This quote came from a different thread, but I didn't want to derail.
quote:"Celebrate the best ideas, no matter where there come from" -- Including ideas from conservatives?
Reminds me of "Obamacare."
1 Obama promises to lead a bipartisan effort for health care reform. Gets elected.
2 Asks congress to work together to prepare a bipartisan bill. Conservatives accuse him of "failing to lead."
3 Hosts a gathering with Republican leaders to get ideas for reform bill. Gets accused of wasting the taxpayers money on expensive party.
4 Puts ideas gathered at said gathering along with some Democratic ideas (and no doubt some of his own) and presents it to Congress. Is accused of "ramming a socialist takeover of the health care system down our throats," "death panels" (which was a Republican suggestion) etc.
5. Democratic portions of the bill are systematically eliminated, leaving a predominantly Republican bill. Democrats let this happen despite a filibuster proof majority (at first, at least). Republicans still try to kill it, because its passage represents "Success" for Obama.
6. It passes anyway. Conservative media labels it "Obamacare" and Republicans vow to repeal it when they get control of both houses.
Did I miss something? Or is this really how this played out?
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Minor quibble: Weren't people calling it Obamacare before that?
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
I... are you being totally sincere? Do you truly believe that is precisely how it played out?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
pretty close, actually. This was a watered dpwn version of healthcare reform, and the Dem's allowed it to be watered down because they wanted a bi-partisan bill.
This bill is worse than any of the original suggestions,", yet they are now trying to claim it was a Dem's bill.
I never hear Dems say they have a clear mandated based on a 2% win, but I heard it plenty of times over the years by the R's. In fact, neither side has a clear mandate, not when large chunks of the population disagree with them. It simply isn't a clear cut issue.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Yes, that outline more or less matches my recollection. I don't specifically recall conservatives accusing Obama of "failing to lead," but it wouldn't surprise me.
quote:3 Hosts a gathering with Republican leaders to get ideas for reform bill. Gets accused of wasting the taxpayers money on expensive party.
He didn't even spring the ambush. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I never hear Dems say they have a clear mandated based on a 2% win, but I heard it plenty of times over the years by the R's. In fact, neither side has a clear mandate, not when large chunks of the population disagree with them. It simply isn't a clear cut issue.
The democrats now have a 'majority' by common caucus alongside a minority party that is more obstructionist than any in our entire history by at least a factor of two! Quick, stymie all legislation and stick the blame for dysfunction on them.
(spoiler: this works)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Ezra Klein recently wrote a post that makes a point I think is important to understand.
quote:Why Bipartisan health-care reform has proven impossible
"Every time we moved toward them, they would move away." -- Hillary Clinton, 1995.
As an addendum to the previous post, it's worth thinking about partisanship and health-care reform not in terms of President Obama, but in terms of presidential efforts over the last century or so. And that story has gone something like this: Democrats moved right every time they failed. And Republicans moved further right every time Democrats tried.
The original idea, of course, was a national health service run by the government. Harry Truman proposed it and fell short. Lyndon Johnson got it for seniors and some groups of the very poor. But Republicans said that was too much government, and it was unacceptable for the whole country. They proposed, through President Richard Nixon, an employer-based, pay-or-play system in which the government would set rules and private insurers would compete for business.
That didn't go anywhere, because Democrats, led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, weren't ready to give up on a national health service. By the 1990s, they were. President Bill Clinton proposed an employer-based, pay-or-play system in which the government would set rules and private insurers would compete for business. Republicans killed it. Government shouldn't be telling businesses what to do, they said, and it shouldn't be restructuring the whole health-care market. Better to center policy around personal responsibility and use an individual mandate combined with subsidies and rules making sure insurers couldn't turn people away. That way, the parts of the system that were working would remain intact, and the government would only really involve itself in the parts that weren't working.
That was what Sen. John Chafee -- and Bob Bennett, Kit Bond, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar -- proposed in 1994. It's what Mitt Romney passed in Massachusetts. And so it was what Democrats proposed in 2010. The Republican answer? "Hell no, you can't!"
By this point, there were no more universal health-care approaches for Republicans to hold out as alternatives. So they just turned against the idea entirely. Cato's Michael Cannon organized "the anti-universal coverage club." John Boehner released a bill that the CBO said would cover 8 percent as many people as the Democrats' plan.
So over the last 80 years or so, Democrats have responded to Republican opposition by moving to the right, and Republicans have responded by moving even further to the right. In other words, Democrats have been willing to adopt Republican ideas if doing so meant covering everybody (or nearly everybody), while Republicans were willing to abandon Republican ideas if sticking by them meant compromising with the Democrats. But because Democrats were insistent on getting something that would help the uninsured, they've ended up looking like the partisans, as they keep pushing bills Republicans refuse to sign onto.
[ November 16, 2010, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: St. Yogi ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I... are you being totally sincere? Do you truly believe that is precisely how it played out?
That description does seem to be pretty much how it played out. Obama seemed to go out of his way to make it bipartisan, while House Democrats seemed to be fighting to make it the change more radical. The end result is about a bill that seems about as Republican as a universal health care bill can get.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Not even that, considering that the health care bill wasn't universal
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Minor quibble: Weren't people calling it Obamacare before that?
Yeah, I guess that actually occurred during the "Democratic portions of the bill are systematically eliminated" part. But after the bill was passed, "Obamacare" stopped being a concept and became the name of the law.
quote:I don't specifically recall conservatives accusing Obama of "failing to lead," but it wouldn't surprise me.
"Failing to lead" was what they called it when they said that he should present them with a bill that they could vote on, rather than just asking Congress to put together a bill. IIRC, Obama said he didn't want to present them with a bill precisely because to do so could be seen as "ramming it down their throat." But they used the "failure to lead" argument to make it seem like legislation was somehow the responsibility of the Executive branch. Hmmm, we don't want to do our jobs, you do it for us, and then we can blame you for it.
quote:Do you truly believe that is precisely how it played out?
Precisely? No. As noted, the term "Obamacare came somewhat earlier. And after all, I did ask:
quote:Did I miss something? Or is this really how this played out?
Feel free to add any details I missed.
But from now on, I think I'll call it "Republicare."
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Why? It's still something that the republicans desperately loathe, and one which, for all of its having been watered down, will still improve our health care mess to a significant extent.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
It still deserves to be called "Obamacare" - his push for health care reform and his desire for bipartisanship are what led to it becoming what it became. He deserves a good portion of the credit or blame, depending on how you view it.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
"Obamacare" is the "WMD" of 2010.
Remember in 2002 everyone assumed, knew, or confirmed there were WMD in Iraq. The press didn't question it. The Left didn't question it. Nobody questioned it except the troops who couldn't find them.
And then by 2004 we all looked back and said, "How could people have been so stupid as to believe there were WMD in Iraq without the slightest proof they existed.
Now, in 2010 President Obama gets a victory and the Republicans decide they have to deny him that victory. They do so by repeating over and over again, as loud as they can, that Healthcare Reform is the greatest socialist anti-American, anti-Human thing ever created. It will kill businesses, the economy, medical care everywhere in the country, and your grandmother.
And people all over the country believe them.
And three years from now we'll look back and say, "What was so bad about Obama's Health Care Plan again? How could people be so blind as to want it destroyed?"
Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
Well there's lots bad with 'Obama's Health Care Plan', but the biggest complaint is that it isn't really his to begin with. People will continue to complain about it for years to come, and he will continue to take the blame for it even though the entire thing was pretty much out of his hands, and it definitely isn't the plan he had in mind when he got into office. He may have had good intentions, and he definitely was willing to compromise, but it's a bit naive to think that something as ambitious as that would get passed through Congress. Republicans stonewalled him from day one for no good reason other than that he wasn't McCain, and its not like the Dems helped him out either.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
President Obama had an extremely motivated, receptive audience that were ready and willing to get behind any ideas that he put out there. He also had an issue with health care reform that had enormous upsides. I think him barely even trying to get the American public behind it may be something that can be laid at his door.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:I think him barely even trying to get the American public behind it may be something that can be laid at his door.
I do agree with this. I read a commentary a while ago about how Bush spent a lot of time convincing people of the need for the Iraq War, and managed to do a good job selling it. There wasn't nearly enough pre-emptive rhetoric for health care.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
'barely even trying' is a weird conceptualization of what happened. He stumped long and hard for it; is that voided because he was attempting to manage something that had a chance of clearing the hurdle of tactical republican obstructionism?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: "Obamacare" is the "WMD" of 2010.
Remember in 2002 everyone assumed, knew, or confirmed there were WMD in Iraq. The press didn't question it. The Left didn't question it. Nobody questioned it except the troops who couldn't find them.
And then by 2004 we all looked back and said, "How could people have been so stupid as to believe there were WMD in Iraq without the slightest proof they existed.
You weren't listening far enough Left. Folks around here were* saying that there was no proof of WMD in 2002 - certainly not enough to jusitfy invasion. And in 2004, we were saying, "We told you so". No one listens to that either.
* "Around here" meaning people I associate with in RL, not people at Hatrack particularly. I wasn't on HR in 2002.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Remember in 2002 everyone assumed, knew, or confirmed there were WMD in Iraq. The press didn't question it. The Left didn't question it. Nobody questioned it except the troops who couldn't find them.
That's not entirely true. I questioned it here in 2002 multiple times (and was told I was being ridiculous), and so did a few others on this forum, and so did various other countries and international organizations. The "everybody believed it, so its not our fault" excuse should not be allowed to fly. It was forseeable that they weren't adhering to a strong standard of proof before going to war.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: 'barely even trying' is a weird conceptualization of what happened. He stumped long and hard for it; is that voided because he was attempting to manage something that had a chance of clearing the hurdle of tactical republican obstructionism?
I was going to say this. The only reason it was able to pass in its current form was because of some creative legislative back flips. With all the misinformation the Republican party was successfully pushing, as well as consolidating an impressive level of party discipline, any sort of moderate and well crafted plan would never have passed, so they took what they could get, which was a heck of a lot more than Clinton got.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:He stumped long and hard for it; is that voided because he was attempting to manage something that had a chance of clearing the hurdle of tactical republican obstructionism?
I'm not sure how Republican obstructionism comes into what I'm talking about. President Obama failed to get the public behind the health care reform. The initial failure wasn't a legislative one. It was the inability to get the public to overwhelmingly support "Obamacare", which he seemed extremely well positioned to do. Handled properly, this could have been the issue to put a final nail in the Republican's coffin, instead of a major component in the Republican landslide.
President Obama failed to deliver a coherent or persuasive argument for his vision of health care reform, as well as failing to deliver his vision of health care reform.
And, again, he was very popular President with his party having massive majorities in both houses of Congress, an electrified and motivated base eager for change, and an issue with major upsides, several of the biggest of which neither he nor the Democrats have yet to try to use. Maybe he did all he could with all of these enormous advantages and none of any of this can be said to be his fault. In which case, shouldn't we all just give up to the powerful dark magics that the Republicans apparently possess that the oh so much smarter and better Democrats are helpless against?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I've been hearing a lot of interviews with this guy recently. He has a new book. He is one of the guys who designed the "misinformation" and he tells us how. I think it is really worth reading what he has to say about the shortcomings and the good things about the bill.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: 'barely even trying' is a weird conceptualization of what happened. He stumped long and hard for it; is that voided because he was attempting to manage something that had a chance of clearing the hurdle of tactical republican obstructionism?
I was going to say this. The only reason it was able to pass in its current form was because of some creative legislative back flips. With all the misinformation the Republican party was successfully pushing, as well as consolidating an impressive level of party discipline, any sort of moderate and well crafted plan would never have passed, so they took what they could get, which was a heck of a lot more than Clinton got.
I'll point out again, I'm not talking about the legislative failure, but rather the failure in selling health care reform to the public.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah, an 'electrified and motivated base eager for change' means nothing in the face of a republican minority that knows that their only tactically viable option for not dying out as a party is to block the bill at all costs if they can.
Also, none of that explains 'barely even trying,' so .. ?
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
It's not that Republicans are smarter or better. It's that they have a better machine for getting their word out and they have better funding:
I don't think it was a failure to sell the bill as much as a failure to avoid being put on the defensive from day one and trying to play catch up after that. Add straight-out lies like "death panels" and you have a propaganda war.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yes. I mean, considering this is an age in which perilously close to 1 in 5 americans think Obama is a muslim and/or was born in kenya, you can fail to 'sell the bill' in the sense that even being arsed to try to tell the truth already puts you into an uphill battle with about half of polled americans.
The GOP's choice wording these days, via Boenher, are to say that reform is risking the destruction of 'the best healthcare system in the world.' It's bull, and he knows it is bull, but that's the lie you have to sell.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: 'barely even trying' is a weird conceptualization of what happened. He stumped long and hard for it; is that voided because he was attempting to manage something that had a chance of clearing the hurdle of tactical republican obstructionism?
I was going to say this. The only reason it was able to pass in its current form was because of some creative legislative back flips. With all the misinformation the Republican party was successfully pushing, as well as consolidating an impressive level of party discipline, any sort of moderate and well crafted plan would never have passed, so they took what they could get, which was a heck of a lot more than Clinton got.
I'll point out again, I'm not talking about the legislative failure, but rather the failure in selling health care reform to the public.
I suppose a better man could have found a strategy for winning the propaganda war, but to be honest, I heard his presentation of the plan, and was easily informed as to what was at stake. When he and other Democrats stumped for it across the nation they kept getting questions like, "Hitler wanted universal healthcare." and "This is America and we don't believe in socialism." Seniors believed Medicare was going to be gutted and that death panels were going to be setup because they were hearing those statements from the Republican Party leadership.
Sure the truth always prevails, but by the time that happens the public discourse has moved on. Its precisely what happened with Clinton's plan. I suppose you could argue that perhaps letting the Republicans slay the idea, and then letting Americans languish in this miserable health care system a few more years might have produced a better plan down the road, but I think the current plan will still provide a significant improvement over the previous one, and when that happens, it can be revised and reviewed so as to make it even better.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: It's not that Republicans are smarter or better. It's that they have a better machine for getting their word out and they have better funding:
Err...President Obama had the biggest bully pulpit in the world. He didn't use it effectively.
The best I think you could say about his efforts were that they were aloof and not particularly coherent. Not giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'd say that they came across as pro forma and condescending, almost to the point of being contemptuous.
Right now, the average American doesn't really understand what is entailed in the health care reform, doesn't really know why health care reform is vital, and doesn't know how it is going to effect them (although they fear it will be negatively). That is the root cause of the failure in health care reform. If the public were strongly behind it, as I think would have well been achievable, the Republican obstructionism and other bits of legislative buggery would have seriously hurt them.
---
Again, think about what you are saying. If it is true that even with enormous advantages, the Democrats just can't stand up to the Republicans even though the Democrats aren't messing up at all, why would I ever want to put my faith in them, even if I thought they were trying to do the right thing?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
So, basically, it's not the Democrats fault at all. It's that the American people too stupid that there's no way to even reach them?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Fear and anger are considerably easier messages to sell. This is especially true during a time when people are already angry and afraid - war, economy, general fearfulness of "other" heightened by a scary elite muslim black man in the White House.
So,yeah, the President and the Democratic leadership failed, but they had a much harder task.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Again, think about what you are saying. If it is true that even with enormous advantages, the Democrats just can't stand up to the Republicans even though the Democrats aren't messing up at all, why would I ever want to put my faith in them, even if I thought they were trying to do the right thing?
Let us say that I tell a blatant lie about you, and I use a lot of resources to make this lie sound plausible. You fight back against it, but due to the internal mechanisms of manipulation that populations have that I've utilized (FUD, for instance) about half of all people now think the lie is true. Do I get to use this wanton spreading of misinformation as an excuse to say 'why would anyone want to put their faith in you?' just because it has succeeded with about half of the receiving population? Is it irrelevant that this number of misinformed will dwindle significantly over time?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I have an alternative suggestion.
The way to sell health care reform is to develop a relatively simple narrative with an eye towards two clear goals. People should know why reform was necessary and what the effects were going to be for them (and generally, those effects should be beneficial).
You need to really focus on that why. The way the Democrats went about it played right into the narrative that the Republicans have built up around them. That is, they want government control over as much as they can get control over so that they can use it to redistribute wealth and because they think that people are too stupid to make their own decisions. Also, they are against any sort of private business on basic principle.
And the benefits that they tout have fallen into the same areas as well. Largely they come down to "Such and such people who didn't have insurance before have it now. Isn't that great?" Not surprisingly, the people who feel that they now have to pick up the bill for these people getting insurance don't really see it as all that great.
They should have challenged that (heck, they should constantly be challenging that, instead of lying there and taking like they do). There are two big why's that, if you get them established, a lot of the rest sort of writes itself. They are: inflation in health care and the insurance death spiral.
Middle class Americans are seeing less and less of their paychecks as time goes on. A lot of them, wrongly, attribute this to the government taking more of their money. What's really happening is the costs of health care insurance are growing way out of proportion to pretty much anything else. This is a vital thing to establish for the narrative. This fundamental misunderstanding is probably one of the biggest things allowing the Tea Party's massive opposition to health care reform. Very important statement: "If you want to know where your money is going, it is going to inflation in health care and health insurance."
We've talked about the death spiral here enough, I don't think I need to elaborate. But you know who doesn't really know about the death spiral? A large section of the American public. The system we had was set on a self-destruct course. Again, this is very important to get out there. Besides impressing on people the urgency of reform and the brokenness of our private business system, it gives you a potent weapon against the do nothing Republican obstructionism.
If you establish those two, relatively simple whys, as I said, a lot of the follow up just about writes itself. How are you going to be affected? Well, the first thing we're trying to address is the inflation of health care, so your costs are going to go down or at least not shoot up so fast.
How, exactly, is this going to happen? Well, it's complicated, but let's look into the causes of this inflation (which you already accept is happening) to address that. Also, let's look at alternative ways of doing this.
That's when you can get into the complicated details.
And the important part is you do this before you start the legislative action, especially before you start wooing health insurance companies, unions, hold out Senators, etc. with hypocritical sweetheart deals to get their support. The need for and benefits of health care reform fit into a simple, coherent narrative. The hard core Fox News crowd is always going to be against you, but, if it had been treated this way and maybe without so much of the Democrats traditional air of elitist condescension, I think you could have gotten most of the rest of the country behind it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I agree with you and know what you are talking about and that was too long and complicated to get in a single reading. "Government bad" is so much pithier.
Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
I don't really think its fair to compare WMDs to Obamacare. Bush had both CNN and Fox News stumping hard for him from day one. Obama didn't have that luxury; he had to win over CNN and he had Fox gunning for him from the very start. Also, it's very well known that a President's approval rating, and therefore the leverage he has, increases during wartime. Fox and CNN were basically propaganda machines during the months that led up to the war, and Fox continued this trend throughout its remainder.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I agree with you and know what you are talking about and that was too long and complicated to get in a single reading. "Government bad" is so much pithier.
Not to mention, you can take all of that and watch it ricochet off of the average american's head in favor of appeals to fear. The MrSquicky conversation would be as plaintively ignored and cast as 'not even trying' as what we actually did get.
quote:If, this fall, proponents of health-care reform conduct a postmortem on how President Obama's signature issue went down to defeat—I'm not saying it will, but stick with me here—they will not be far off if they trace it to this summer's "great phrase face-off." From Obama, we got "bending the cost curve," his hope of slowing the rise in health-care spending. From Sarah Palin: "death panels." From Obama: "the status quo on health care...is threatening the financial stability of families, of businesses, and of government." From GOP strategist Frank Luntz and his clients: some bureaucrat will put himself "between you and your doctor, denying you exactly what you need." From Obama: "If you like your health-care plan, you can keep" it. From GOP Sen. Jon Kyl: "Imagine needing a new hip that will make it easier to get around, but just because you're over 75, the government denies you that surgery." Not to mention Republican Rep. Lamar Smith's assertion that the Democrats' bill "contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits." And then there was that sign greeting President Obama outside an August town-hall meeting in New Hampshire: Obama lies, grandma dies. Which phrases inspire you to grab a pitchfork, or at least e-mail your congressman: bending the cost curve, or stopping the government from condemning Grandma to death because treating her cancer is too expensive? Exactly. Anyone who believed that the battle over health-care reform would be waged on facts, logic, reason, and concern for the less fortunate—46 million uninsured—probably also scoffed at Lyndon Johnson's daisy ad. As politicians and strategists (at least the successful ones) have finally learned, appeals to emotion leave appeals to logic in the dust. And no emotion moves people more powerfully than fear.
Sorry, it's just how it works.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Again, think about what you are saying. If it is true that even with enormous advantages, the Democrats just can't stand up to the Republicans even though the Democrats aren't messing up at all, why would I ever want to put my faith in them, even if I thought they were trying to do the right thing?
Let us say that I tell a blatant lie about you, and I use a lot of resources to make this lie sound plausible. You fight back against it, but due to the internal mechanisms of manipulation that populations have that I've utilized (FUD, for instance) about half of all people now think the lie is true. Do I get to use this wanton spreading of misinformation as an excuse to say 'why would anyone want to put their faith in you?' just because it has succeeded with about half of the receiving population? Is it irrelevant that this number of misinformed will dwindle significantly over time?
Missing from this is, I believe, something I tried to bring up with the voting for the lesser of two evils thing. That is, the Democrats are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the good guys. The Democrats inability to beat Republicans doesn't come about because the Republicans are this unstoppable force. A lot of it comes about because the Democrats are pretty terrible as well.
And, they are definitely the lesser of the two evils. Much of their responses to Republican tactics are feeble.
But, I think even worse, they have participated right alongside the Republicans in the corruption of the political process and marketplace of ideas. Having an infrastructure of responsible politics and citizenship in this country would greatly reduce the power of the blatant dishonesty of the Republicans. That we don't have this infrastructure and even an expectation of it is the responsibility of so many different groups and I'd say especially collectively of American people as a whole, but it's pretty apparent that the fostering of this is not something that the Democratic party has ever really cared about.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I agree with you and know what you are talking about and that was too long and complicated to get in a single reading. "Government bad" is so much pithier.
Right. As I know quite a bit about effective mass communication, I never suggested trying to put it into a single reading. Rather, I'd establish those two items as points of emotional resonance and repetition, hammering them in wherever there was a chance. I would try as much as possible to get people to give them back to me, asking at appearances something like "Why did we say we are doing this?" and using those points as the center points for anyone who was going to criticize the plans.
You have to keep people hearing this and keep them saying it for it to be successful. Except in extraordinary circumstances, narratives are not constructed in a single instance.
Also, I'll ask. Does what I said strike you as a more effective strategy than what was done?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I don't know without knowing how you would put it.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Fine. Let's say I'm not one reasonably smart guy who knows a fair bit about this stuff, but rather a massive team of well funded experts working on the most vital piece of the President's domestic agenda. Does the framework I laid out seem like it would have a better chance of working than the one that they went with, that seems like it was an absolute failure?
---
I wanted to add, with what I said with challenging the narrative, I'd be using the "Government is bad!" line for myself. "Yeah, I agree in a lot of cases government is bad. I'm on your side on that. Here's a bunch of examples that I think government is sucking at right now. But here, we already agreed that something is needed, right? Government needs to do something and here's why I think this is the right thing in this case." You don't fight the idea. You envelop it.
edit: Were I the head of the DNC, we'd be running on "The government sucks!" in 2012.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I would be that last person to suggest that you aren't smart or that you don't know what you are talking about.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
How would you combat the criticism that the bank bailouts were an example of wasteful government spending, that tax increases on the middle class and the wealthy are job killers, and now with such a big deficit you are trying to spend us further into the ground by taking over health care and making a mess of it, as we all know the government can't do anything right?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's not what I'm saying. I wasn't getting pissy nor saying you were in any way insulting me. I was making the point that I'm just one person who is by no means an expert at this and yet I'm able to come up with what seems is possibly a much better framework for selling health care reform than what was done.
I'm saying that to evaluate this, it doesn't come down to what I as an individual would say, but rather what a team of people at least as smart as me and much better funded and educated would say and do within the framework I'm talking about.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: How would you combat the criticism that the bank bailouts were an example of wasteful government spending, that tax increases on the middle class and the wealthy are job killers, and now with such a big deficit you are trying to spend us further into the ground by taking over health care and making a mess of it, as we all know the government can't do anything right?
In which case, while selling health care reform or the 2012 campaign (which I'd be starting today, really)?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: How would you combat the criticism that the bank bailouts were an example of wasteful government spending, that tax increases on the middle class and the wealthy are job killers, and now with such a big deficit you are trying to spend us further into the ground by taking over health care and making a mess of it, as we all know the government can't do anything right?
In which case, while selling health care reform or the 2012 campaign (which I'd be starting today, really)?
I'm not quite parsing your meaning.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Okay. I don't know how effectively a well-funded, smart team could frame that message until I hear some possibilities. It could be that they could distill it down to a really simple catchphrase that CNN would parrot, but I don't know what it would be.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, I meant, in which context am I combating the criticism? Am I the President's team trying to sell health care reform or am I the head of the DNC trying to put together a campaign for 2012?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
boots, I think we might be misunderstanding each other somewhere. I'm not talking about a single shot message, but rather a months long framework to fit the discussion into. The individual messages would be crafted by the super-team and, I asking that it be granted that they are pretty darn good.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
You are the President trying to sell Healthcare reform in the environment President Obama was in.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Okay. Then, yes. If the team came up with short, easy to understand messaging that appealed to people's anger and fear and distrust of government then it would probably be effective.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Again, think about what you are saying. If it is true that even with enormous advantages, the Democrats just can't stand up to the Republicans even though the Democrats aren't messing up at all, why would I ever want to put my faith in them, even if I thought they were trying to do the right thing?
Let us say that I tell a blatant lie about you, and I use a lot of resources to make this lie sound plausible. You fight back against it, but due to the internal mechanisms of manipulation that populations have that I've utilized (FUD, for instance) about half of all people now think the lie is true. Do I get to use this wanton spreading of misinformation as an excuse to say 'why would anyone want to put their faith in you?' just because it has succeeded with about half of the receiving population? Is it irrelevant that this number of misinformed will dwindle significantly over time?
Missing from this is, I believe, something I tried to bring up with the voting for the lesser of two evils thing. That is, the Democrats are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the good guys.
In this instance it's not even a 'lesser of two evils' thing. It is a contest between a side that is largely telling the truth and is offering a reform plan which is vastly better than the morass that we constantly avoid fixing, and another side which is largely propagating lies and factual innacuracy, attempting to keep the unsustainable status quo. This is not a lesser-of-two-evils thing. It is a choice between information and misinformation. In this case, at least, there is no near equivalency between the parties. You are choosing between mostly truth (our system is broken and in need of reform) and mostly lies (our country has the best healthcare in the world, and Obama will give us death panels).
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, In that case, I wouldn't combat them in this strategy. They're irrelevant.
That is to say, I've already identified the two things I'm focused on. I'd ask the criticizer to explain how they impact the inflation of health care or the death spiral, as the two things we agree are of the highest importance here. Other than that, they don't get addressed in health care talks.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: In that case, I wouldn't combat them in this strategy. They're irrelevant.
Oh?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:In this instance it's not even a 'lesser of two evils' thing. It is a contest between a side that is largely telling the truth and is offering a reform plan which is vastly better than the morass that we constantly avoid fixing, and another side which is largely propagating lies and factual innacuracy, attempting to keep the unsustainable status quo. This is not a lesser-of-two-evils thing. It is a choice between information and misinformation. In this case, at least, there is no near equivalency between the parties. You are choosing between mostly truth (our system is broken and in need of reform) and mostly lies (our country has the best healthcare in the world, and Obama will give us death panels).
I think it's sad, but by no means surprising that that is how you see it. There are not only two sides to this issue.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Samprimary, I would agree if all the Democrats had been on board with that. Sadly, too many of them were solidly in the pocket of the insurance lobby.
ETA: Or in "Republican" seats and scared.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Me, I'd hire the Daily Show writers, or the folks from The Onion.
Coming back with outrage won't work. The Republicans own that technique. Coming back with facts won't work. Too many voters respond to scare tactics over reason.
But what works nicely is mockery. Not of the politicians themselves, never the people, but the ideas, the constant shifting of the goalposts without every admitting it, the obstructionism for obstructionism's sake, the insistence on pushing for tax laws and legislation and regulation-easement that were proven to be harmful during the last administration, all of that is fair game. Get people laughing at their blustering and they lose a lot of their power.
If that's not feasible, and it probably won't be, Obama needs to hire a speech editor. Not a writer, he's fine on that on his own or whatever staff he uses. But he needs to change his style.
First, cut every speech in half, at least. Oratory is his strength, and many of his speeches will live on in history as powerful statements. But they drag on when you're listening to them.
Second, give up on bipartisanship. Consider the phrase, "That's a damn lie." You can't placate or compromise with the foe whose stated goal is to destroy you.
Third, learn to give effective bullet points. "Blankety-blank Americans have no health care. Why should you care? Because they go to the emergency room, and you pay for it. Andf because they have no coverage, they wait till the last second to go, so you'll be paying even more for their care. The new health care plan will put cover everyone so that overall costs -- costs that are coming out of your paycheck anyway, and getting higher -- will be lower." Etc.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Okay. Then, yes. If the team came up with short, easy to understand messaging that appealed to people's anger and fear and distrust of government then it would probably be effective.
That wouldn't be my primary means of motivation.
The current health reform has not been embraced by the public because it was framed as as a social services give-away. People see this as more taxes to give services to people who aren't paying for them now.
The fundamental focus of the message I'm talking about is "If you want to know where your money is going, it is going to inflation of your health care and insurance."
The main selling point is that you will get to keep more of your money.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Then it won't be as motivating as anger and fear. The people I am talking about would rather have their money go to inflation (already too complicated an idea) than to immigrants or bums.
ETA: They can even recycle the footage of vaguely brown people climbing over a fence into a backyard.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:The people I am talking about would rather have their money go to inflation (already too complicated an idea) than to immigrants or bums.
What people are those? I'm talking about basically the entire middle class of the United States.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: There are not only two sides to this issue.
For the purposes of this, yes. There is. The people who are pushing the reform, and the people who want to kill the reform. It isn't split perfectly along party lines.
quote:The fundamental focus of the message I'm talking about is "If you want to know where your money is going, it is going to inflation of your health care and insurance."
The main selling point is that you will get to keep more of your money
This was actually a major selling point of not only healthcare reform, but of bills before it (TARP, etc). Obama spent months saying that the time had come for reform precisely because the savings were needed direly. It's countered easily by FUD. Everything you are proposing is. You offer a promise of savings, the counter is to point hysterically at the front-loaded cost of the bill and equate that to a net loss. Which is exactly what happened.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The fundamental focus of the message I'm talking about is "If you want to know where your money is going, it is going to inflation of your health care and insurance."
The main selling point is that you will get to keep more of your money.
How do you get them to believe you?
I think you're buying into the current narrative about how the only reason everything isn't wondrous is because Obama is too 'detached' and 'professorial'. Really 1. Changing the status quo is always hard. One of the reasons health care reform had not happened. 2. ~40% of the country will loudly object to anything Obama does with scant regard to truth. There is basically no message that will change their minds. 3. The Democratic party is so big tent that congress was far from a rubber stamp 4. Most importantly the economy sucks. 5. Corollary to 4., many of those who would benefit from the changes had bigger things to worry about, and so did not have anywhere close to the enthusiasm of those against.
I am very disappointed in Obama in some respects. Gay rights is probably #1 on that list. Not on health care, though.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I am talking about the people who are generally against health care reform now. The Tea Party folks for example.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic:
I am very disappointed in Obama in some respects. Gay rights is probably #1 on that list. Not on health care, though.
Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping, executive privilege...
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic:
I am very disappointed in Obama in some respects. Gay rights is probably #1 on that list. Not on health care, though.
They're on my list; just not #1.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Just filling it out a little. Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I think you're buying into the current narrative about how the only reason everything isn't wondrous is because Obama is too 'detached' and 'professorial'. Really
I'll say it again. I'm talking about the failure to sell the health care reform to the American public.
Not the Tea Party. Not the Fox News hardcores. The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
From the Washington Post in an interview with Obama,
quote:You have to give the Republicans credit, just from a pure political perspective, that they used every instrument available to them in the Senate to prolong the process in such a way that helped drive down support nationally, that gave everybody a sense that somehow Washington was broken," he told me. "At a time when everybody was worrying about jobs, for us to have to spend six to nine months on this piece of legislation obviously was not helpful.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
As someone who was not nearly as informed as most of the posters here (and thus has the perspective of the poorly informed voter ) it seemed to me that the main advantage the Republican message had was that it was better thought out and coordinated. They had the simple message for sound-bites that most of America heard (the one everyone here seems to love about fear of government), the middle sized one with a few numbers and examples, and then the in depth ones. Even if they were outright lies they had a coherent message for every spectrum of interest and it was consistent enough that you would hear it multiple times at the level you were at (and thus remember it). The Democrats didn't seem to be coordinated at all, and didn't have anything short of a middle-length message at best. This is neither here nor there but it seems like the last 10 years or so that's been the Democrat's major problem: they just can't coordinate together on talking points, they're all over the map.
And just because I often come across as a conservative-only person here I'll say that while I was not on board in entirety with the Democratic health-care plan, I was in favor of it over both the status-quo and anything the Republicans came up with. I just agree with Squick that it was very poorly sold.
Hobbes Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
They sure do! Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
I'd need to see a source for that. I'd be unsurprised if it was Rassmussen.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
I'd need to see a source for that. I'd be unsurprised if it was Rassmussen.
id need to see a source to the contrary. id be unsurprised if it was fivethirtyeight.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: id need to see a source to the contrary. id be unsurprised if it was fivethirtyeight.
Yes, I do tend to use credible sources. Aren't you clever!
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I think you're buying into the current narrative about how the only reason everything isn't wondrous is because Obama is too 'detached' and 'professorial'. Really
I'll say it again. I'm talking about the failure to sell the health care reform to the American public.
Not the Tea Party. Not the Fox News hardcores. The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
Isnt that mostly because it doesnt go far enough?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
They sure do!
Did you miss that I was talking about people who are motivated by fear and anger and who respond to sound bites rather than facts and complicated ideas? Why would you think that is a good thing?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:President Obama had the biggest bully pulpit in the world. He didn't use it effectively.
The ironic thing is that so many predictions in 2008 were that Obama would be good at convincing but bad at actually doing anything. And yet the reverse happened - he accomplished a lot, but failed to sell it.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
They sure do!
Did you miss that I was talking about people who are motivated by fear and anger and who respond to sound bites rather than facts and complicated ideas? Why would you think that is a good thing?
Unless I misread you (it looked like you were responding to Squicky, directly above your post. If you weren't, my apologies)... it looked like you were saying that Tea Partiers and fans of Fox News make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you ("we") want to believe.
If I read you right, then yes, I agree that they do in fact make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you'd like. And yes, I do think that's a good thing. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I was responding to more than just that post. We were talking about peope who didn't understand health care reform because they needed simple messages and responded to fear and anger rather than facts and ideas. Whatever overlap there is with Fox watchers and Partiers is left to the observer.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
My mistake, then. I apologize for misinterpreting you.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I should have been more clear.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:It's worth dwelling for a moment on the reaction of Rep. Andy Harris, an incoming legislator who staunchly opposes the new health-care law and ran promising its repeal, to news that he'd had to wait a month for his government-funded health-care benefits to kick in:
Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health-care policy would take effect Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.
“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. ... “Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide.
Awwwww, like .. some sort of, say, 'public option?'
Republicans are professional trolls.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
(this is to say that you can tap a forest and regenerate a republican)
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
They sure do!
Did you miss that I was talking about people who are motivated by fear and anger and who respond to sound bites rather than facts and complicated ideas? Why would you think that is a good thing?
Unless I misread you (it looked like you were responding to Squicky, directly above your post. If you weren't, my apologies)... it looked like you were saying that Tea Partiers and fans of Fox News make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you ("we") want to believe.
If I read you right, then yes, I agree that they do in fact make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you'd like. And yes, I do think that's a good thing.
Dan, I don't understand this perspective (or at least one aspect of it). You seem like a thoughtful guy. Why would you be happy to see people become fans of a blatant propaganda machine like Fox News?
I mean, I'm liberal, but if one of my friends told me he was a "fan of MSNBC," I'd tear him a new one.
It's not a good thing when people thoughtlessly parrot the ideas you hold for well-thought-out reasons.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
In politics you first want people to agree with you. Having them agree with you for the right reasons is a secondary goal.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: (this is to say that you can tap a forest and regenerate a republican)
Good one!
(Although there are trolls that regenerate for B or R as well)
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: (this is to say that you can tap a forest and regenerate a republican)
Good one!
(Although there are trolls that regenerate for B or R as well)
(and one troll that costs R but regenerates for B! Ah, Sedge Troll, how conditionally useful you were.)
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Those people make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than we want to believe.
They sure do!
Did you miss that I was talking about people who are motivated by fear and anger and who respond to sound bites rather than facts and complicated ideas? Why would you think that is a good thing?
Unless I misread you (it looked like you were responding to Squicky, directly above your post. If you weren't, my apologies)... it looked like you were saying that Tea Partiers and fans of Fox News make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you ("we") want to believe.
If I read you right, then yes, I agree that they do in fact make up a bigger chunk of the middle class than you'd like. And yes, I do think that's a good thing.
Dan, I don't understand this perspective (or at least one aspect of it). You seem like a thoughtful guy. Why would you be happy to see people become fans of a blatant propaganda machine like Fox News?
I mean, I'm liberal, but if one of my friends told me he was a "fan of MSNBC," I'd tear him a new one.
It's not a good thing when people thoughtlessly parrot the ideas you hold for well-thought-out reasons.
I'm not particularly convinced that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine. Not particularly attached to the station overall, but I'd like to see some compelling evidence that did not, itself, seem incredibly skewed. The whole "reality has a liberal bias" attitude doesn't fly with me, sorry.
But overall, I was actually mostly reacting to the mention that had been made of Tea Partiers, which make up a huge percentage of the middle class, and whom I do have strong (positive) opinions of.
All this is sort of invalidated by the fact that I misinterpreted kmbboots, of course. But there you have it.
PS: Thanks for calling me a thoughtful guy!
PPS: The quote vortex is just for you, Samp.
PPPS: Edited to add PSes.
[ November 19, 2010, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: Dan_Frank ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:I was actually mostly reacting to the mention that had been made of Tea Partiers, which make up a huge percentage of the middle class, and whom I do have strong (positive) opinions of.
What is this huge percentage of the middle class? 20%
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:I was actually mostly reacting to the mention that had been made of Tea Partiers, which make up a huge percentage of the middle class, and whom I do have strong (positive) opinions of.
What is this huge percentage of the middle class? 20%
you really need to start producing some credible numbers of your own. you spew enough liberal blogoshpere rhetoric on this forum that i dont even need to leave this site in search left-wing propaganda.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I'm not particularly convinced that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine. Not particularly attached to the station overall, but I'd like to see some compelling evidence that did not, itself, seem incredibly skewed. The whole "reality has a liberal bias" attitude doesn't fly with me, sorry.
None of this assumes any liberal bias to reality. But these examples show that Fox has displayed a clear bias against reality.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Those are definitely some good examples of Fox misrepresenting things. I'm a little disappointed, though not terribly surprised. I was familiar with the ground zero mosque clip, but not the other two (as I said before, I don't really watch TV news in any variety myself.)
I may look into these issues independently to see if Stewart is misrepresenting anything himself, but unless I get around to that I'll certainly concede that Fox engages in their fair share of propagandizing.
I'm also curious if Stewart (or anyone) has done this re: any of Fox's actual news programs, as opposed to it's op-eds.
PS: Thanks for showing me these. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:I was actually mostly reacting to the mention that had been made of Tea Partiers, which make up a huge percentage of the middle class, and whom I do have strong (positive) opinions of.
What is this huge percentage of the middle class? 20%
Sure why not.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I believe the consensus was that Fox's actual NEWS portion of their show was just about as biased/unbiased as any other news show, the problem is that its only like 30% of their lineup with about 50% being op eds disguised as news and the remaining 60% being openly op eds.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I believe the consensus was that Fox's actual NEWS portion of their show was just about as biased/unbiased as any other news show, the problem is that its only like 30% of their lineup with about 50% being op eds disguised as news and the remaining 60% being openly op eds.
which op-eds in the fox lineup are being disguised as news?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
How about that time they completely overblown and misrepresented the issues surrounding Konami and Atomic Games making 'Six Days in Falluja' completely screwing over both the troops and the gaming community because the media are vultures.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: you really need to start producing some credible numbers of your own. you spew enough liberal blogoshpere rhetoric on this forum that i dont even need to leave this site in search left-wing propaganda.
This always happens: i say something which you dislike, personally. You have the option to counter, to offer assertions of your own, but going on like 13 times now, all you do instead is give me a backbite post. Like this. It's just useless whinging.
To borrow a page from your book, I could call it "conservative blogosphere whinging" or, you know, whatever. I'm not really good at simpering.
Here's an idea, though: how about you try something different, so you wouldn't be so lamentably patronizable. Here, I could come up with a post for you!
quote:Hey samprimary, Where do you come up with that 20% figure? I don't buy it.
See? It's so easy, you don't even have to leave the liberal blogosphere left wing propogandizer machine I'm apparently part of.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I believe the consensus was that Fox's actual NEWS portion of their show was just about as biased/unbiased as any other news show, the problem is that its only like 30% of their lineup with about 50% being op eds disguised as news and the remaining 60% being openly op eds.
Well, Fox News may be filled with propaganda, but on the other hand they've shattered the laws of reality and filled their station with 140% content!
So, that's pretty impressive.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: you really need to start producing some credible numbers of your own. you spew enough liberal blogoshpere rhetoric on this forum that i dont even need to leave this site in search left-wing propaganda.
This always happens: i say something which you dislike, personally. You have the option to counter, to offer assertions of your own, but going on like 13 times now, all you do instead is give me a backbite post. Like this. It's just useless whinging.
To borrow a page from your book, I could call it "conservative blogosphere whinging" or, you know, whatever. I'm not really good at simpering.
Here's an idea, though: how about you try something different, so you wouldn't be so lamentably patronizable. Here, I could come up with a post for you!
quote:Hey samprimary, Where do you come up with that 20% figure? I don't buy it.
See? It's so easy, you don't even have to leave the liberal blogosphere left wing propogandizer machine I'm apparently part of.
so this is what you post because you cant come up with the numbers? come on. dont get your feelings hurt because someone is beating you at your own game. your arguments have a tendency to boil down to nothing more than 'your wrong!' stated in an unnecessarily obtuse or condescending manner. as far as assertions go, someone suggest 20% and you disagree with them yet you offer no honest rebuttal. you dont even enlighten us with a more realistic samp-friendly number. next time just say 'no' and we will know what you mean and that you have no desire to present a tenable opinion.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: How about that time they completely overblown and misrepresented the issues surrounding Konami and Atomic Games making 'Six Days in Falluja' completely screwing over both the troops and the gaming community because the media are vultures.
most news outlets tend to sensationalize the content they run. i do believe this is detrimental and not in the publics interest. but fox news isnt the only offender as can be see. their presentation of news stories could be done in such a way that they are actually giving the viewer/listener a less-than-objective portray of the events. this can even be done with seemingly minute details such as word choice. still i cant think of a fox op-ed program that they have dress up and let masquerade about as news.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:so this is what you post because you cant come up with the numbers?
If you had asked about the number, we'd be having a different conversation. That's why I tried to show you how you could ask about the number. You just jumped straight to whinging about how I'm spewing liberal propaganda blogosphere rhetoric in a pretty obviously frustrated post that I'd like to see you pretend was designed to elicit an 'honest rebuttal.' No, you were frustrated and you were backbiting. You can grow up a little, kiddo, and then you'll give me questions I can respond to. Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I believe the consensus was that Fox's actual NEWS portion of their show was just about as biased/unbiased as any other news show, the problem is that its only like 30% of their lineup with about 50% being op eds disguised as news and the remaining 60% being openly op eds.
Well, Fox News may be filled with propaganda, but on the other hand they've shattered the laws of reality and filled their station with 140% content!
So, that's pretty impressive.
Watching Axis Powers Hetelia would make you more informed than watching Fox News.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Cap...you aren't beating anyone at any game. What you are doing, with posts like that one, is making sure no one takes you seriously. You can rant, rave and foam at the mouth if you want.....as you seem to be doing in this thread.....just don't try and pass any of that off as facts, or "beating" anyone else.
That being said, I don't think there ARE any solid numbers on who makes up the Tea Party. The people who support the Tea party want us to believe they are a cross section of the US, but most of the people I know who are strongly in support of it are well off white folks, most of whom own houses well over $200,000 in value even today, and who have assets they are concerned are being devalued or taxed too much.
I would be interested in finding out who considers themselves Tea Party members as a whole, but even among Tea Party groups there are wide differences.
Just because I would like lower taxes doesn't mean I support the tea party. Just because I think heathcare sucks in the country doesn't mean I am a socialist.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
The comparisons between the tea party and the John Birch society by a conservative is particularly interesting, since not too long ago that was a subject of focus by harpers. The parallels do get eerier the more you read into Goldwater and the birchers, right down to the brazenly open support for stuff which contravenes the constitution.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I would be interested in finding out who considers themselves Tea Party members as a whole, but even among Tea Party groups there are wide differences.
The Koch brothers?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
I'd need to see a source for that. I'd be unsurprised if it was Rassmussen.
There was this opinion poll they did first Tuesday (edit: after the first Monday) of November this year that did a pretty good job of establishing this.
---
I'm not sure you get this. The Democrats keep losing. They couldn't beat George W Bush. When there was a major backswing against his awful Presidency in 2006, they still couldn't stand up to him. When they had massive majorities in Congress and the Presidency, they still couldn't beat the Republicans.
If you believe that they are the better choice or, if you're going to go into crazy town and think that they are the good guys, then you're left with the option of either they're doing things very wrong or the American people are just too stupid to not consistently make horrible choices. I happen to think that it's pretty obvious that the Democrats are doing a very poor job in a ton of ways. What you seem to be saying is that the Democrats are doing a great job, but either the Republicans are masters of some sort of dark magics or that the American public is just so incredibly stupid.
[ November 21, 2010, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Okay. I'm asking to see it if you know which one it is.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
...what?
edit: Oh, I think you missed that I was talking about election day.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Dark magic.
It's dark magic, right?
See, this is why I ought to actually register as a Republican. So they can teach me some freakin' dark magic!
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
A coven of Young Republicans cornered me in an alley and stripped me of my mystical talisman of Nagaer when I changed my registration.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
Liberals always want to protect the American people from their own stupidity. Seat belt and helmet laws, anyone....? Some parents feed their kids too much McDonalds and some American's choose to smoke. We need smart and benevolent liberals to decide what is good for us while outlawing that which isn't....individuals make the wrong choices. Some people are too stupid.....
Some people vote for a president who promises "hope and change".... Too stupid to get to the heart of the matter, too stupid understand nutrition. Suckers for marketing. Tit for tat, free or regulated...your choice. Of course, if you're stupid, you aren't free to make the "wrong choice", if the progressives have their way.
I'm pro choice....even for stupid people. Conservatives believe stupid people are free to choose, progressives believe the government should prevent them from having the wrong choice as an option.
[ November 21, 2010, 09:06 PM: Message edited by: malanthrop ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I'll just point out, we could have an interesting conversation here between people who believe very different things but who respect - although maybe some of you could work on that a little bit - each other, or you could do another run around with mal.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
quote:I'm pro choice....even for stupid people. Conservatives believe stupid people are free to choose, progressives believe the government should prevent them from having the wrong choice as an option.
This sentence was so delicious. MORE IRONY PLEASE.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
Another round with Mal? I oppose abortion but accept abortion clinics. I wouldn't even suggest an extra tax on abortion equivalent to the extra taxes on cigarettes. Both are wrong, (in my opinion)....we're a free nation. Free nation's don't differentiate between fetuses, sugar, fat, immigration or McD toys...we're a nation of laws. Liberals want to tax bad behavior out of existence...conservatives want to follow the law. Conservatives don't suggest a contraceptive tax. Conservatives don't use the tax code to manipulate behavior. Law is law, unless of course, it's immigration law.
I'm consistent. So is my daughter. She doesn't understand how she's called a racist, her best friend is black....she's 10 years old. I told her to get used to people using the race card to shut her up and told her to never shut up.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
Awesomely weird ramblings aside, your personal opinion on abortion is irrelevant since you brought conservatism as a whole into it.
Conservatives want to limit personal choice as much as Liberals do, they just want to do it about different stuff. No abortions, no gay marriage, no smoking weed, no mosques by Ground Zero...
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I'll just point out, we could have an interesting conversation here between people who believe very different things but who respect - although maybe some of you could work on that a little bit - each other, or you could do another run around with mal.
You're confusing irony with your inability to interpret sarcasm.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:...the American people are just too stupid to not consistently make horrible choices.
I think this is provably true.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: She doesn't understand how she's called a racist, her best friend is black....she's 10 years old.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
quote:Originally posted by jebus202: Awesomely weird ramblings aside, your personal opinion on abortion is irrelevant since you brought conservatism as a whole into it.
Conservatives want to limit personal choice as much as Liberals do, they just want to do it about different stuff. No abortions, no gay marriage, no smoking weed, no mosques by Ground Zero...
I wont disagree with you. Conservatives do want to limit personal choice as well. My point is that conservatives want to do it legally. Liberals make sanctuary cities to ignore federal law. Liberals make local medical marijuana laws. Liberals might not be able to outlaw cigarettes, they'll tax them to the point they're unaffordable.
Conservatives and Liberals both want change. Conservatives want to change the law, liberals ignore or undermine the law. Can a city exist that is a "sanctuary" from federal law? I guess it depends on the law.
Conservatives are black and white, liberals are shades of gray. Only the wise understand the intricacies of the liberal. Stupid conservatives stick to the "letter" of the law. Smart liberals understand the "intent" of the law.
Where do you draw the line? Conservatives pick a point...liberals, the line is flexible.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
You just overloaded my Generalizer. Damn.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:...the American people are just too stupid to not consistently make horrible choices.
I think this is provably true.
If that's the background that people are coming from, I think it is important to realize that. Then, they can figure out how to work with this situation.
As it is, this impression comes through pretty strongly to the voting public and it's one of the big reasons why people don't vote for Democrats. Health Care Reform is just another example of the Democrats being clear that they see the public's role as sitting back and doing what they are told. And you can see how well that went.
On the other side, the people running and headlining Fox News clearly think that their audience lacks...shall we say, critical discernment (Glen Beck getting people to donate to the Chamber of Commerce still cracks me up). And their audience loves them for it.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Health Care Reform is just another example of the Democrats being clear that they see the public's role as sitting back and doing what they are told. And you can see how well that went.
See, I thought Health Care Reform was an example of Democrats doing exactly what they promised people they'd do if they got elected. I mean, it's not like it was a surprise agenda that Obama foisted upon us.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I wont speak for Squicky here, but I'll provide a possible interpretation for what he meant and then say even if it wasn't what he was going for, I am. That the Democrats viewed their landslide (or whatever it was) as a mandate for the proposed agenda and thus did not engage the people (tm) in a discussion, or issue campaign but instead assumed that the battle was fought and over. Meanwhile the Republicans put on a fight for their ideas, thus this comment:
quote:Health Care Reform is just another example of the Democrats being clear that they see the public's role as sitting back and doing what they are told. And you can see how well that went.
We were supposed to just let them put through what they proposed rather than getting involved in it and the Democrats were blindsided when a large population did not just sit down for two years. I don't know how the two sides compare in terms of how hard they worked or how much time they spent putting out propaganda, but I heard a coherent message from the Republicans and ... well a lot of noise from the Democrats. At this point I'd like to remind everyone of my previous post where I stated I was in favor of the Democrat's health care plan, just not their "engaging the American Public" plan.
Hobbes Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
The American public is both overwhelmingly stupid AND the democrats are doing a terrible job.
Honestly if the Dems had even a fraction of Republicant party discipline the dems would be able to get stuff done.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: ...what?
edit: Oh, I think you missed that I was talking about election day.
I'm asking you for your source. Please provide your source. The rest of it (about discovering that people are stupid) is irrelevant to me right now because I'm literally only asking about numbers on the middle class and support of Obamacare.
But I will say this:
quote: What you seem to be saying is that the Democrats are doing a great job
No. You should re-read my position on the democratic versus the republican plans on healthcare.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: Meanwhile the Republicans put on a fight for their ideas ,
Certainly the put up a fight. I don't think that fight could even charitably be called "for their ideas." This is largely because following midterms of 2006, the Republicans have not *had* any new ideas. The fight was largely against reform. And I find this point important because it is a forgone conclusion that the nation in 2008 was in crisis- ie, in need of ideas. I'd be interested to know which, if any, of their ideas you saw them fighting for. If your meaning here was fighting *against* democratic ideas, then yes, they did do that. But which ideas did they have to fix the economic situation, to resolve costly military conflicts, and to assuage a crisis in the healthcare system? From which quarter did these ideas of which you speak come, and in what way did the Republicans fight for them?
If you were referring to tea-party "ideals," then again, I challenge your definition of "idea," and would ask you to justify your statement in light of what you mean by "ideas." I find this an important point you haven't addressed.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: You should re-read my position on the democratic versus the republican plans on healthcare.
Would you repost it? I must have missed it in the context of the discussion.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I'm asking you for your source. Please provide your source.
You want my source for the Republicans beating the snot out of the Democrats on election day?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:But which ideas did they have to fix the economic situation, to resolve costly military conflicts, and to assuage a crisis in the healthcare system?
TAX CUTS!
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
When my step-dad was in the Marines, he noticed that they payed an odd price for things, the branch he was in typically payed twice as much for the same thing everyone else bought (tools) a simple wrench that costs $15 the military payed $30 for, nothing special the exact same wrench.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Aside from a variety of administrative costs that drive that price higher, such as higher quality assurance standards (meaning, actually, that it *is* special, in that it is the same wrench, but triple checked to assure high quality), a fair amount of that can be chalked up to just good old fixed bidding corruption.
The government can't just buy stuff. They have to offer a public bid. But if they want something specific, or specifically from your company, they can offer the public bid in such a way as only you can fulfill that bid. Then you drive up the price, and maybe you spend some of that money getting the congressman in your state who got you that contract elected again. It's all very simple.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Very very corrupted. As far as quality goes, it's the same or worse, as I recall they were always ordering replacement tools and sometimes they were paying significantly more than twice the price of the item.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I'm asking you for your source. Please provide your source.
You want my source for the Republicans beating the snot out of the Democrats on election day?
... I don't ask you very difficult questions on purpose. Please, even if it's not intentional, stop being so evasive.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: [qb]The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
I'd need to see a source for that.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I'm asking you for your source. Please provide your source.
You want my source for the Republicans beating the snot out of the Democrats on election day?
... I don't ask you very difficult questions on purpose. Please, even if it's not intentional, stop being so evasive.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: [qb]The vast majority of the American middle class is not behind "Obamacare".
I'd need to see a source for that.
Again, the election. I'm not sure where I'm being unclear here.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
...
1. that's not a source. that's a personal assertion. 2. that's an inference that goes no further than your own conceptualization. It doesn't do anything to convince me that you can show a vast majority of the middle class being against obamacare. 3. that's not a source. 4. that's not a source. 5. please provide me a source or admit this is just your personal assumption.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Well, if you put it that way: My source is the election. And I think that it's a pretty clear one on what I'm claiming.
If you want to know why I think that, feel free to ask about it in a respectful way. If you're just looking to dismiss whatever I'm saying and aren't interested in a productive conversation, I'm not super interested in playing along.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
The fact that Americans voted out many Democrats and replaced them with Republicans does not lead to "the vast majority of the American middle class is against Obamacare."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I never said that the vast majority of the American middle class is against Obamacare. What I said was that they are not behind it. There's a very significant difference there.
edit: The Democrats didn't lose because of the people who came out to vote for the people who made repealing Obamacare a primary part of their campaign message. They lost because of the people who didn't come out and the people who did come out but were ambivalent, unsure, or indifferent towards Obamacare.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Alright. Switch "against" with "not behind" in my previous post, and it still stands.
Polls? Articles? Surveys? A lot goes into deciding who you're voting for. A lot more than just the health care issue.
I can't see how this isn't clear.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Well, if you put it that way: My source is the election.
*facepalm*
Do you have any idea what it means when I'm asking you to provide a source? Any at all?
I would have been interested if you did, because your assertion has not been borne true in any sort of actually informed sense, and I don't think it's true. But now it's evident you're not really getting that idea from anything other than amateur personal inference.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
And the question remains---what is wrong with it?
Why is it so terrible?
It offers health care for millions of people who could not get it before.
It offers insurance to people who could not get it before.
It does what the people asked it to do, in a way to be as minimally intrusive to business and individuals as they could make it.
What is wrong with the health care law that makes it the enemy of the Tea Party and the Republicans.
Besides one fact--that it was presented as something President Obama wanted done.
There is one underlying cord that surrounds the Tea Party's and the Republican's various members, organizations, and goals.
Its not race.
Its not conservatism or libertarianism.
Its the fact that they want to destroy President Obama.
He made them look bad in 2008. He made the conservative majority they thought they had in this country look like a defeated, whimpy minority.
As a result they will do anything they can to make him look ineffective, inefficient, and bad.
President Obama has offered and tried to be bipartisan since day one, but has met with only constant denials, partisanship, and a stone wall to bring him down. The healthcare bill was often opened to input from Republicans. Their continued answer was delay, deny, and destroy. Their only solution to Health Care Reform was to stop lawsuits against bad doctors cause that was hurting the bottom line of insurance companies. All the other suggestions that they ever made since President Reagan are in this law, but they deny it.
Except for political gain, why are they against this law?
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I hate unequality of the riches and this government that supports it more than neccisary.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Also:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If you're just looking to dismiss whatever I'm saying and aren't interested in a productive conversation, I'm not super interested in playing along.
Trying to get a straight answer out of your (apparently completely unintentional) evasiveness is me trying to get a productive conversation out of this. My repeated insistence shouldn't be used by you as a cue to say 'whatever, you're just looking to dismiss whatever I'm saying' and peace out of the discussion, unless you're really, really trying to go for a frustrating level of super-evasiveness, this time intentional. :/
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I never said that the vast majority of the American middle class is against Obamacare. What I said was that they are not behind it. There's a very significant difference there.
edit: The Democrats didn't lose because of the people who came out to vote for the people who made repealing Obamacare a primary part of their campaign message. They lost because of the people who didn't come out and the people who did come out but were ambivalent, unsure, or indifferent towards Obamacare.
That is an assertion that you are making. However, Squick, I think Samp's point, which is entirely valid, is that the election results do not make such a statement in any clear or unobjectionable terms. Given the complexity of the electoral cycle, even setting aside completely the dynamics of how the majority of the middle class is reacting to Health Care reform legislation or the legislating process, it is certainly not fair for you to claim that the results of the election speak to any specific motivations involving the majority of the middle class. The terms are too broad, the players are too diverse to be lumped together, it is entangled with too many other factors, and it is too lightly shaded between "they don't like it," and "they don't like the process that it has gone through," and "they don't like the people involved in that process," and "they are disappointed with any of the above things," to carry much meaning.
I think samp would welcome you making the assertion you have made, however, that assertion must be supported by more than interpretable prima facie evidence, eg: "Americans in 1944 hated Germans because they invaded Germany." Perhaps the assertion is true, however the reasoning would entail a great deal more support to be credible- it does not stand as a conclusion based only on the current political reality of vote tallying. In that instance: hatred of Germans was *not* the reason for declaring war, in the sense that it was not the prime motivating factor, socially or politically, for entering the Second World War. (That's just a simplified example, I don't want to debate the veracity of the statement). I think you do appreciate that.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: And the question remains---what is wrong with it?
Why is it so terrible?
It offers health care for millions of people who could not get it before.
It offers insurance to people who could not get it before.
It does what the people asked it to do, in a way to be as minimally intrusive to business and individuals as they could make it.
I agree with you to a certain extent, but in the bill there are numerous things that will hurt businesses. Sure, 200 pages of the bill might be great, but the other 1800 is full of other legislation that shouldn't be in there, such as the new 1099 laws.
You realize that starting next year companies have to file and send a 1099 form whenever they purchase goods or services from another business? Your AC unit breaks on your building? Fill out a 1099 for them. Need to place an order to a vendor? Fill out a 1099. Need to ship freight with a trucking company? YOu have to 1099 them as well. Every transaction over $600 will now require a form 1099.
Look, the bill has a lot of positive things in it. I would argue most conservatives would agree. What I don't agree with is the other legislation that got placed in there that has nothing to do with health care. Remove all the extra stuff as well as all of the pork in the bill, and I'd bet there would be a lot less people screaming about it.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Look, the bill has a lot of positive things in it. I would argue most conservatives would agree. What I don't agree with is the other legislation that got placed in there that has nothing to do with health care. Remove all the extra stuff as well as all of the pork in the bill, and I'd bet there would be a lot less people screaming about it.
I doubt that. The 1099 thing is just low-hanging fruit in that it's easy to describe and be outraged about, but it's not *that* onerous. I imagine companies will rapidly ramp up their abilities or subcontract 1099 administration such that the cost of implementation will be, at most, a couple dollars per $600+ transaction - effectively a fraction of a percent tax which will go directly into the pockets of the employees and new businesses that do this processing. At the same time, government revenue should increase as fewer people are able to dodge taxes by paying under the table.
Get rid of the obvious flaws and you still have "death panels" and "rationing" - blatant misrepresentation of even the obviously good stuff that's in there.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Yeah, seriously. This just means somebody has to write a bunch of new code into their spreadsheets to generate the form. Big deal.
Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
The fight over 1099 reform is one of the best case studies of the differences between Republicans and Democrats that we've seen this year.
Quick background: 1099 reform deals with a tax change in the health-care bill. The provision seeks to recoup taxes that small businesses should currently be paying but aren't. The problem is that the mechanism would mean a lot of paperwork. Enough, actually, that it's probably worth scrapping it. But that means you need to make up $17 billion.
Republicans wanted to do that by cutting public-health subsidies for the poor. Democrats said no. Democrats wanted to do it by cutting subsidies for oil and gas companies. Republicans said no. Democrats came up with another way to do it, this time by closing a tax loophole that allows hedge-fund managers to be taxed at a much lower rate than people in other professions. Republicans don't like this, either.
I really don't understand the vision of the economy, or of need in general, where it makes more sense to cut public-health spending than treat the income of hedge-fund managers like the income of, say, small-business owners. Is there some reason we want lots more people to enter the hedge-fund industry? Or that government should be directly subsidizing oil and gas production? I can at least understand the rationale for public-health programs. That sort of collective action is something you need government to organize. The presence of generous financial incentives for entering the hedge fund industry really isn't.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Well ok. I guess he peaced out.
quote:Originally posted by MattP: I doubt that. The 1099 thing is just low-hanging fruit in that it's easy to describe and be outraged about, but it's not *that* onerous.
True! And it kind of goes to show the benefits of maintaining a crude level of 'review' on the part of party adherents in order to foster outrage. I see both sides doing it, but they really pulled out all the stops for the health care bill.
Because — frankly — if you inform people of what the bill really does without focusing on minute parts for outrage's sake, they support it.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
another federal judge has declared obamacare unconstitutonal. this is significant because it means the lawsuit will reach the supreme court with some substantial legal precedent behind it and the judges ruling is a step towards repeal not reform.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Pfft. Judicial activism at its worst.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Oh, you all must read the comments from Cap's yahoo link.
quote:Our presadent can do anything he want's Just type in Barry Soetoro on Yahoo and hit search. It's worth the effort.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Oh, you all must read the comments from Cap's yahoo link.
yes. some of them are almost as stupid as harry reid's statement as quoted in the article.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I'll be curious to see what SCOTUS does with this [the law being challenged]. Because they only let you buy insurance in your own state right now, how could it be interstate commerce?
Congress might have to first open up insurance so you can buy from any state and then regulate it.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I'm glad the President saw how the 1099 law would affect businesses. While I understand that they believe it will raise $17 billion dollars, it is important to note that the $17 billion is over a 10 year period of time. Per year, $1.7 billion may be raised. It is likely that the $1.7 billion the government would receive would be offset by the additional people needed by the IRS to audit and process these transactions. Most analysts believe that it would cost the economy many times more than the $1.7 billion per year to comply to the law. I am very happy that the President recognizes this and called for it to be removed.
As for the Supreme Court, I really don't know which way they will rule. AvidReader has a very good point about the interstate commerce.
I think if Congress is going to take a look at the Healthcare bill to improve it, they really need to look at the loopholes it creates. Under the new Healthcare Law, I can just pay the fine each year and not get insurance. If I actually get sick, I can just sign up at that time, get all the treatment I need, then drop the coverage again. There are loopholes for businesses as well. They can either provide Health insurance or drop it completely and pay the 8% payroll tax fine. In a tough economy, employers are going to try to save money by dropping health coverage completely and paying the fine, as it will cost less than providing insurance. The employees may complain, but at least they have a job.
I don't know what a good solution to solving the loopholes is. I REALLY hope the bill doesn't get voided due to the courts. I think positive changes can be made without throwing the whole thing out.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: I'll be curious to see what SCOTUS does with this [the law being challenged]. Because they only let you buy insurance in your own state right now, how could it be interstate commerce?
Congress might have to first open up insurance so you can buy from any state and then regulate it.
SCOTUS has generally understood healthcare to have the essence of interstate commerce, even though healthcare regulation has largely, historically, been a matter for states.
The real question here isn't whether the Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate healthcare - it's fairly well understood that it does - the question is whether or not the Commerce Clause can be interpreted to compel you to engage in business with private companies. It would be one thing if the law created a tax and forced everyone onto a government plan. But forcing you to purchase insurance from a private company is a whole different ball of wax, and that's what the crux of the debate is going to come down to.
Personally I have a real problem with it when framed like this.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
My mother, who is 89, just received word from the managers of her annuity (she retired from the U.S. Post Office), that because of the increased costs for health care under the new Health Care Act, $50 will be deducted from her benefit payment each month. If Obamacare is repealed--by any means--that would be good news for her.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Note that there is no claim that healthcare would be cheaper for everyone under Obamacare. It's most optimistic claim is that overall costs will decrease and that more people will be insured. Those of us who already have health insurance may very well pay more.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: My mother, who is 89, just received word from the managers of her annuity (she retired from the U.S. Post Office), that because of the increased costs for health care under the new Health Care Act, $50 will be deducted from her benefit payment each month. If Obamacare is repealed--by any means--that would be good news for her.
Well, stop the presses. One person is out $50- we better scrap this plan to cover millions of people with affordable care so that so many of them don't die so young while pursuing a longer term strategy to lower overall costs that will eventually be recouped in savings because your mother who is covered by an annuity has to pay an extra $50.
I mean, $50! Jesus Jumping Jehosiphat $50! she's 89, after all. 89!
Yeah, definitely, the repeal of health care reform in its entirety, along with the prospect of all the protections it is meant to confer on the nation's 89, and 26, and 43 year olds, would be good news for you mother.
You know something? I imagine the defunding of all public works projects, the selling of all publicly held lands and parks and the closing of all the schools would be good news for your mother as well. Imagine how much she could save then, not having to pay for that stuff! Might as well cut out the FDA, while you're at it. And the cops- she doesn't need those guys anyway, she lives in a decent neighborhood, why pay 'em? In fact, I bet your mom could do without public sanitation as well, right? She could just bury the waste in the yard- money saved! Hell, it would be fantastic news for her if all those things just went away. Gee wiz Ron.
I know how she could really save money! OMG! We could eliminate the postal system! And then we wouldn't have to pay all those pesky annuitie.... oh my god...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You know, I don't begrudge Ron's mother for being upset that she's suddenly going to be receiving $600 less each year. That's a non-trivial chunk of change.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: My mother, who is 89, just received word from the managers of her annuity (she retired from the U.S. Post Office), that because of the increased costs for health care under the new Health Care Act, $50 will be deducted from her benefit payment each month. If Obamacare is repealed--by any means--that would be good news for her.
A lot of that isn't directly the law's fault. I've read a lot of complaints from people whose premiums increased virtually overnight because the law would freeze their ability to jack up rates after the fact. In essence, a lot of what we're seeing is pre-emptive price gouging.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
To someone living on a fixed income, $50 a month is significant.
I also don't begrudge Ron's mother for being upset over it.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
Belle - while you're right, I wonder if the costs are REALLY do to the new law, or if that's just a convenient excuse. After all, I'm sure the health plan for an 89-year-old will use any excuse it can to increase the premiums!
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
And premiums have been going up every year for a couple decades.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Anyone have data on how much they've been going up, and whether/how-much-more they went up this year?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Next year, Hewitt projects an 8.8 percent average premium increase for employers, compared to 6.9 percent in 2010 and 6.0 percent in 2009.
quote:Hewitt estimates that the most immediate applications of health care reform—including covering dependents to age 26 and the elimination of certain lifetime and annual limits—contributed approximately 1 percent to 2 percent of the 8.8 percent projected increase for 2011.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, I don't begrudge Ron's mother for being upset that she's suddenly going to be receiving $600 less each year. That's a non-trivial chunk of change.
Nor I. But bemoaning big government over $50 that's coming out a government administered and payed annuity? Yeah, that's laughable.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
We'll see if its LAUGHABLE to you when you reach retirement age, and are in the same boat. If you only receive $1200 a month, and all the bills you have to pay (such as mortgage and utilities) leave you scant margin for any discretionary spending, let alone for food, $50 a month matters a great deal.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: We'll see if its LAUGHABLE to you when you reach retirement age, and are in the same boat. If you only receive $1200 a month, and all the bills you have to pay (such as mortgage and utilities) leave you scant margin for any discretionary spending, let alone for food, $50 a month matters a great deal.
Social security was never meant to pay for all that.
Besides, by the time I retire, Social Security probably won't even exist because your generation couldn't summon up the will to fix it.
PS. I'm only a college student, but I live on a heck of a lot less than $1,200 a month.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Lyrhawn: Our old people need to live in houses bigger than the ones they raised their children in. It's the American way! You can't downgrade to a single apartment when your children move out and your spouse passes on. That's just absurd!!
This isn't really a jab at Ron's mother. I have a bit of a pet peeve with my countrymen's need to leave home and move into an apartment, but die in a mansion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Again, to be fair, $1200 a month is an absolute pittance, especially if you're also paying for medical expenses.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Actually I live with my mother and my sister and her husband in the same four-bedroom house my mother has lived in for 54 years. We all help with the expenses, but all our budgets are tight.
Lyrhawn, what do you mean, Social Security was never meant to pay for all that? What else was it ever for?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Actually I live with my mother and my sister and her husband in the same four-bedroom house my mother has lived in for 54 years. We all help with the expenses, but all our budgets are tight.
How Asian! Me likes.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I'm not too familiar with the American system, but do you actually *have* an annuity if your total income is only $1200 per month? In Canada, that income level works out to roughly the same as the Guaranteed Income Supplement which is given to all seniors as a base-level of income just in case there is no pension or other retirement income. I would have thought that the US would have an equivalent system.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Mucus--the annuity is a retirement benefit from the U.S. Post Office, where my mother worked for about 22 years. Sort of like a pension. She also gets Social Security, but it is reduced in proportion to her annuity. I may not have the exact amount right, but the annuity is about $1200 a month.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Sigh. That article is from the Onion, where everything is a satire. By the way, the photo featured as being that of the asteroid, looks to me like the asteroid Eros. Eros is not presently on a collision path for earth, though Wikipedia notes: "Simulations suggest that Eros may evolve into an Earth-crosser within 2 million years." Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros
Note that Eros is named after the Greek god of love (romantic love). So what the article in the Onion should have said is that Obama wants to launch an all-out attack on Love, and the Republicans acted to save Love from the wrath of Obama.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
*blink* *blink*
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Now I'm absolutely certain we're being trolled.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Wow.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Ron, buddy, you're flat-out bonkers.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Hey, at least I refrained from calling him "the Dark Lord." (Someone might have complained it was racist.)
You folks do understand what satire is, right? And that anyone can play?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Not everyone plays well, is the thing.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: You folks do understand what satire is, right? And that anyone can play?
Anyone can try. Some will just confuse the hell out of everyone.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Actually I live with my mother and my sister and her husband in the same four-bedroom house my mother has lived in for 54 years. We all help with the expenses, but all our budgets are tight.
Lyrhawn, what do you mean, Social Security was never meant to pay for all that? What else was it ever for?
Social Security was not designed to pay for every life expense, and certainly not at the rate in which certain aspects of our system are increasing in price. It was a system designed to make it so old people wouldn't die in poverty, it wasn't meant to fully replace your income. It's supplemental income, designed for a time when most people who retired had a pension or kids to help them in their old age, but make the burden considerably less.
It was also designed for a time when medical costs were incredibly cheaper than they are now, and food was the most expensive thing you bought, where today, food is relatively dirt cheap, and housing and medical care have skyrocketed. We're living off a formula that was designed in a totally different society, and we're expecting it both to do things it was never intended to do, and to last years longer than it was expected to.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Lyrhawn, you do realize that the majority of retirees do depend upon Social Security for all the things you dismiss as not having been intended--don't you? It is great if they have pensions or annuities in addition. But I think a survey would probably show that the majority of retirees depend upon Social Security as the sole source of income, period. This was the original contract that was used to justify taking 20%-30% of a person's income out of their paycecks to provide for their future "social security." Just think about what that term means--social security.
Yes, it is a Ponzi scheme, and yes Congress keeps raiding it in one way or another. But for many seniors, it is all they have.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lyrhawn, you do realize that the majority of retirees do depend upon Social Security for all the things you dismiss as not having been intended--don't you? It is great if they have pensions or annuities in addition. But I think a survey would probably show that the majority of retirees depend upon Social Security as the sole source of income, period. This was the original contract that was used to justify taking 20%-30% of a person's income out of their paycecks to provide for their future "social security." Just think about what that term means--social security.
Yes, it is a Ponzi scheme, and yes Congress keeps raiding it in one way or another. But for many seniors, it is all they have.
Right, which means we need to revisit the costs seniors are being required to pay on their own in the absense of pensions and retirement funds. Is the income your average American can expect to have reasonably sufficient for their needs? I would argue Social Security is flagging in that regard, quite badly in fact. So we need to offer assistance in very specific ways. Healthcare, living arrangements, food.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lyrhawn, you do realize that the majority of retirees do depend upon Social Security for all the things you dismiss as not having been intended--don't you? It is great if they have pensions or annuities in addition. But I think a survey would probably show that the majority of retirees depend upon Social Security as the sole source of income, period. This was the original contract that was used to justify taking 20%-30% of a person's income out of their paycecks to provide for their future "social security." Just think about what that term means--social security.
Yes, the term means social "security," which is intended as a failsafe against indigence, not as a sufficient means of living. It was not intended to be the sole means for retired people, it was intended to insure that those who had not saved enough for one reason or another had something minimal on which to survive. That's why we shouldn't privatize it, by the way, because if we did, we would end up having to pay out of pocket *again* for anyone who screwed *that* up as well.
Part of what makes you such a poor authority on all this stuff, is that you're really not given to caring what any of it actually means, as opposed to what you yourself perceive. It is very sad that so many people live on social security alone- but I find it very amusing that you are still against the idea, and also that you somehow think liberals, for supporting the system, are somehow in collusion to get these poor seniors living on intolerably low amounts of money in their old ages. As if were social security not in place, every family in America could somehow manage to cover their own relatives into retirement if they hadn't managed to save anything. Damn the ones who never had children, I suppose.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lyrhawn, you do realize that the majority of retirees do depend upon Social Security for all the things you dismiss as not having been intended--don't you? It is great if they have pensions or annuities in addition. But I think a survey would probably show that the majority of retirees depend upon Social Security as the sole source of income, period. This was the original contract that was used to justify taking 20%-30% of a person's income out of their paycecks to provide for their future "social security." Just think about what that term means--social security.
Yes, it is a Ponzi scheme, and yes Congress keeps raiding it in one way or another. But for many seniors, it is all they have.
Well, reality versus intention. That may be how things ARE, but it's not how the system was designed. So when people say "how am I supposed to live on this?" The answer is; You aren't. When people cry about raising the retirement age or cutting benefits and they say "how can I live on less? Why do I have to work longer?" The answers are; you aren't supposed to, and because you're living longer.
If we refuse to cut benefits or raise the retirement age, then we have to raise taxes. It's really extremely simple. If you want Social Security to function as a living wage, then we have to dramatically increase the tax that supports it.
And, by the way, I'll vote against any politician who supports that as a solution, regardless of his position on almost any other issue.
PS. The tax for SS back when it was first established was like 2%. I think even into the 70s it only rose to 6%, and there's a cap on taxable income. Maybe you're including all entitlement programs in that 30% figure, but even then I don't think the number is that high.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:This was the original contract that was used to justify taking 20%-30% of a person's income out of their paycecks to provide for their future "social security." Just think about what that term means--social security.
Since when are social security taxes 20-30% of a person's income. Right now, social security taxes are 6.2% from the employee and 6.2% from the employer for a total of 12.4%. Not even close to 20 to 30% of a person's income.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The answers are; you aren't supposed to, and because you're living longer.
I gather that the increase in life-expectancy is concentrated on those who are less reliant on social security. Before I'd support cutting benefits across the board or raising the retirement age I'd consider some decrease in benefits based on, say, income from 401Ks and the like. [Or does this already happen?]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, increase in life expectancy is broad across the board, in populations of all socioeconomic levels (around the world, even).
Means testing does not currently occur, but it would significantly improve the long term viability of social security, as would a mild increase in eligibility age plus making the tax not regressive. The combination of those three would make social security viable into the indefinite future.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
I'm basing my comment on table 4 of this: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/workingpapers/wp108.html, which I have skimmed in very cursory fashion. When I google "life expectancy by income US" I do see other I do see other papers claiming that income is not a significant indicator. So I don't know.
As far as entitlement spending goes, the growth curve on Medicare/Medicaid is far more alarming than that of social security. I'd address that first.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
It's an exploratory study with a weak instrument. Plus, by studying birth cohorts, it will discover an effect if there's a large increase in life expectancy that has even a slight delay in spreading to poorer populations -- in each year, the richer people would live much longer, even if next year the poorer people lived nearly as long.
There could also be temporary effects -- for instance, the population at the end of the study also sent significant numbers to Vietnam, proportionately more from poorer families. By the time the survivors reached sixty (the age from which their life expectancy was considered), social support networks would be weakened a lot. That could explain a significant part of the life expectancy.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
What's your source for life expectancy being independent of income level?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I didn't say it was independent, I said increases in it were broad across the board. If you want to check out how broad, I suggest watching Hans Rosling's videos on global health.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Means testing does not currently occur, but it would significantly improve the long term viability of social security, as would a mild increase in eligibility age plus making the tax not regressive. The combination of those three would make social security viable into the indefinite future.
Hey! LET'S ****ING DO THAT!
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I didn't say it was independent, I said increases in it were broad across the board. If you want to check out how broad, I suggest watching Hans Rosling's videos on global health.
OK, but notice in my original post I did not claim that life expectancy was not up for everyone; only that the greatest increase was among those who least needed social security which you disagreed with.
Anyway, I will check out those videos tonight.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Yes, the term means social "security," which is intended as a failsafe against indigence, not as a sufficient means of living. It was not intended to be the sole means for retired people, it was intended to insure that those who had not saved enough for one reason or another had something minimal on which to survive.
While you and I know this now, I've been told by a lot of Boomers that that's not how it was presented for a lot of people for a lot of years. I have no sources, but the perception is absolutely there that SSI was supposed to be retirement.
So either the government did wrong and needs to fix it, or they fell down on the job keeping public perception aligned with reality. I definietly feel there isn't enough out there on how easy it is for a 20 something to retire well. 12% of what you make needs to go into a tax-deferred account, and you employer probably provides some of that. Mine still matches a full 6%, but the 401k rep said that's rare these days.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Orincoro, you said: "It was not intended to be the sole means for retired people, it was intended to insure that those who had not saved enough for one reason or another had something minimal on which to survive."
Are you aware that in that sentence you contradict yourself?
Blackblade, you said: "Is the income your average American can expect to have reasonably sufficient for their needs? I would argue Social Security is flagging in that regard, quite badly in fact."
That is why some seniors eat cat food.
The Rabbit, the IRS currently uses a sliding scale, where your taxes, FDIC withholding, etc., are calculated based on your income level. For most people, they can count on either having withheld from their paycheck or paying additional tax at income tax time an amount more like 20%--with the present top limit being about 30%.
I still say that what would be most fair to most people would be a flat rate percentage of net income. Then we could throw away the thousand plus page book of Income Tax Rules and tell people what they owe in one sentence.
God only asks for a flat rate--a 10% tithe on increase (net income). That is fair to everyone. What right does government have to demand any more?
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
Ron- I don't think anyone has ever suggested your full taxes are being paid to help guarantee retirement. Those taxes are hyped as paying for roads, the army, court system, etc. Only the 6% that is specifically labelled social security is supposed to go towards that system.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Orincoro, you said: "It was not intended to be the sole means for retired people, it was intended to insure that those who had not saved enough for one reason or another had something minimal on which to survive."
Are you aware that in that sentence you contradict yourself?
No, because I don't. Retired people are not meant to use these funds as their sole means of living. I clearly refer to "retired people" as a group in the first case, and distinguish between them, and those who have not saved enough. And I said "sole means" as opposed to "something minimal." Were social security much more generous than it is, it could be the sole means of support. As it is, it is "something minimal," upon which those with no other options can, if necessary, survive. But it is not enough to survive safely or comfortably without other supports. It was not intended for retired people (again, as a group) to use it in this way.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I still say that what would be most fair to most people would be a flat rate percentage of net income. Then we could throw away the thousand plus page book of Income Tax Rules and tell people what they owe in one sentence.
Yes, and then you can live the way we do in this country, with 90% of the population making just enough to survive, while the rich have endless pools of capital upon which to draw, and the government has fewer funds to improve infrastructure, education, etc, and is wildly corrupt to a degree Americans only fantasize about, accepting cash bribes for favorable legislation.
You don't understand the economic arguments you are making. You don't understand the effects of such laws. You don't seem to care about them. I don't know why.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
How do you prove that Social Security was never INTENDED to provide the entire living wage of the retired? Where is that intent stated in the law? Whose intent are you talking about? And is the intent of Social Security when it was first enacted generations ago the same as what is intended now? --And again, intended by whom?
You forget, that those "rich" who no longer have most of their wealth (THAT THEY HAVE EARNED!) confiscated by the thievery of govenment, can create far more jobs to employ the rest of us. (1) It is a fact that most jobs in America are provided by small businesses, and (2) it is a fact that most small businesses are taxed as individuals in the $250,000 to $10 million range.
Why don't you understand this basic economic reality, and why don't you care about it?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
They didn't earn that wealth alone, they earned it under a system they voluntarily agree to participate in, and they are richly - pun intended - rewarded for their job creation. So much of your rhetoric falls flat on its face.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Why don't you understand this basic economic reality, and why don't you care about it?
To care about it in the way you want us to care about it, you would have to show that a taxation plan you favor liberates the rich to employ the rest of the plebes much more readily and with much higher incomes.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Ron, SS was started when personal pensions were the norm for most companies. Can you find anything that DOES show SS was suppose to do more than supplement other retirement income?
You are literally the only person I have ever met that doesn't already know this.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
You know, when it comes to the Social Security thing, I get Ron's feelings on the matter.
Maybe SS isn't meant to do more than supplement other retirement income. But damn it, there's something about the idea of old people living on too little that bothers me greatly.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
Hey Ron, what's the size of small business you're using to state
quote:(1) It is a fact that most jobs in America are provided by small businesses
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
dabbler, just go on and read my point (2). I answered your question right there.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
So small business is defined as a business that is taxed as an individual making 250k to 10 million?
Huh? No, I'm asking are you cutting it off at 100? 500?
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
Somebody better tell samprimary he's being taxed at 250k to 10 millioooooon dooollllaaaars.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Um, guys, are you intentionally misunderstanding him or something? Ron is often a little difficult, I get that. But what he said in this particular moment seems clear enough.
First of all, small business in America is a business with less than 500 employees. That's according to the US SBA.
Secondly, to Ron's point about taxes... it is a pretty well established fact that a significant number (I see the figure 80% being tossed around the internet but don't have time to try and track down the IRS data where they supposedly got that number, so it may be inflated) of the "wealthy," those making over 250k per year, are actually small business owners who file taxes as individuals. These people frequently don't actually have copious amounts of cash lying around, either. If their business takes in 270k, and they spend 220 or 230 or 240 on payroll, inventory, etc... they didn't actually make all that much.
That's all Ron is saying, I think.
Dabbler, I'm not even sure I can parse your comments. What, precisely, are you asking?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Secondly, to Ron's point about taxes... it is a pretty well established fact that a significant number (I see the figure 80% being tossed around the internet but don't have time to try and track down the IRS data where they supposedly got that number, so it may be inflated) of the "wealthy," those making over 250k per year, are actually small business owners who file taxes as individuals
Wait, what? I really would like to see a source on that before I accept it as pretty well established.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: If their business takes in 270k, and they spend 220 or 230 or 240 on payroll, inventory, etc... they didn't actually make all that much.
Nor would they be TAXED all that much -- not on that personal tax return they are apparently passing the income along to. (Payroll taxes are another story.)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: Somebody better tell samprimary he's being taxed at 250k to 10 millioooooon dooollllaaaars.
Well, it would explain a few things.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
I was asking him which definition of SBA, because online I was finding different definitions: under 100, under 250, under 500. Also, because I think it makes a difference to understand what a SBA is. A financial solution that aims to help a SBA that is under 50 employees intuitively sounds like it would be different from one that helps SBAs at 450 employees. And an SBA at 450 employees seems like it would have a lot more in common with a 1000 employee company.
But my second comment I was just confused why RL was sending me to his (2) to answer my question.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
dabbler: SBA is the Small Business Administration. They only have one definition.
Posted by just_me (Member # 3302) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: dabbler: SBA is the Small Business Administration. They only have one definition.
Actually, that's not true. While it's generally less than 500 people, there is more than 1 definition for how small a business can be and still be considered a "small business" and it varies by industry (as well as in what the context is - some Government contracting rules define it differently - but it's not really worth going there at this point)
What I meant by one standard was more that every business at a given point in time is either a small business or it isn't, with no "sometimes yes, sometimes no" situations, but yes, it is a less simple standard for certain types of businesses.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: How do you prove that Social Security was never INTENDED to provide the entire living wage of the retired? Where is that intent stated in the law? Whose intent are you talking about? And is the intent of Social Security when it was first enacted generations ago the same as what is intended now? --And again, intended by whom?
You're asking me to prove it? I mean, what? That was the intent of the law. You look at the law, you look at the time, you figure out what the intent was. Congress at the time was quite clear about what Social Security was all about. What it wasn't about was a full-benefits retirement plan for all people. The law doesn't necessarily contain a clause saying: "here we lay forth the intended outcomes." This is common knowledge. I don't even know how to begin addressing your question.
As for what is "intended now," well, the system was created a long time ago. The government has a way of adapting to new realities. That many people rely on this system for their whole income is of course true. The idea that it was intended to be so at the beginning? Sorry, no. What I can't figure out is whether you're angry that social security exists, or whether your angry that it doesn't live up to your fantasy of what it is supposed to be.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:From the original 1935 Social Security Act: Sec. 1. [42 U.S.C. 301] For the purpose of enabling each State, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, to furnish financial assistance to aged needy individuals, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year a sum sufficient to carry out the purposes of this title. The sums made available under this section shall be used for making payments to States which have submitted, and had approved by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare[4] (hereinafter referred to as the “Secretary”), State plans for old-age assistance
Note the repeated use of the word "assistance." It was a helping hand, not a total replacement. And for that matter, it was understood that only a needy few (or at least, minority) would collect, not everyone
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