retirement savings for cashing them out early.
2) You won’t “have health insurance”. You will have to pay for health insurance or go to jail. Going rate is 2.5% of your income or the average premium.
3) The instant you get any employees, you must pay for their health insurance or pay a tax penalty
4) The instant you go over $500k, you start paying a surtax of 5% of your total income.
5) You now are required to issue 1099 forms for ALL transactions with vendors, be they people or businesses, which should neatly quadruple your paperwork and recordkeeping requirements.
6) Oh, and if you offer your employees — or you yourself take advantage of — a flexible spending, health savings, or health reimbursement account, they now can’t use that money that they set aside for any non-prescription medicines or chronic care. Instead, they have to pay for it with taxed dollars or go get a prescription — at your expense.
So in short, Jon, you didn’t think this one through. Obama told you you’d get free health care, and you bit. He lied, but do you have the capability to admit that he lied to you — or to even do something about it?
Good Lord, Jon.
North Dallas 30,
I didn’t expect free healthcare, just an easier system in which to get it.
1.There have always been tax hits for cashing in retirement before age 65 or so, and I expect nothing else. This isn’t a new Obama thing.
2. 2.5% would be a dream. Promise?
3. I wouldn’t get employees with what I have in mind, but 5% still sounds like a dream based on what my old employers were paying. Promise?
4. 5% for over $500K? Does the punishment also include the Comfy Chair?
5. Recordskeeping? Oh noes! It’s like I’d have to be a grownup!
6. I can live with that.
I guess I misremembered being lied to, as I have no capacity to remember something that didn’t happen. Can you tell me when I was promised free healthcare, since I only remember that nonsense coming from the Republicans who insist that emergency rooms are there for everyone. And even those bozos don’t say their free unless I’m here illegally, under some system where such costs are paid for using golden unicorn dung.