Forbes: The GOP has been playing us for suckers

[ScottishHorn 172]

23 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Those leftist pinkos at Forbes are slamming the President and the GOP with their Fake News again:

By Stan Collender

To say we're all being played by House and Senate Republicans and the Trump administration when it comes to the deficit is my polite way of saying that the GOP is operating the federal equivalent of a huge budget bunco game.

Think of it as three-card monte with you betting billions on which card is the queen of hearts and you'll get the idea.

Still not sure what I mean? Start here.

The Congressional Budget Office last Monday released a report that for the first time officially projected the federal deficit rising to almost $1 trillion in 2019 and then staying at or well above that previously unfathomable level every year through 2028.

 

As I first pointed out in this post, these projections almost certainly underestimate the actual deficit that will occur because CBO assumes that current law will be followed. In this case, that means assuming that the individual cuts put in place by last year's tax bill that are set to phase out will, in fact, expire as scheduled. As Catherine Rampell noted in the Washington Post last Friday, if, as seems likely, the cuts are extended, the budget deficit will be an additional $2.6 trillion higher than what CBO estimated.

Just a few months after the tax bill was signed, the GOP-controlled Congress agreed to increase federal spending and the budget deficit by another $130 billion or so.

Think about this. The same congressional Republicans who over the previous eight years wanted everyone to believe they were fiscal conservatives hell-bent on balancing the budget and not increasing the national debt, sponsored, passed and then danced around the fire because of legislation that will result in a permanent $1 trillion deficit and a debt that will soar to close to 100 percent of GDP by 2028.

 

And...House and Senate Republicans were enabled by a GOP president who during his campaign said he would eliminate the deficit and completely pay off the debt.

But it's not just that congressional Republicans and Trump faked far right and then actually went far left with these two bills that makes what they're doing a federal budget confidence game. They also:

1. Hid the real cost of the tax cut with the phaseouts so they could claim they were being fiscally judicious while they were actually being economically reckless.

2. First insisted the tax cuts would pay for themselves and then admitted in the president's fiscal 2019 budget released several months later that they would actually increase the deficit, big-time.

3. Viciously attacked the nonpartisan and very credible Congressional Budget Office for not producing cost estimates that made it easier for them to do what they wanted.

4. Enacted a huge tax cut that skyrocketed the deficit and a $1.3 trillion fiscal 2019 omnibus appropriation that increased it further and then insisted that the real problem is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

5. Continually complained about mandatory spending but, even though they had the majority in both houses of Congress and control of the White House, didn't seriously try to do anything about it.

6. Refused to do a fiscal 2019 budget resolution because, after first enacting the tax and spending legislation that blasted the annual federal budget deficit to over $1 trillion, didn't want GOP members to have go on record in favor of those same deficits.

7. Kept saying that the deficit problem was because the congressional budget process is broken when, in fact, the process has actually enabled the GOP House and Senate Republican majorities to do exactly what they've wanted to do and hasn't forced them to do anything they've wanted to avoid.

8. First enacted legislation that created the permanent trillion-dollar deficits and then had the unmitigated temerity to demand that the House vote on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would make it illegal for the federal government to run deficits.

9. Implied that the tax cuts and military spending increases they support (and the growing interest payments on the debt caused by those tax cuts and military spending increases) don't have an impact on the deficit.

10. Made it clear that, at the same time they want to reduce revenues and increase funds for the Pentagon, only the domestic part of the budget should be cut.

Just like winning a game of three-card monte played on a cardboard box on a street corner, none of what we're being told about the budget by congressional Republicans and the Trump White House is real. But based on how they've operated so far, they obviously think they can keep running this game successfully.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2018/04/15/on-the-deficit-gop-has-been-playing-us-all-for-suckers/#639bccc94694

I'm on the bandwagon. They are full of shit.  At least the left is honest with the fact that they have no intent to cut spending.  Republicans are about promises, getting elected and getting paid by lobbyists and getting their buddies and family rich....which really includes them all.  It's not a revenue problem though.. government takes in record revenue every quarter.  It's a cliche but it is a spending issue.  Everyone could be taxed 100% and we would still be running huge deficits.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

Repeal and Repl-ICE

[Anastasis 23393]

5 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Repeal and Repl-ICE

ICE, why don't you join me on the balcony.

 

[Huckleberry 32694]

27 minutes ago, ScottishHorn said:

I'm on the bandwagon. They are full of shit.  At least the left is honest with the fact that they have no intent to cut spending.  Republicans are about promises, getting elected and getting paid by lobbyists and getting their buddies and family rich....which really includes them all.  It's not a revenue problem though.. government takes in record revenue every quarter.  It's a cliche but it is a spending issue.  Everyone could be taxed 100% and we would still be running huge deficits.

This is exactly correct. I've been asked before why I always rail on Republicans and the GOP on this site and not the Democrats despite being a libertarian (classical liberal). Well socially I am closer to the Democrats' side because I don't want the government up in my business in the bedroom or elsewhere when it comes to personal choices. The GOP has historically wanted to tell me what I can put in my body and what I can put my body in IYKWIM. 

Fiscally I obviously oppose the Democratic Party and their frequently terrible ideas, but the thing is that they are honest about the fact that they want to increase revenues by taxing in order to pay for their absurd spending. Meanwhile the GOP likes to pretend that they're on the side of fiscal conservatism but that's a complete and total lie. They are not in any way, shape, or form. So in addition to the fact that I have an innate hatred of hypocrisy, in the end there are two major parties. I generally side with one of them on social issues but oppose them economically. I oppose the other one on social issues and also oppose the reality of their economic policies because their lip service is 100% BS.

[Fozzz 152]

There is so much confusion on the issue of public debt, probably in no small part due to the rhetoric from the right analogizing public debt with the private debt of a household.  For a currency issuing sovereign government, deficits will always be mirrored by an equivalent surplus in another part of the economy.  The real limit on spending is the amount of slack in the economy to take up the additional demand pumped into it by deficit spending, and we certainly aren't short on slack.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=10554

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCU

Edited July 2, 2018 by Fozzz

[jimmyjazz 45546]

Somebody check on Anastasis

[jimmyjazz 45546]

3 hours ago, ScottishHorn said:

Everyone could be taxed 100% and we would still be running huge deficits.

This is an interesting limit case.  Where are the data to support this assertion?  Smells bad.

[Anastasis 23393]

5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Somebody check on Anastasis

On the back porch drinking deep eddy lemon and Topo. Feeling fine.  

[ScottishHorn 172]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

This is an interesting limit case.  Where are the data to support this assertion?  Smells bad.

This is sort of correct but its politifact so they are trying to disprove the assertion.  Regardless, they leave out the big issue.  Over 200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/oct/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-100-percent-tax-millionaires-would-only-/

[David Dennison 18652]

Just now, ScottishHorn said:

This is sort of correct but its politifact so they are trying to disprove the assertion.  Regardless, they leave out the big issue.  Over 200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/oct/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-100-percent-tax-millionaires-would-only-/

OMG!!!!! NOT 200 TRILLION!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jimmyjazz 45546]

14 minutes ago, ScottishHorn said:

This is sort of correct but its politifact so they are trying to disprove the assertion.  Regardless, they leave out the big issue.  Over 200 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. 

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/oct/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-100-percent-tax-millionaires-would-only-/

First, that article talks about 100% tax on "millionaires" (no definition).

Second, none of this passes the smell test -- we ran deficit-free under Bill Clinton.  There is no way it's financially impossible to do so again.  This is statistical wordsmithing at its finest, just to rile the base.

[Buzzrock 14870]

Fun game: see how much time the 24 hour news channels devote to this subject in a given day. Arguably the biggest issue facing the nation but they’d rather stoke the fires of contempt to keep eyeballs on their advertisers.

[Fozzz 152]

lol it's pretty fucking far from the biggest issue facing the nation.  

[TwiceHorn 31264]

15 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

This is exactly correct. I've been asked before why I always rail on Republicans and the GOP on this site and not the Democrats despite being a libertarian (classical liberal). Well socially I am closer to the Democrats' side because I don't want the government up in my business in the bedroom or elsewhere when it comes to personal choices. The GOP has historically wanted to tell me what I can put in my body and what I can put my body in IYKWIM. 

Fiscally I obviously oppose the Democratic Party and their frequently terrible ideas, but the thing is that they are honest about the fact that they want to increase revenues by taxing in order to pay for their absurd spending. Meanwhile the GOP likes to pretend that they're on the side of fiscal conservatism but that's a complete and total lie. They are not in any way, shape, or form. So in addition to the fact that I have an innate hatred of hypocrisy, in the end there are two major parties. I generally side with one of them on social issues but oppose them economically. I oppose the other one on social issues and also oppose the reality of their economic policies because their lip service is 100% BS.

Well, they are not terribly honest about what their absurd programs will cost:  they ignore that.  If pushed, or if the republitards talk about a tax cut, they get pretty candid about needing a tax hike, especially on those dirty ol rich bastards.  And it works like a charm. 

But you're right, the GOP are complete hypocrites.

I saw something recently in connection with Canada Day that mentioned their "Free Healthcare."  People are so fucking stupid.

[TwiceHorn 31264]

13 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

This is an interesting limit case.  Where are the data to support this assertion?  Smells bad.

It's certainly hyperbolic, but it's not too far from the truth.  The government, as currently constituted, is in love with spending like a drunken sailor or a manic affluent housewife.  Every dollar of revenue that gets brought in will certainly be spent, probably a couple of times over.

[Pancho 44455]

 

[jimmyjazz 45546]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

It's certainly hyperbolic, but it's not too far from the truth.  The government, as currently constituted, is in love with spending like a drunken sailor or a manic affluent housewife.  Every dollar of revenue that gets brought in will certainly be spent, probably a couple of times over.

Well yeah, we have a budget deficit.  But the implication is that taxing everyone in the US 100% would not be enough to overcome the current deficit.  Assuming that we would simply ramp up spending a proportional amount is perhaps true but it's not in the spirit of the claim.

[pdmd_api 11]

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

I saw something recently in connection with Canada Day that mentioned their "Free Healthcare."  People are so fucking stupid.

You're really upset at this? You seriously think that everyone who points to a nationalized healthcare system truly thinks it's free?

[safe sex 11678]

People just mean they aren't driven to bankruptcy for becoming ill or being injured, but you knew that. 

[JBJ 3648]

Medicare and medicaid have a deficit 1.5 times that of the overall budget deficit.

Which means that we actually run a large surplus ~$400B in the rest of the budget.

[TwiceHorn 31264]

48 minutes ago, pdmd_api said:

You're really upset at this? You seriously think that everyone who points to a nationalized healthcare system truly thinks it's free?

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people that do.  Same ones that like free college for everyone.  Commonly, they're young and haven't had many paychecks and haven't paid a whole lot of taxes.

 

Paying quarterly taxes in addition to withholding, and having to write a check to the IRS every year (and the local property tax authorities), kind of changes your perspective on "free shit."   I'm not saying it should rule out any such programs, but there is a consistent failure on the part of the electorate to consider what things cost.

[Buzzrock 14870]

lol it's pretty fucking far from the biggest issue facing the nation.  

I disagree, but I’m listening. Name another that will have an impact on pretty much every citizen when the chickens come home to roost.

[TwiceHorn 31264]

26 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

People just mean they aren't driven to bankruptcy for becoming ill or being injured, but you knew that. 

No they don't.  Like the people who file for bankruptcy in part because of medical bills, they are profligate spenders with no conception of living within means.  How do I know this?  I filed bankruptcy for a number of people who were sent over the edge by medical bills (in many cases because they declined employee sponsored coverage to get a bigger paycheck).  What they didn't realize is that they were already over the edge.  There is a huge swath of society that you and I would think need to file for bankruptcy that just don't give a shit about bills or debt and never will, and their medical bills, which could be negotiated down to an almost reasonable fraction by responsible people, are but a fraction of their consumer debt.

[Fozzz 152]

Just now, Buzzrock said:

 

I disagree, but I’m listening. Name another that will have an impact on pretty much every citizen when the chickens come home to roost.

 

Our shameful healthcare system and the prevalence of extreme poverty are two that come to mind.

I would like to hear the deficit hawks explain why Japan has almost zero inflation with a debt/GDP ratio more than double the US'.  

[Mojo Hand 4580]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

It's certainly hyperbolic, but it's not too far from the truth.  The government, as currently constituted, is in love with spending like a drunken sailor or a manic affluent housewife.  Every dollar of revenue that gets brought in will certainly be spent, probably a couple of times over.

You're wrong. In fact, it's just the opposite — tax increases make voters pay attention to spending, because they're paying for it directly.  That's what happened in the early 90s and again in 2008.   The real problem is the self-serving and repeatedly disproven Republican theory that if you cut taxes, you'll "starve the beast" and spending cuts will necessarily follow.   The government just borrows to cover the shortfall, and voters get what feels to them like free spending. 

Raise taxes and voters will get behind real spending cuts.  Cut taxes and voters stop giving a shit.   Happens every time.  Yet we never learn, and now Republicans have again massively cut taxes and increased spending and — surprise! — nobody is talking about spending anymore.  Because there's no cost felt to it in the form of taxes. 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Mojo Hand

[seven 1366]

Good grief 

[Fozzz 152]

"Starve the beast" isn't really a theory as much as a tactic for getting the public to accept the stripping/reduction of public goods by reducing the quality of those goods and fear mongering over the debt/deficits.  They obviously don't actually care about deficits - it's all about eliminating the public goods (irrespective of deficits) because those are dollars that aren't going to the wealthy.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Fozzz

[BabaYaga 15208]

Because Japan's economy has been stagnant to shrinking for the better part of two decades.  Their labor participation rate is not good, they have commodity and asset price deflation combined with a declining population.  They've been frantically trying stimulatory monetary policies, asset purchases, even negative interest rates.  The only thing saving their bacon now is an uplifting global market.  They have an inflation target of 2%.  They are desperate to try and raise this, as stagflation is much, much worse.

[David Dennison 18652]

8 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Because Japan's economy has been stagnant to shrinking for the better part of two decades.  Their labor participation rate is not good, they have commodity and asset price deflation combined with a declining population.  They've been frantically trying stimulatory monetary policies, asset purchases, even negative interest rates.  The only thing saving their bacon now is an uplifting global market.  They have an inflation target of 2%.  They are desperate to try and raise this, as stagflation is much, much worse.

Fun fact, Japan and the United States have virtually the same labor participation rate.

[VRHorn 718]

Well, ours was terrible until Trump came to power - then it became fine.

[BabaYaga 15208]

12 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Fun fact, Japan and the United States have virtually the same labor participation rate.

Our economy and population are growing.  That's the difference.  LPR is still awful.  It has/is being used to manipulate the U3 numbers in a positive light.  As is our GDP formula, manipulated in 2013 to reflect R&D as "revenue", effectively giving it roughly a 50bps bump.  We are concerned about inflation (to an extend).  Japan is praying for inflation, as decades of deflation is like a boat anchor around their necks

Edited July 3, 2018 by BabaYaga

[Fozzz 152]

Japan's labor participation rate is a whopping 1.2% lower than the US' (even though median age in Japan is almost 10 years older than the US'), while their activity rate for working age persons is 10% higher than the US'.  The labor market is tighter in Japan than it is here.  

Quote

Japan’s situation should also give pause to economists who want to resurrect the idea of the Phillips Curve, which purports to show a stable relationship between unemployment and inflation. Japan’s persistently low inflation comes even though essentially everyone in Japan who wants a job has one.

Basic econ theory says that as the labor market gets tighter, competition should push up wages, which will then boost consumer prices via increased demand and higher costs. In Japan, nothing of the sort has happened -- wages and prices show little sign of rising despite the disappearance of unemployment. So much for the Phillips Curve.

So Japan’s experience underscores one central, disturbing truth: Economists really have no idea how inflation works. It is simply a mystery. Macroeconomists have been thinking about inflation for decades, but no real progress has been made in understanding where it comes from or how to produce it with policy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-03/japan-buries-our-most-cherished-economic-ideas

[jimmyjazz 45546]

I suspect most people really don't care all that much about the economy.  They care about their pet social issues and they care about their net pay.  It's easy to gripe about economic issues when the other party is in power.  Flip the script, they shut up.  (A true "both sides" argument.)

[Pancho 44455]

 

[pdmd_api 11]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people that do.  Same ones that like free college for everyone.  Commonly, they're young and haven't had many paychecks and haven't paid a whole lot of taxes.

 

Paying quarterly taxes in addition to withholding, and having to write a check to the IRS every year (and the local property tax authorities), kind of changes your perspective on "free shit."   I'm not saying it should rule out any such programs, but there is a consistent failure on the part of the electorate to consider what things cost.

Give me a break, you're making a disingenuous point to attack "free healthcare". Sure, there are probably more than zero people who think it's truly "free" but that number is relatively small compared to those of us who advocate for a nationalized healthcare system. There are a lot of dumb things people think, like libertarianism is truly how we should operate in a free society.

[David Dennison 18652]

26 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Our economy and population are growing.  That's the difference.  LPR is still awful.  It has/is being used to manipulate the U3 numbers in a positive light.  As is our GDP formula, manipulated in 2013 to reflect R&D as "revenue", effectively giving it roughly a 50bps bump.  We are concerned about inflation (to an extend).  Japan is praying for inflation, as decades of deflation is like a boat anchor around their necks

If the United States wants to see what its post-growth future looks like, it should look to Japan. We are no longer an emerging economy. Two percent growth over the long-term is probably the best we can hope for.

[Fozzz 152]

Greenspan gets to the heart of the "debt crisis" bullshit here.  The existence of sufficient tangible resources is what counts, not the make-believe accounting entries, and our policies should be directed towards maximizing and leveraging those resources (which we aren't doing).  But then again, if we did that we might have real wage growth and so some money would not be funneled to the wealthiest...

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Fozzz

[BabaYaga 15208]

11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

If the United States wants to see what its post-growth future looks like, it should look to Japan. We are no longer an emerging economy. Two percent growth over the long-term is probably the best we can hope for.

Oh, so the largest economy on earth with it's high debt and high income per capita and tightening monetary policy, and rising population growth rate is no longer an "emerging" economy?  With Japan as our target?  That's some amazing insight.  Guess you forgot about commodity resources?  And 2%?  With leading economic indices, UE claims, new orders, the ISM NO index, permits, leading credit index, interest rate spreads, and consumer expectations for biz conditions all improving.....2% is the best we can hope for.  The New Norm, right....

[Thermos H. Christ 478]

Remember in 2016 when Trump won an election that no other GOP primary candidate would have won by going to the rust belt and pretending to be Michael Moore? Promising affordable universal health care and generally presenting himself as the champion fighting for the interests of the working class over the big businesses who sold them out? Predictably, the Trump/Ryan/McConnell machine has done nothing except reduce access to healthcare, favor big business over workers and consumers, and generally do their very best to make life harder for poor people whenever possible.

Bernie also did pretty well in the rust belt/midwest primaries.

That's why the good people of the DNC, after absorbing the hard lessons of their unfathomable pants-shitting faceplant in the 2016 election, have concluded that populist candidates have no chance and the party's only hope of returning to relevance is running tepid corporate-owned centrists (ideally a Kennedy or a Rockefeller or somesuch if possible) and being "civil." Now that the highest-ranking Dem in Congress got primaried by a left-leaning populist, they're doubling down and telling us that we might as well just give up on ever winning the midwest if such people are even going to have a seat at the table in a hypothetical Dem congress. Because they so clearly have their finger on the pulse of that region.

How did these become the only viable options? And how hard did the Simpsons nail it on this one (DNC vs RNC) lo those many years ago?

Edited July 3, 2018 by Thermos H. Christ

[thrillhammer 683]

On 7/1/2018 at 5:31 PM, Ragnarok said:

There may be some valid reasons to vote for democrats.  But vote for democrats so we can return to fiscal sanity isn't one of them. 

it sure as fuck is.

[TwiceHorn 31264]

4 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

You're wrong. In fact, it's just the opposite — tax increases make voters pay attention to spending, because they're paying for it directly.  That's what happened in the early 90s and again in 2008.   The real problem is the self-serving and repeatedly disproven Republican theory that if you cut taxes, you'll "starve the beast" and spending cuts will necessarily follow.   The government just borrows to cover the shortfall, and voters get what feels to them like free spending. 

Raise taxes and voters will get behind real spending cuts.  Cut taxes and voters stop giving a shit.   Happens every time.  Yet we never learn, and now Republicans have again massively cut taxes and increased spending and — surprise! — nobody is talking about spending anymore.  Because there's no cost felt to it in the form of taxes. 

I don't disagree with this.  I did say that the government, as currently constituted, is a spendthrift.  I think that's accurate.  Raising taxes might cure that, don't think it had much effect in 1986.  Although maybe it did by the Clinton administration.

 

As far as I can tell, there are people who are concerned about revenue, spending, and the deficit, and those who aren't and that includes personal finance as well as national.

Edited July 3, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31264]

2 hours ago, pdmd_api said:

Give me a break, you're making a disingenuous point to attack "free healthcare". Sure, there are probably more than zero people who think it's truly "free" but that number is relatively small compared to those of us who advocate for a nationalized healthcare system. There are a lot of dumb things people think, like libertarianism is truly how we should operate in a free society.

I'm not really attacking government-sponsored healthcare, I'm attacking the notion that it's free.  The young Bernsters were very excited about "free" this and "free" that, rarely acknowledging that it isn't free and that the tuition payments and book costs that bother them so much, and the healthcare bills that they mostly don't have, could be reflected in less take-home pay, another thing that they don't generally have, but would bitch about if they did.

[pdmd_api 11]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm not really attacking government-sponsored healthcare, I'm attacking the notion that it's free.  The young Bernsters were very excited about "free" this and "free" that, rarely acknowledging that it isn't free and that the tuition payments and book costs that bother them so much, and the healthcare bills that they mostly don't have, could be reflected in less take-home pay, another thing that they don't generally have, but would bitch about if they did.

Is your conclusion that anyone young who wants nationalized healthcare thinks it's 100% free? Care to back this up with some actual data? 

[TwiceHorn 31264]

6 minutes ago, pdmd_api said:

Is your conclusion that anyone young who wants nationalized healthcare thinks it's 100% free? Care to back this up with some actual data? 

No it isn't.  Just the ones who  call it free and apparently do not consider that it has cost.  No one with a shred of common sense would call it "free" healthcare.  Perhaps it is loose terminology on their part, but it's idiotically imprecise.

 

This asshole, for instance.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Jhawk 1075]

Surprise surprise... Politicians are spending money that isn't theirs.  Without a balanced budget amendment this will continue until we are bankrupt.  On the bright side, the economy is humming so I suggest you make hay while the sun is shining.  Then stock it away for when the rains come because they will come.

[Fozzz 152]

A balanced budget amendment would be incredibly stupid.  Red meat for the rubes.  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

No it isn't.  Just the ones who  call it free and apparently do not consider that it has cost.  No one with a shred of common sense would call it "free" healthcare.  Perhaps it is loose terminology on their part, but it's idiotically imprecise.

 

This asshole, for instance.

 

 

Well, that asshole is a basketball player.  He isn't representative of all people.  Everyone has twitter.  And even he understands that "free" is tax and spend, and that doctors aren't going to be volunteers.  So it isn't actually free, especially for a guy making 5 million a year or whatever he makes.

What he and everyone else means is that both costs and payments will flow through taxation.  Many who say "free" even expect there to be a premium of some sort.  Others expect a tax line item like Medicare or SS.

[pdmd_api 11]

4 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Well, that asshole is a basketball player.  He isn't representative of all people.  Everyone has twitter.  And even he understands that "free" is tax and spend, and that doctors aren't going to be volunteers.  So it isn't actually free, especially for a guy making 5 million a year or whatever he makes.

What he and everyone else means is that both costs and payments will flow through taxation.  Many who say "free" even expect there to be a premium of some sort.  Others expect a tax line item like Medicare or SS.

The principled libertarian lawyer cannot wrap his mind around people using words in ways that don't fit an exact dictionary definition. Perhaps JR should use something else, but to suggest that he actually thinks healthcare could somehow be performed at 0 percent cost to him is, again, a disingenuous argument.

[Jhawk 1075]

21 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

A balanced budget amendment would be incredibly stupid.  Red meat for the rubes.  

It might be incredibly restrictive which makes implementation dumb when there is an emergency/war.  For sure, I agree with that.  But that doesn't mean that a balanced budget amendment isn't the only way to get the budget balanced.  Because at this point, it is the only way we ever balance a budget or see a surplus again.

[TwiceHorn 31264]

I won't pretend to know what anyone is thinking.  But anyone who would call government subsidized healthcare "free," is barely worthy of serious consideration.

 

I am resigned to the fact that government-subsidized/mandated, etc. healthcare is an inevitability if not an absolute necessity.  It's not a comment on that.