Well now I would have to first ask, what the hell are the bricks doing in the ceiling? There is no bloody way that the leaders would have made the choices they made with out some idea that it would work, unless you assume no experts were consulted. While your theory sounds good that doesn't mean that what this administration has come up with won't work. Ya ya I know, government can't do anything right.

I support you right to believe that. But this conversation is just going around in circles, so I'm going to get to bed. Night Adventure. Night Andrew...

yep...he sure is doing more then just trying...for starters...

it took President Bush...2 1/2 years to add 1 trillion dollars to the national debt...Obama did it in 6 months...Obama said....we're closing Gitmo...it's still open...Obama said...he's ending the war in Iraq...we're still in Iraq...Obama said...we need the $787 billion dollar stimulis...or unemployment will reach 8%...it's at 9.4%...in Obamas first 6 months...3.3 million people lost their jobs...and last month...650,000 more people signed up for food stamps...other then all of that...he's doin' just fine...

Do you see your conserative values at work? 2 1/2 years to add a trillion dollars? Iraq a mess from the begining and the lies? The economey is sound one week and the the very NEXT WEEK "We need 800 billion $ or the financial market will fall? TELL ME WHERES THE DIFFERENCE????????????????????????????

WHAT DONT WONT TO ANSWER BECAUSE IM RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

AS YOUR CONSERVATIVE LEADER MIGHT HAVE SAID " TIME TO COWBOY UP OR SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Obama's fascist "health care" is not an economically viable solution. (unless you enjoy serfdom)

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG, but I am trying to sum up the arguments presented in my head...

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Andrew: We do not need Obama's healthcare package. Yes, some things are broken but this radical intervention is unwarranted. Additionally, he asked a very basic question:

Why should I have to pay for other people's healthcare when I have to pay for my own? (Answer not offered)

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Adventure: Whether we need the package or not is irrelevant, we cannot afford it. It doesn't matter how horrible it is watching someone drown, if you cannot save them then you are powerless to help. Pretending that you can swim and diving in to save them will only result in both of your deaths. You may have had the best intentions in the world, but the outcome is worse than if you had done nothing.

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Dragoness: When the original post professed that the vast majority of income tax collected was from the top earners and that the lowest earners actually paid very little income tax, she argued that there is more than just income tax to consider. Other than that, most posts have been a simple: you are wrong or you have misunderstood.

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Boo: It is good that some people have feelings of responsibility in the government and if you would just listen to Obama speak you would realize that this is package a good thing. Regardless, since the bill is not set in stone yet we should wait for Congress to hash out the details before we discuss it.

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Honestly, please correct me if I have mischaracterized what I have read.

That sounds about right.

And since I really didn't respond to the OP (and largely directed at Dragoness' response):

The rich pay more taxes, period. They pay the vast majority of income tax. Who pays property taxes on larger property? The rich. Who spends more money and pays more sales tax? The rich. Who pays capital gains taxes on their investments? The rich. Who pays payroll, social security, and other taxes related to business ownership? I'll give you a hint, it's not the poor.

And write-offs have nothing to do with it... The rich pay more than the bottom 95% AFTER DEDUCTIONS. In addition, the deductions help the middle more than the wealthy. The wealthy could deal without a few extra thousand whereas the middle class needs deductions for home loan interest, children, and the like.

It is obvious that the poor pay taxes, but they only pay the fair taxes like sales tax and gas taxes that apply equally to everyone. Look at it this way: if they spend 100% of their money on gasoline and cigarettes (arguably the two highest taxed commodities in CA), they still are not paying the same tax rate the rich pay on their federal income tax! Then, on top of that, the rich still pay all those other taxes.

wow, never realized just how put upon the rich feel. I read an interesting article today.

How The Rich Benefit From The Poor

Hardly makes me want to cry for the rich, considering no matter what they have to begrudginly spend, the are still wealthy.

This essay is weak in economic facts. Read Rothbard, Hayek, and Mises, and Ron Paul if you want to understand this subject.

Regardless, there is no way it can be argued that the rich do not pay more than their fair share in taxes. It is also not done on the backs of the poor. Before I hear the ******** argument about how the poor are not paid what they're worth, the fact is, if the poor were paid what they were worth in a job, that job would cease to exist. A person has to be paid less than their worth.

I am not so sure that people "have" to get paid less than what they are worth.

We live in a society where labor is divided to make each life easier. As a simple example:

Assume that a person living on their own will need 20 out of every 24 hours to get what they need to survive. It is quite possible that by teaming up with another person they will each only have to work 18 hours out of every 24 to survive.
I might become very good at hunting and be able to get more game in a shorter period of time than you. Alternately, you might have carpentry skills and be able to build and repair a dwelling faster and better than me.
Villages, hamlets, towns and cities are all based on the principle that many hands make light work; and today in America we are reaping the benefits of this arrangement. Honestly, you no longer have to work more than a couple hours a day to provide for your basic necessities (arguments about welfare meaning you don't have to work any hours aside).

The problem comes in when the give and take relationship are mis-matched. How much of one commodity/service is it worth to you to receive a particular commodity/service from me? We use currency to equate mis-matched services. In short, one dollar's worth of goods or services is determined by how difficult it is to perform or create it. How many people pay someone else to do their gardening? Most people decide that it isn't that difficult or important to pay someone else to do it.

Without truly developing the entire argument here, currency is basically a physical representation of time and skill. People who have difficult to acquire skills generally demand more money for their services since there is less competition among providers. that means that it is relatively easy to find someone able to perform unskilled labor. In a capitalistic society the market determines a fair value for all goods and services.

Believe it or not, it is difficult enough to find someone who is reliable, honest and responsible enough to work unsupervised in even a menial capacity. Therefore, small business owners tend to pay hirer wages to those who prove themselves capable since they want to retain good workers.

Is this not the reason that every parent tells their children to get a good education (e.g., learn a valuable skill set)? So they can get a good job and demand a higher wage.

When you say that people must work for less than they are worth, it is because you believe that there is (a) an established objective value of worth outside the market or (b) the market has been manipulated in such a way as to inflate the actual market value of an individuals production. I am not sure I would like to argue against the second point (minimum wage is one example).

In context of the conversation, let us look at doctors. Doctors invest many years and a great deal of money and effort to attain their skills. They would like to be paid accordingly. However, instead of allowing the market to balance the worth of their service against the money (remember, money = time) they are to be paid; some would suggest that health care costs are too high and doctors fees need to be capped. Usually these people are the ones who are judging the value of the doctor's work through a lens of their own skill sets... it is the argument: They make more money than anyone has a right to make.

Anytime the government interferes with the free market's determination of worth, it skews things. Fewer people will choose to enter medicine if the payment they receive for their work is below what they feel it should be (leading to a shortage of doctors which would normally drive up costs; but if the costs are capped it will lead to a loss of services), or they will find a way to circumvent the governments control (there is a movement among Canadian doctors who practice in the states -- since they cannot make enough money in Canada -- to circumvent the new health care plan. They are considering setting up hospital ships that will allow them to practice free of government restrictions in international waters).

So when you say that a person must be paid less than they are worth, I am not so sure that I would agree with that. If worth is determined by the value of their service and not an arbitrary chart, I think there is more than enough room to pay individuals what they are worth.

Look at it this way, in the service industries, there is no way that you can pay an employee what he is worth unless you plan on charging the customers above the point of market equilibrium. You see, if the market price of an hour's labor on auto repair is $80, then every hour of that employee's time is $80. There is no room for profit unless the business is willing to charge above that market price, effectively creating a surplus. Even as that surplus causes the market price to fall, the required selling price must be fixed above the market price and therefore, we are in a state of perpetual surplus and falling market prices. All profit would have to be derived off of parts and physical goods and in some industries, those do not exist or are a small portion of the profits. Think janitorial and teaching.

however, you are correct in that at the most basic civilized level (essentially, anarchy), a person is effectively paid what they are worth provided there is no monetary system. however, in today's modern civilizations, there is no logical way to pay a person what they are worth when money is required for misalignments and gaps. You are also correct in that the government is never neutral. The more regulation you have, the worse the situation becomes as incentive is destroyed.

kudos to you though. It's nice to see another member who understands the economics of it all.

-PoisonSting...

Adventure: Whether we need the package or not is irrelevant, we cannot afford it. It doesn't matter how horrible it is watching someone drown, if you cannot save them then you are powerless to help. Pretending that you can swim and diving in to save them will only result in both of your deaths. You may have had the best intentions in the world, but the outcome is worse than if you had done nothing.

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Aye... It is a terrible thing watching someone drown... and they don't see either the rising water or the outstretched hand.

But still I will try.

What a bunch of gobbly gook here, no offense.

The OP was inaccurate and many post after have been inaccurate.

The fact of the matter is that this country can do the health bill and it will survive doing it.

It will take some brainworking and it will take some changes but in the end it will fall into place in our government just like all other programs have done all along.

The fearmongering only works for those who do not understand how it all works and trust others to warn them of the faults of it.

Sure we can...

Fear mongering (high emotional index word... ergo propaganda).

I speak a truth.

One cannot borrow money to pay a debt and not still have a debt...

AT some point the debt becomes larger than your resources...

Well then can you explain how it's going to work because I haven't heard one politician explain how it's going to work. All they say is we need it. Tax the rich even more.

Bush did that already. So what now? Blame Obama for it and fearmonger the health bill?

Not a good policy in my eyes. Assess the need, which there is, assess the capability of this country to do it, which it can, assess the positivity of end result, which there is.

And there you have it, it can and should be done.

How are we gonna pay for it? It's not that simple.

I have not blamed Obama for anything.

I would like to be able to tell my grandchildren that I was there when he put the USA of A back in the plus column...

not that he rode us down to flames in our own worthless debt.

I have faith that he has EYES.

I also have faith that a less expensie solution can be found for our medical health.

One that only requires guidlines from the federal government.

Just like all other needed programs we find a way to fund them. Obama has already said that the current system needs revamping to bring cost down through waste, mismanagement, fraud, etc... which will save money and then the healthcare program will be optional which does not guarentee that all 47 million will even utilize it and if you provide proactive care to folks the cost of their healthcare goes down in the end.

The cost is not going to end up being as extensive as it is being falsley predicted.

Now would be a good time to remember all those falsely blamed on the illegals statistics of emergency care costs. Those were actually the cost of all indigent emergency care in this country. Indigent meaning those with income too small to pay for insurance.

If these individuals had had care to begin with they would probably had not been in the emergency room which costs outlandishly just to walk into. That is one saving of billions a year alone.

And this list goes on and on of care that is not provided efficiently and proactively causing costs to be outlandish.

My brain is not working well tonight so if this is not understandable, I apologize. I am really really tired.

Having worked with the Medicaid program, I have seen all of this for many many years. Statistics that are not public.