Subj : Keeping Earl happy by giv To : TIM RICHARDSON From : BOB KLAHN Date : Thu Jan 01 1970 12:00 am TR>> I'm beginning to think the people all over the country TR>> don't really understand the sort of trouble our nation is TR>> in right now. Nor do they realize that this president and TR>> his cadre of leftist idiots are destroying us day by day. BK>>Austerity is killing countries in Europe bit by bit, and your BK>>side wants to put it in here. TR> I think you're either confusing the word `austerity' with TR> some other concept, or you are being willfully ignorant. No, I am not, and you are. TR> I'm going to make an attempt to show you a bit of reason TR> here, but I don't expect you will take the point. If you have one. TR> The politicians in our national government have spent us TR> into the poor house. We are in debt up to our ears and TR> beyond to one of our worst enemies in the entire world TR> (communist China) among others, and the debt we have on our TR> shoulders will probably last for the next two or three TR> generations, given that the United States even lasts that TR> long (and at the rate we're going it won't). We are in debt up to our ears because of free trade, wars for profit, and tax cuts for the rich. Obama has presided over the fastest fall in deficits in decades, since before Reagan at least. The deficit peaked under Bush in Fiscal Year 2009, and went down every year since. See www.cbo.gov/publication/44172 TR> As anyone with half a brain knows (or soon learns by TR> difficult experience), you cannot *spend* your way out of TR> debt. It doesn't work. Other than the fact that there is absolutely no proof to back that up, and we are talking about a government, not a family or small business. In the real world, debt can become a smaller burden when the govt spends more money. That is backed up by proof. Even in business, it is sometimes necessary to spend your way to success. Many businesses are in trouble because they have obsolete equipment, don't train their people, or don't have enough people to do the job. In any of those cases, they have to spend money to bring the business up to profitability. I've been seeing that in management publications for decades, and I have seen it in person. I've seen managers who cut spending to meet budget projections by not buying parts or giving needed training. Short term gain, long term disaster. TR> The only way to prosperity is to TR> live within your means. If you have *X* income, but every TR> year you spend *XX*, it isn't many years before your TR> outflow of *XX* exceeds your *X* income. Then you are faced The other way to prosperity is to increase your means. The best way for that matter. TR> with a situation that is unsustainable; i.e., paying out TR> more than you take in. If you cut your income deliberately you will sink no matter what. If you give your jobs away to foreign countries you are rapidly going down the drain. If you stop spending on education you slowly spiral down the drain. Even with todays high cost of education, with massive student debts, it's not the borrowing that is the problem, but the bad economy which means there are no jobs for the graduates. If they don't go to school, the only way they come out ahead is if the economy never recoves. If the economy does recover, then they miss out on the benefits of the education they didn't get. Even the student loan crisis is really a crisis of cuts in government spending. Public colleges exist to educate those who cannot afford private colleges. Running up the costs to levels that inflict debt on the students defeats that purpose. Education has been a government responsibility since the earliest days, back to colonial times. Those rules apply to corporations as much as to people. Hell, you see that all the time with private corporations. Even the management publications have recognized that for decades. Companies stop training their employees, then wonder why they can't keep the machines running. Companies cut costs then wonder why they can't sell their now shoddy products, or can't even make them because they haven't maintained the factories. I have seen that myself. TR> We (America) have reach and surpassed that point, thanks to TR> our politicians who run our country. No matter the party TR> they belong to, they have spent us into a debt you and I TR> will never see paid off in our lifetime, and I suspect far TR> past our grandchildrens' life times. I suspect never, just like no past administration ever paid off the debt. Many have paid it down, but never paid it off. What makes you think this will be different, or should be? Do you actually know anything about the history of the federal debt? Anything at all? Why has it not been paid off one single year since 1791, the earlies stats I can find? Why has it gone down to levels as low as $38,000 in 1835, or 2.5% of GDP in 1916, then shot back up? Don't blame that on liberal policies, this country wasn't noted for liberal economics back then, they pretty much didn't even recognize such a thing. That is reality, not your smoke and mirrors economics. Unfortunately, out of the last 4 preceeding administrations, only one tried to bring the deficits under control, Bill Clinton. All three preceeding republican administrations just ran up the deficits. TR> That should concern you. It doesn't seem to...but it should. Your ignorance concerns me. I have posted, over and over, my report on the growth of the debt, and I have pointed the finger at the proven culprits, Reagan/Bush I/Bush II. Yet you still persist in the old "Everybody's to blame" game, when that's not true. TR> What's the solutiuon? Well, for one thing they can JUST TR> STOP SPENDING! All that will accomplish is to send this country deeper into another Great Depression. Your analysis is shallower than a puddle. You have never once looked at the long term numbers for yourself, have you? Have you ever looked at any numbers from any source than the right wing press? Ever once looked at the official numbers, which you can get from administrations going back pretty much as far back as you want to go? Or is this all a vast conspiracy going back to the founding fathers? TR>> Krugman was out there the other day saying that the GOP TR>> don't really understand Obamacare. BK>>On that Krugman is wrong. They know it damn well, it was their BK>>plan. TR> Ah...I see you've gotten `the memo' from the democrat TR> powers-that-be! Now that Obamacare is being revealed as the TR> `bomb' it was from the very beginning.. .which no Republican Romneycare enacted under Obama has turned out to work quite well, as far as it has been implemented. The ACA has not proven to be a bomb, what has been done so far has worked pretty well. Remember, the computer problems are not legal problems, but private sector business problems. TR> republicans voted for, by the way... and its about to fall TR> flat on its face, suddenly the democrats are going to try If it was going to fail the republicans would be cheering. They are crowing, but not cheering. That's because they know the problem is mostly on the states that don't start up their insurance exchanges. The ones that did tend to have working systems. That plus, it was the private sector that setup the websites, not the government. Actually, I should be specific, the Tea Baggers would cheer. Way more republicans in congress are not Tea Baggers, and really don't want AFA to fail, or don't really care. They either just want to smear Obama, or they want to change the law just enough that they can claim credit for it's success. The way things are going, democrats voted for the ACA because they believe in it, republicans voted against it because they eithers want to hit at Obama, or they are bought and paid for, or they are afraid of losing elections to Tea Party funded candidates. The Tea Party has few votes to offer, but one hell of a lot of money behind them. TR> to blame the whole thing on the republicans. But thats TR> gonna be a little hard, because a lot of the democrats are TR> on record as having signed into law a behemoth of a piece TR> of legislation most (if not all) hadn't even read before TR> putting their signatures to it. Nine hundred and six give or take pages is not that large. And they debated it for a year. BK>>They are afraid it will work, then they will have that BK>>much more egg on their faces. TR> Question: TR> If its gonna `work' so well...and its gonna be so good for TR> all of us...how come the entire Congress (plus their TR> staffs) AND the guy who's name heads it, the POTUS, get an TR> `exemption' from the law? Your Fox News inspired ignorance is showing. Congress and their staff not only are not exempted, but they have the strictest rules under the ACA of anybody in this country. When you were not on Medicare, did you ever get insurance from your employer? No other Americans are *REQUIRED* to use the health exchanges, they can get insurance through their employers, all they have to do is get a job that provides insurance. Before the ACA all federal employees got insurance through the federal government, just like most major companies provide. The ACA ended that, and required federal employees to go through the healh insurance exchanges. No other employer in the country has that requirement. Further, before the ACA federal employees, including congressmen and their staffs, paid just under 30% of the cost of their insurance, which happens to be very close to what private sector employees pay. The ACA forced federal employees into the exchanges, and allowed them to keep paying just under 30% of the cost of the insurance, *EXCEPT* for congressmen and staffs. For elected officials and their subordinates the ACA did not say one way or the other. So the big *EXEMPTION* the right wing spews about constantly is nothing more than an administrative ruling that congressmen and the people they hire for their staffs are covered by the same rules as all other government employees. My health insurance when I was working was about what congress and staffers get. Maybe just a bit better. The POTUS gets govt provided healh care directly, because he has to have care available on a moment's notice, with no time to run him to a hospital. That's just a matter of practicality. BK>>William Kristol once objected to extending the CHIP program, BK>>because, when it *DOES* work it will lead to further programs. BK>>IOW, programs that work, and save lives, and provide treatment BK>>for children, are considered by the right wing to be bad. TR>> At some point, either yesterday or this morning, Henry TR>> Waxman (who's from California) was asked by a reporter if TR>> he'd read the 10,000-plus pages of the new so-called TR>> affordable care act. Waxman's answer was in the form of a BK>>The first time I looked it was less than 1000 pages. BK>>I just downloaded copies from three different sources. With BK>>smaller text two had 906 pages. One with larger text had 1990. I BK>>could read any of them. It's all how you lay it out. TR> The `10,000' was either a mistake on my part, or something TR> `you're' tossing in there to confuse the issue. I just You put it there, check your own archives. You probably believed another lie from a right wing publication. It was a mistake on your part, probably because some right wing sites are making such claims. TR> checked and the bill in its entirety is about 2700 pages or TR> more long. It's as long as the size of the type, and the width of the margins makes it. I have a copy that is 906 pages. Downloaded it after reading your post. Now I have four copies, including the one I downloaded before it was passed. Do you have even one copy? TR> But...don't take *my* word for it. Here's a few `quotes' on TR> the subject from others.... TR> Republicans asked (almost begged) the democrats who were TR> pushing so strongly for passage of the bill, that they TR> actually `read' it before signing it. Did you read even any of it? TR> John Conyers is on record (and I myself saw the video TR> footage of him making this statement at the time he said TR> it) `Read it? Why should I read it?' He was debating it at the time, wasn't he? Give a link to the whole discussion, not just a few words. TR> Conyers at a National Press Club luncheon sometime in July TR> of 2009: TR> "I love these members, they get up and say, `read the TR> bill'..." TR> "What good is reading the bill if its 1000 pages and you TR> don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it TR> means after you read the bill?" ...John Conyers Lawyer write the bills, but notice your quotes, supposedly from "others" plural, but you need to go to the same person twice. TR> Now, understand that Conyers is himself an attorney. And you still focus only on one member. ... TR> Oh and...during oral arguments? Here's what Justice Breyer TR> said at one point: TR> "I haven't read every word of that, I promise. So, what do TR> you propose we do other than spend a year reading all TR> this?" ...Justice Steven Breyer He isn't in congress, last I heard. TR> Or... TR> "What happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us TR> to go through these 2700 pages?" (The Eighth Amendment TR> pertains to `cruel and unusual punishment' by the way) "And TR> do you really expect the court to do that?" ...Justice TR> Anthony Scalia Not only is he not in congress, he is the most extreme right wing justice on the supreme court. And it's still 906 pages. Ok, maybe he got a large print version. Even the larger print version I downloaded was 1990 pages. Just to check, I opened the 906 page version. the type was fairly small, but readable. There were very large margins. So I increased the display size as far as 175% of the original, the text filled the screen, all if it was visible, and it was quite readable. And it was still 906 pages. ... TR> She was asked `where, specifically, in the Constitution was TR> it granted to Congress the authority to enact an individual TR> health insurance mandate'...she could only look at the TR> reporter with a sort of confused, dumb-founded expression TR> in her eyes and ask: `... are you serious?....are you TR> serious..." ...Nancy Pelosi I have heard that one over and over, but can't find anything but edited clips that don't tell the context. I can tell you, the question is stupid. The constitution doesn't say anything about most products manufactured today, or most services provided, but most certainly does authorize the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. Since health insurance is interstate commerce, it's covered. Other than that, details can be argued, but you have to have a specific question. Give a link to the entire interview. I don't support Pelosi as speaker, mostly because she isn't good at calling out fools. TR> Its interesting that...although no republicans voted for TR> this, the democrats are now trying to make this a TR> `republican' bill all along! Hilarious! What is hilarious is that you don't seem to know, it was created by the Heritage Foundation, and promoted by the republican party in the '90s. They oppose it because a democrat got it passed. The basic rule stands, the republicans had 15 years to fix the problem, they did nothing. BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn --- Via Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg] * Origin: Fidonet Since 1991 Join Us: www.DocsPlace.org (1:123/140) .