Political Roundtable/Black hole of doom Part Deux

[verbal8]

Just reverse the Bush tax cuts for the top 1%
Close the corporate loop holes like Reagan did before.
Get the estate taxes back to Clinton levels
Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fund and enforce Wall Street
Change the oil speculation margin requirements
Cut defense spending

Basically do most the things Clinton did to fix this last time.

That will take care of at least 70-80% of what needs done.

Why didn't Obama get any of this done when he had total control of the Presidency, House and Senate? You can argue that the Republicans would have filibustered the tax cuts, but Obama should have been able to implement most of the other stuff.

I am not sure if the health care plan that ended up being passed was the right way to address the situation. Doing nothing was not really an option long term. If you take all the other steps to tighten up the countries finance, but allow health care spending to run out of control, it will end up bankrupting the country.

[nate33]

The health care bill didn't solve any long term health care financing problems. The CBO projections are deliberately disingenuous because they assume 10 years of health care taxes and only six years of health care spending.

The main price saving feature of Obamacare is price controls. Price controls won't work in the long run. Doctors will stop entering the medical practice because the payoff isn't worth the years of schooling.

[Zonkerbl]

The cure to stop health care costs from rising is to stop saving people's lives. Stop cancer research, stop AIDS research, stop pharmaceutical research into cures/treatments for diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Problem solved.

[dobrojim]

get rid of private companies who pay back much less of what they
collect than a single govt payer would. I think a number of states
are going to end up going this route before the entire nation figures
out that it's for the best. CEOs making 10-100s of millions leading
for profit health insurance companies are leaches on the economy.

[Spence]

The health care bill didn't solve any long term health care financing problems. The CBO projections are deliberately disingenuous because they assume 10 years of health care taxes and only six years of health care spending.

Nah, that's false. I know where you got that falsehood and since you seem to really believe the stuff you read in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages [as opposed to the reporting in the rest of the paper, which frequently directly contradicts the editorial pages], I'm not surprised you bought it. As the CBO report makes clear [read it here], revenues and costs are minimal in the first four years.



You really have to be an ideologue to trust the WSJ editorial pages over the CBO.

The main price saving feature of Obamacare is price controls. Price controls won't work in the long run. Doctors will stop entering the medical practice because the payoff isn't worth the years of schooling.

Nah, that won't happen either. The right-wing said doctors would get out of medicine because Medicare would prevent them from moving from one part of the country to another, essentially tying them to a single location for as long as they practiced medicine. [Saint Ronald Reagan made that a major point of some of his speeches in the 1960s.] Never happened. Just scare tactics.

[Spence]

This is hilarious -- Donald Trump's birther conspiracies are really paying off. He's at 21% in this new poll of New Hampshire, second only to Romney, who is at 27 percent. I think we'll see other GOP candidates taking up this line because it took Trump from zero to second place in New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. The longer the GOP wallows in this birther stuff the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Bear in mind that Romney's numbers are not reliable since it appears very few likely GOP primary voters are aware of the healthcare reforms he passed as governor of Massachusetts and, when informed of this, over 60% declare they would never vote for such a candidate.

The GOP primaries are going to be a hoot. I can't wait.

[greendale]

The health care bill didn't solve any long term health care financing problems. The CBO projections are deliberately disingenuous because they assume 10 years of health care taxes and only six years of health care spending.

There are even bigger problems with the bill. As I recall the chronology goes as follows:

March 19, 2010 -- Pelosi famously says "We have to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill".
March 20, 2010 -- CBO presents its' analysis of the bill (as referenced by Spence).
March 21, 2010 -- Bill passes the House.

Furthermore, the CBO's prediction record is even worse than our Wizards' predictions. I sure wouldn't bet on them (other than perhaps as a contrary indicator).

[Spence]

CBO projections are pretty darn good. Certainly much better than anything you'll get on the WSJ editorial pages. [Still waiting for that mid-1990s economic Depression the Journal told us was inevitable once those Clinton-era tax rates kicked in.]

[Spence]

"We've gone to 50th in education and number one in gonorrhea, and that's the accomplishments of an all Republican government."

-- Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, explaining why he's running again for his old position.

Love this guy's attitude, but the Democrats generally don't do too well in states where the average person thinks evolution is a liberal conspiracy to kill God.

[Nivek]

"We've gone to 50th in education and number one in gonorrhea, and that's the accomplishments of an all Republican government."

-- Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, explaining why he's running again for his old position.

Love this guy's attitude, but the Democrats generally don't do too well in states where the average person thinks evolution is a liberal conspiracy to kill God.

It's not?

[nate33]

"We've gone to 50th in education and number one in gonorrhea, and that's the accomplishments of an all Republican government."

-- Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, explaining why he's running again for his old position.

Love this guy's attitude, but the Democrats generally don't do too well in states where the average person thinks evolution is a liberal conspiracy to kill God.

South Carolina is the lone exception. If you make a list of states with the worst economies, worst unemployment, worst debt, the top of the list is a who's who of blue states.

[Spence]

South Carolina is the lone exception. If you make a list of states with the worst economies, worst unemployment, worst debt, the top of the list is a who's who of blue states.

Where are you getting your information? The state with the highest debt as a percentage of spending [2011] is Nevada [45.2%], a state where Republicans have dominated state government. New Jersey [37.4] is second and Texas [31.5] is third. For all the talk about how bad California's [29.3] debt situation is [and it is bad], Texas is worse and that state has been controlled entirely by Republicans for years.

As far as unemployment is concerned, California is bad at 12.2, but Florida, which has been entirely controlled by the GOP for years, is next at 11.5. Super-red Idaho is at 9.7, super-red Arizona is 9.6, super-red Georgia is 10.2, red Kentucky is 10.4, super-red Mississippi is 10.2, Nevada is worst at 13.6, super-red South Carolina is 10.2, red Tennessee is 9.6, super-red Alabama is 9.3. [All numbers are the latest seasonally adjusted numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.]

There are plenty of blue states with bad unemployment problems, but that's because it is a national problem. If there is any evidence that blue states are particularly prone to high unemployment I'd like to see it.

[DCZards]

South Carolina is the lone exception. If you make a list of states with the worst economies, worst unemployment, worst debt, the top of the list is a who's who of blue states.

And if you make a list of the states with the lowest academic achievement and worst poverty the top of the list would be a who's who of red states.

[nate33]

The top 5 states for lowest unemployment:
1 NORTH DAKOTA 3.7 - Deep Red
2 NEBRASKA 4.3 - Deep Red
3 SOUTH DAKOTA 4.8 - Red
4 NEW HAMPSHIRE 5.4 - Purple
5 VERMONT 5.6 - Deep Blue

Bottom 5 states in lowest unemployment:
46 MICHIGAN 10.4 - Blue
48 RHODE ISLAND 11.2 - Deep Blue
49 FLORIDA 11.5 - Purple
50 CALIFORNIA 12.2 - Deep Blue
51 NEVADA 13.6 - Purple

Color designations based on this chart. Chart shows the average margin of victory in the last four presidential elections. I counted the 0-5 states as purple:

[barelyawake]

Not that I care about defending Nancy Pelosi, but I truly hate the whole gotcha nonsense. Nancy said they had to pass the bill so "you" (the American public, not they the Congress) can know what's in it. And by that, she obviously meant that once the bill passes, the amount of misinformation, "death panels," will be shown to be false and reality of the legislation in practice will be revealed. Taken in the context of what she said before that snippet, it was quite apparent the point she was making.

Debate policy, but don't play those Fox news word games to try to score cheap political points. That s#it gets tiresome.

P.S. I wish every Democrat would feign ignorance of what the made-up phrase "Obamacare" means. "Oh, you mean the health care bill? Well, if you would stop using babylike phrases, perhaps I could understand you better." Bachman chants, "Obama should repeal Obamacare." Here's a hint for ya, sister. Perhaps if you want a President to repeal a law, you should stop naming it after him.

[hands11]

The cure to stop health care costs from rising is to stop saving people's lives. Stop cancer research, stop AIDS research, stop pharmaceutical research into cures/treatments for diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Problem solved.

That would do it.

[hands11]

get rid of private companies who pay back much less of what they
collect than a single govt payer would. I think a number of states
are going to end up going this route before the entire nation figures
out that it's for the best. CEOs making 10-100s of millions leading
for profit health insurance companies are leaches on the economy.

Health care insurance should be not for profit. I agree.

But we have a tax collection problem as much or more than a spending problem.

Close the loop holes.
Get Corporation actually paying a normal historical level of taxes again. Same with the top 1%
Cut the military waste. Stop building extra engines they dont need and planes they dont use.
Turn off the damn street likes and lights in all these government building. Pet Peeve

That alone would fix most of what is wrong and get the economy growing.
Was that the old Replubican monta. Grow your way out of it. Well once you get the tax right, you can. Lower taxes and trying to do this was a loosing formula because of diminishing returns.

You also need to raise the medicare tax up from 1%.

Also, anyone notice we don't us GNP anymore ? The money is there. We just have to get corporations to pay their share like they used to.

[hands11]

The health care bill didn't solve any long term health care financing problems. The CBO projections are deliberately disingenuous because they assume 10 years of health care taxes and only six years of health care spending.

Nah, that's false. I know where you got that falsehood and since you seem to really believe the stuff you read in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages [as opposed to the reporting in the rest of the paper, which frequently directly contradicts the editorial pages], I'm not surprised you bought it. As the CBO report makes clear [read it here], revenues and costs are minimal in the first four years.



You really have to be an ideologue to trust the WSJ editorial pages over the CBO.

The main price saving feature of Obamacare is price controls. Price controls won't work in the long run. Doctors will stop entering the medical practice because the payoff isn't worth the years of schooling.

Nah, that won't happen either. The right-wing said doctors would get out of medicine because Medicare would prevent them from moving from one part of the country to another, essentially tying them to a single location for as long as they practiced medicine. [Saint Ronald Reagan made that a major point of some of his speeches in the 1960s.] Never happened. Just scare tactics.

Another clue is he calls it Obamacare. Dead giveaway.
He probably talks about Travelgate, Lewinskigate, and all the other gates they had under Clinton. Republicans. The masters of spin, rhetoric, failed economic policies and fear mongering.

As someone who has been complaining about the debt for 20 years, I find it laughable that the Republican have all the sudden started acting like they are the ones to fix this. They are the ones that created most of it and they still don't want to own why there is a problem. Their two main agendas which is tax cuts for the wrong people and bloated military are most of why we have this problem.

1 Trillion for Iraq alone. I remember this being projected as like 100 billion and that Iraqs oil would play for their own rebuild. And they were doing all of this off budget to hide the cost

80% of the national debt can be assigned to two presidents. Reagan and Bush Jr.

[hands11]

This is hilarious -- Donald Trump's birther conspiracies are really paying off. He's at 21% in this new poll of New Hampshire, second only to Romney, who is at 27 percent. I think we'll see other GOP candidates taking up this line because it took Trump from zero to second place in New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. The longer the GOP wallows in this birther stuff the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Bear in mind that Romney's numbers are not reliable since it appears very few likely GOP primary voters are aware of the healthcare reforms he passed as governor of Massachusetts and, when informed of this, over 60% declare they would never vote for such a candidate.

The GOP primaries are going to be a hoot. I can't wait.

It will be a battle for who can out crazy the next one. I think this train is about to meet the end of the tracks. I thought the Obama election was the one to put them wonder the dessert for 40 years. Now I realize I was one election early. I forgot people don't turn out for mid terms.

[Severn Hoos]

Or, you could look at which states people actually want to live in, since it's becoming easier and easier to vote with your feet.

The top 10 states in percentage population growth, 2000-2010:

1. Nevada
2. Arizona
3. Utah
4. Idaho
5. Texas
6. North Carolina
7. Georgia
8. Florida
9. Colorado
10. South Carolina


And the bottom 10:

41. Pennsylvania
42. Illinois
43. Massachusetts
44. Vermont
45. West Virginia
46. New York
47. Ohio
48. Louisiana
49. Rhode Island
50. Michigan

I don't have a color-coded map, but I think I do see a pattern in there somewhere.