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Hope and Change! woo!

  • #41
so swords your basically in the same boat as i have been in....in all honesty i hate it, so i am doing everything within my power to change my situation, complaining and whining for a hand out is a poor way to get ahead.....in 2008 my wife was working 80 hours a week between two jobs, i was putting 50 in here at the paper and picking up some hours here and there at the theater and installing carpet with a buddy some nights and weekends......doing all that we cleared around $50,000 combined.....granted im very much Anglo-Celtic and cant stand work cutting into my play time so i would cram 50 plus hours of work into 3 or 4 days so i could spend 4 fishing or hunting atleast one usually 2 weeks a month....

even still i was not happy with the figure so guess what? rather than sit and complain bout it, demand the federal government pick up my health insurance tab and free up funds, my wife and i completed the necessary steps to become partners in the paper rather than employees....by the end of 2012 im planning on the wife and i pulling down alot closer to the $70,000 and higher a year mark not working any harder than i have been for the last 16 years.....and we are doing this on our own, with two kids and not asking for a handout or help from anyone.....

i dont complain that i drive a 14 year old Jeep Cherokee(which my oldest girl will inherit this summer and i plan on replacing it with an even older vehicle i can work on myself)

i dont complain that up until this year my TV's have come out of pawnshops

i dont complain that when push came to shove i had no problem eating peanut butter sandwiches to get by

i dont complain that no one helped me when times were tight short of my parents watching the girls so i could work a second job

if i aint happy with my situation i dont cry foul and ask for a handout or help, i suck it up and do what needs to be done and in turn reap the rewards for my hard work.....and in return i dont like ppl taking money out of my paycheck to pay for the welfare and health care of someone that refuses to help themselves....ive been in their shoes....i drug myself out of it......you want me to pay for healthcare for adults? make them piss clean to get it.....want me to pay for welfare? make every one of them that asks for help piss clean and show they are trying to find work.......ive got no problems picking up the tab for healthcare for kids who's parents are lazy but i sure in the hell aint paying for the parents......you want my financial help? prove to me your trying......prove to me you aint using the funds on drugs.....if you can afford to get high or sit on your arse in front of a TV you dont need my money......
 
  • #42
BigBella - every rich person in the world will go to the best hospitals in the world - Americans also fly to Sweden for surgeries and treatments. But you're right, we have terrific hospitals and doctors - I don't favor getting rid of them!

Reasearch2000 did a poll of the people who switched to Brown in the election. "A plurality of people who switched -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it."

So more swing voters think the Health Care bill doesn't go far enough. Fewer think it goes too far. And that's of the people who switched votes. Poll after poll shows that Americans want a national health care insurance system. Yet neither party does. Why? Both parties get too much money from the insurance industry. They depend on it. The rest of the world does it and it works - and they do it many different ways, from public health care, to public/private hybrids, to public health care insurance only. Nobody has to go bankrupt and lose their house because they get sick. Nobody has to choose not to get treatment. And they pay thousands of dollars less every year per person. It would take a behemoth of a tax cut to have that sort of effect on your wallet. Nobody over there is clamoring to switch to our system. That should tell you something.
 
  • #43
So more swing voters think the Health Care bill doesn't go far enough. Fewer think it goes too far. And that's of the people who switched votes. Poll after poll shows that Americans want a national health care insurance system. Yet neither party does. Why? Both parties get too much money from the insurance industry.

One of the issues I have with polls like that -- and the associated argument that the proposed health care legislation didn't go far enough -- is that no one seems to have any handle on the specific language of the bill, its projected cost, or myriad other aspects. How can you foster an opinion of anything without legitimate information?

When Medicare was introduced, its projected cost a decade-out was several orders of magnitude less than the actual cost and unpaid debt that we face today; and it is strange to think that the only governmental program that ever came in remotely on budget was the moon landing (which we all know was shot at a soundstage in Culver City, heh, heh, heh) . . .
 
  • #44
I drive my 2010 Rolls down to the welfare office on Tuesdays and the free clinic on Thursdays so I don't actually have time to work from 4pm til 4am in a mailshop between asking for all these handouts... :D

How many $0.10 Top Ramen dinners do you think I lived on to afford those two Nep books I sent you? There's no point in us trying "out poor" each other... LOL

All I am saying is if they had a public healthcare / open enrollment for medicaid where I could pay a premium and get care I'd be all over it. I never asked for "free" care, free electricity or anything like that. Merely care I can afford that actually does something for me. Anytime an insurance company is run for profit MY welfare is not their main concern, their bottom line is. I pay a monthly premium to get the excitement of having a card but still have to pay for 90% of each office visit so I don't go. I still think there's something awry in my mouth despite what these 3 idiots have told me but I can't afford to see yet another doctor younger than me tell me there's "probably nothing" to worry about. Haven't even seen the bills from the first 3 yet. And to think I supported all those politicians for 20 years by smoking their lobbyists tobacco products... now THAT'S a tax! Don't smoke kids! LOL

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-19-2010/the-first-364-days-23-hours
 
  • #45
Looks like I am tardy to the party... LOL

The deficit actually started during the Great Depression under Roosevelt and has been ballooning like interest ever since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

What started it? Social programs the government did not have money to fund.


What I don't understand is how we all think this is the federal governments job to provide health insurance? I heard multiple times that the state of Massachusets already has a public health plan. Shouldn't that tell you something?

Seems to me I recall reading something way back in my HS government class, that if it isn't mentioned in the constitution, then it is the States domain. If the federal government feels it needs to take over a certain aspect of law, they can as long as 2/3 of the states ratify it in the form of a constitutional amendment. I do not recall voting as to whether we should give this power to the federal government? So wouldn't it still be within the states domain and not the federal governments?

Seems to me some officials at the State level agree with this chain of thought.

http://www.wptv.com/content/health/story/health-care-reform-lawsuit-florida-to-sue-mccollum/XwNhECj-F0-nJ2XD4IHiyg.cspx
 
  • #46
You think sick poor people actually care whether it's the state or the feds who run the health care thing? I can assure you I first hand I don't care who I get help from.

Generally this is the only kind of help I expect from the government at any level fed or state:

617k2nz.jpg


When they spoke about actual help for actual wage slaves, hey I'm all for that! If the republicans have a way to help why aren't they trying to do it? As I say I don't care who helps just so long as we get help! I don't get what's so hard to understand about that. I'm not going to worry about money I'll never have or the high taxes paid by people who make more in a year then my entire town makes. It's not like I'm going to suddenly have a windfall and owe all kinds of taxes, ever. I'll be lucky if my carcass gets stuffed in a box when I croak.
 
  • #47
That is a good question. Perhaps they feel it is not the federal governments job to help with Healthcare.

Honestly I don't know. That is why I feel a two party system is a failure. They do nothing but squabble over every single issue and nothing ever gets solved.
 
  • #48
I drive my 2010 Rolls down to the welfare office on Tuesdays and the free clinic on Thursdays so I don't actually have time to work from 4pm til 4am in a mailshop between asking for all these handouts... :D


i know your saying this tongue in cheek but it does happen regularly.....i live in the county in this state with the highest unemployment rate but it aint for lack of jobs, got a bunch of them listed in the paper they cant fill.....not minimum wage jobs, not jobs requiring a degree.....the reason? most the natives here want to sit on their arse and live on government hand outs......they could all be millionaires but rather than doing anything they would rather argue over a handout....the tribes here own more oil than any single entity in the state but they are happier living on welfare and complaining that the feds aint giving them enough money, they sit on half a billion dollars in pure profit and would rather do nothing live in government housing, live on food stamps and a welfare check than lift a finger.....they have become professional victims incapable of doing anything for themselves.....got a neighbor on welfare, 5 kids..sits at home all day...drives a 2008 pickup......joke round here has always been that a welfare check will make a cadilac payment.....

you want me to get behind stuff, get rid of the parasites....you want a health care program, have the state do it, much better than the feds....you dont have some idiot from California screaming they need more of your tax money so the illegals get good health care too......i love the setup we got for providing health insurance for kids who's parents cant afford it.....but we run it at the state level and have to put it to a vote of the tax payers as to expand it or not.....my girls dont qualify but when it came up for vote last year i voted for it....but as i said, its funded by our state that runs a balanced budget, major changes must be approved by the taxpayers and the need for it by the individual is checked out twice a year....its difficult to abuse......
 
  • #49
I agree about the professional mooches, however a lot of hardworking, yet still poor, people get run over in the process of not doing anything because of the phobia of not wanting the possibility of there a small minority of mooches. There will always be mooches leaking through no matter what kinda safeguards we try to erect. I certainly see banking CEOs getting million dollar bonuses while the bank teller staff gets pay cuts as being "top dog" mooches... Our wages were froze this year but not cut yet.

As far as dropping the two party system when did we ever have one of those? All we have are the liars and the lying liars, it's so hard to decide which one to vote for! :D
 
  • #50
As far as dropping the two party system when did we ever have one of those? All we have are the liars and the lying liars, it's so hard to decide which one to vote for! :D

Well said. :)


---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 PM ----------



What this country needs is not to move to the left or to the right. It needs to rise up, closer towards democracy.
 
  • #51
Didn't someone have money left over ? Reagan or someone..

Nixon. The thing is, if the economy is booming, you have "full employment" (>4% unemployment). With full employment, you have a good tax base. With a good tax base, you have good revenue recovery, which means you can balance the budget and look real good. Conversely, if you have a recession, you have fewer people working and a smaller tax base, which means you have less revenue to work with. Your choices are to either spend more than you have to kickstart the economy, which temporarily makes the budget look sick, in the hopes that more people go back to work.... or tax the daylights out of the folks who have jobs, thus making some more people and business go under or leave. The latter would be New York State!
 
  • #52
there is a third option jim......cut spending which is what we have to do at home and truthfully makes the most sense.....you can also cut taxes and encourage growth......with what we pay in taxes i could hire two more ppl.....had to lay someone off recently cause money was tight.....cut my taxes in half and i could have kept them employed......
 
  • #53
I'm not thrilled with that approach because a lot of good people have to suffer. I'm also not happy with people who live off of welfare, taking abusive advantage of the system. What ticks me off the most are filthy rich people, who can't spend their money fast enough on frivolous things, won't help those in need. I don't wanna hear about "trickle down effect" as an excuse to exempt them from paying taxes. It's all about greed and selfishness with them. Robin Hood had the right idea. His tactics were just a little less than ethical. I say tax the crap out of rich people and let that revenue go toward creating real jobs and education to attain more than factory positions. And I'd be thrilled to eliminate vices as well as tax the daylights out of them so people wouldn't spend their money on them and then have to cure them when their liver and lungs are destroyed. Let's do multiple things simultaneously instead of one or the other.

How's that for being opinionated!
 
  • #54
I like that idea...

They say 90% of all the wealth belongs to the top 10% of the rich. Well then let the top 10% of the rich pay for 90% of the countries expenses for keeping thier wealth protected.

Not sure about taxing vices. I find it morally wrong to take advantage of someone's chemical dependancy. Do you think they like killing themselves? No they do it because they are addicted. If you want to stop vices, prevent it from being manufactured. But that won't happen because vice taxes aren't about stopping people and caring for them when they fall ill. It is about revenue generation under a thinly veiled banner of health care and well being.

Kind of like how they advertise that casinos in my state that pay for education... yeah right. Then why is my local township talking about closing schools and laying off teachers when all the while casinos are popping up left and right.

Vice taxes are a quick buck with a seemingly never ending supply of addicts who become addicted to them.
 
  • #55
you want to create jobs? the answer isnt taxing the crap out of rich ppl.....the rich ppl will just leave the country....the answer is to tax the crap out of imported goods.....make it so the junk from China isnt the cheapest stuff.....it forces competition and allows companies in the US a chance to compete.....US employers cant compete with the Chinese near slave labor.....thats why most the crap that used to be made in the US is now made in china.....they can pay chinese workers a fraction of what they can pay an American......so tax the crap out of the imports and drop the taxes on employers that set up shop 100% within the US....taxing the crap out of the rich will just force more jobs out of the country.....its a theory that doesnt work.....

BTW all those frivolous things the rich buy that you complain about.....takes ppl to make those things, it takes jobs to make those things, it takes jobs to sell those things to the rich......the rich guy in the huge freaking house is often paying a landscaper or two, they are paying ppl to clean their house they are paying ppl to wash their cars, they are paying ppl to do all the things they dont want to do......guess what? if that house is on US soil those are jobs......

not everyone is going to succeed, its just the way it is......the sooner you come to grips with that fact the better, life aint fair, its never going to be fair, sit and complain about it or do what you need to do to carve out a piece of your own.....things wouldnt be so bad if individuals didnt insist on living outside their means....i wanted a TV for my bedroom, i didnt go put a 27 inch flat screen on a credit card, i went down to the pawn shop and handed over $60 cash for a 18 inch regular old TV.....alot of the ppl i see around here complaining they are on hard times bought a house costing twice what mine did, have TV's in most rooms of their houses usually new flatscreens, one in every kids bedroom, satellite TV with all the channels, 2008 or newer vehicles in the driveway, usually 2 of them plus something for the teenager(s)......and now complain cause they are a hundred thousand dollars in debt.....i aint even close to that and i bought a house 3 years ago.....cheap credit and idiots living on it until now has more to do with the sad state of affairs than rich ppl.....

i hate ppl that whine about rich ppl.....dammit i want to be one and i know for a fact whining aint going to get me there, infact whining is whats gonna keep me from it.....
 
  • #56
It's not about complaining about the rich. It is about insuring everyone pays a proportional amount of tax.

I am all for free enterprise and working hard. If you want to succeed, work for it. But what I don't like is seeing wealthy people being brought up on tax evasion charges. They should be treated like Madoff and put in a cell to rot as they are just as bad as those sucking the system dry by being career victims.
 
  • #57
on tax evasion i agree but i dont think Bill Gates should pay a higher tax rate than me just cause he makes more than a certain amount.....tax him more cause some of the products he sells are mostly made overseas? yeah ill go with that......tax the hell out of him just cause he has the money? cant agree with that.....he put in the time and the risk to build up his company, i didnt.....im all for charging the hell out of the tax evaders.....aint for taxing someone more just on the simple fact they are rich....
 
  • #58
I strongly disagree that the outcome of the MA senatorial election is unrelated to the campaign. I live in the most liberal part of MA imaginable, and a lot of would-be-Coakley-voters I know simply didn't vote out of lies she spread in her adds. This isn't some sort of revolution. The people of Massachusetts's are no more or less Republican than they used to be. We have our share of independents who voted for Ted in the past but were turned off by her negativity and political laxity. Yes, we are more Republican in that we have 1 Republican senator, but there hasn't been any major shift in the way people think.
If you had been in the state when her adds were airing and heard what many of the most hard-core liberals had to say about her tactics and morality, you'd see that she was a very, very difficult person to trust. All she had to do to win was say "I'll continue to fight for the late Ted Kennedy's vision of Universal healthcare," and she didn't. I can't vote, but I would not have supported her even ideologically if our super-majority wasn't at stake and it didn't coincide with whether or not the democrats could implement radical healthcare reform.
Between the loss of the super majority, the democrat's squabbling amongst themselves, and Obama's tendency towards compromise and bipartisanship, it looks like whatever we get, it's not what we were promised.
What an un-CP like first post after my ~1 year of silence. Hi Terra forums!
 
  • #59
you want to create jobs? the answer isnt taxing the crap out of rich ppl.....the rich ppl will just leave the country....the answer is to tax the crap out of imported goods.....make it so the junk from China isnt the cheapest stuff.....it forces competition and allows companies in the US a chance to compete.....US employers cant compete with the Chinese near slave labor.....thats why most the crap that used to be made in the US is now made in china.....they can pay chinese workers a fraction of what they can pay an American......so tax the crap out of the imports and drop the taxes on employers that set up shop 100% within the US....taxing the crap out of the rich will just force more jobs out of the country.....its a theory that doesnt work.....

BTW all those frivolous things the rich buy that you complain about.....takes ppl to make those things, it takes jobs to make those things, it takes jobs to sell those things to the rich......the rich guy in the huge freaking house is often paying a landscaper or two, they are paying ppl to clean their house they are paying ppl to wash their cars, they are paying ppl to do all the things they dont want to do......guess what? if that house is on US soil those are jobs......

not everyone is going to succeed, its just the way it is......the sooner you come to grips with that fact the better, life aint fair, its never going to be fair, sit and complain about it or do what you need to do to carve out a piece of your own.....things wouldnt be so bad if individuals didnt insist on living outside their means....i wanted a TV for my bedroom, i didnt go put a 27 inch flat screen on a credit card, i went down to the pawn shop and handed over $60 cash for a 18 inch regular old TV.....alot of the ppl i see around here complaining they are on hard times bought a house costing twice what mine did, have TV's in most rooms of their houses usually new flatscreens, one in every kids bedroom, satellite TV with all the channels, 2008 or newer vehicles in the driveway, usually 2 of them plus something for the teenager(s)......and now complain cause they are a hundred thousand dollars in debt.....i aint even close to that and i bought a house 3 years ago.....cheap credit and idiots living on it until now has more to do with the sad state of affairs than rich ppl.....

i hate ppl that whine about rich ppl.....dammit i want to be one and i know for a fact whining aint going to get me there, infact whining is whats gonna keep me from it.....

This is why terraforums needs a "like" button like facebook! Awesome post, I totally agree!
 
  • #60
Its seems to me that most people in favor of "taxing the rich" do not consider themselves personally in the "rich" catagory, and therefore are excempt from their own decree..

but who sets the "line" between "rich" and "not rich"?

perhaps "taxing the rich" was another factor in Mass..after all, Mass democrats are among the richest democrats..When liberals in Washington say "tax the rich" they were talking about many in their own party..

Its all well and good to say "tax the rich" as long you arent the one being taxed..
as soon as the taxes apply to you personally, most people change their tune..

its really just hypocrisy.."Tax the Rich..as long as thats not ME."

they can come for you too, no matter how much you make...and they will if they arent stopped..
because there will always be someone poorer than you..and there will always be someone who thinks its "not fair" that YOU, yes you, makes more money than someone else..so we need to take more our YOUR money..yes you..and give it to people poorer than you..because its only fair right??

Thats communism..that mindset has to be stopped..and the Mass election was a small step in the right direction.

Scot
 
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