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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On February 06 2015 03:25 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 03:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 06 2015 03:02 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:In the first Affordable Care Act case three years ago, the Supreme Court had to decide whether Congress had the power, under the Commerce Clause or some other source of authority, to require individuals to buy health insurance. It was a question that went directly to the structure of American government and the allocation of power within the federal system.
The court very nearly got the answer wrong with an exceedingly narrow reading of Congress’s commerce power. As everyone remembers, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., himself a member of the anti-Commerce Clause five, saved the day by declaring that the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate was actually a tax, properly imposed under Congress’s tax power.
I thought the court was seriously misguided in denying Congress the power under the Commerce Clause to intervene in a sector of the economy that accounts for more than 17 percent of the gross national product. But even I have to concede that the debate over structure has deep roots in the country’s history and a legitimate claim on the Supreme Court’s attention. People will be debating it as long as the flag waves.
But the new Affordable Care Act case, King v. Burwell, to be argued four weeks from now, is different, a case of statutory, not constitutional, interpretation. The court has permitted itself to be recruited into the front lines of a partisan war. Not only the Affordable Care Act but the court itself is in peril as a result.
At the invitation of a group of people determined to render the Affordable Care Act unworkable (the nominal plaintiffs are four Virginia residents who can’t afford health insurance but who want to be declared ineligible for the federal tax subsidies that would make insurance affordable for them), the justices have agreed to decide whether the statute as written in fact refutes one of the several titles that Congress gave it: “Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans.”
If the Supreme Court agrees with the challengers, more than seven million people who bought their insurance in the 34 states where the federal government set up the marketplaces, known as exchanges, will lose their tax subsidies. The market for affordable individual health insurance will collapse in the face of shrinking numbers of insured people and skyrocketing premiums, the very “death spiral” that the Affordable Care Act was designed to prevent. Source It's just astounding to me that for years Republicans have been trying to scrap the ACA but they still don't have a plan for all the people they would be screwing out of coverage, capless plans, pre-exsisting conditions, etc... Maybe they shouldn't have been given coverage in the first place though. Consider social security for a moment. Because so many people are now dependent on it, its practically political suicide to consider altering it in any meaningful way. It's conceivable that there could be serious problems with the institution that are now unfixable, because any politician who tried would be voted out immediately. This is the danger with entitlements.
I have a solution for social security so that it can continue to pay out its expected benefits past the supposed year in the mid 2030's that it might not have enough cash flow. Just remove the social security cap for earners over $115k or whatever it is. As it is now, 5-6% of Americans don't pay social security tax on a sizable portion of their income since they earn significantly more than the cap. If we removed the cap we wouldn't have tax revenue problems, and social security would stop being a regressive tax on America's lowest earners.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
raise the retirement age a lil bit shouldnt hurt that much, also stop disability fraud
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The two-year, $68 billion budget proposal Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker unveiled Tuesday includes a request for $250,000 to study the health impacts of wind turbines.
Page 449 of the budget proposal includes a recommendation from the governor "directing the commission to conduct a study on wind energy system-related health issues." The request states that a report should be submitted to the governor and legislature within a year after the budget goes into effect.
"The request for a Wind Energy Health Issues Study was included with the intent to provide the Public Service Commission with comprehensive information to consider as they receive requests for future wind energy projects," said Laurel Patrick, Walker's press secretary, in a statement to The Huffington Post.
Wind power in the state has been the subject of some public debate, drawing campaigns paid for by conservative groups with ties to fossil fuel interests on one side and by renewable energy advocates on the other.
Last October, health officials in Brown County declared that eight turbines located at the Shirley Wind Farm posed a health hazard to residents. The chairwoman of the local board of health cited "ear pain, ear pressure, headaches, nausea" and "sleep deprivation" as symptoms among nearby residents. Local reports suggest Brown is the first county in the country to reach such a conclusion.
The conservative Heartland Institute, which advocates for "free-market solutions," has touted the Brown County decision, and used it as an opportunity to criticize the state for "imposing its wind power mandates." Heartland has received funding in the past from fossil fuel interests. Walker has appeared as a guest speaker at the group's events.
Source
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On February 06 2015 10:28 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 03:25 Millitron wrote:On February 06 2015 03:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 06 2015 03:02 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:In the first Affordable Care Act case three years ago, the Supreme Court had to decide whether Congress had the power, under the Commerce Clause or some other source of authority, to require individuals to buy health insurance. It was a question that went directly to the structure of American government and the allocation of power within the federal system.
The court very nearly got the answer wrong with an exceedingly narrow reading of Congress’s commerce power. As everyone remembers, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., himself a member of the anti-Commerce Clause five, saved the day by declaring that the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate was actually a tax, properly imposed under Congress’s tax power.
I thought the court was seriously misguided in denying Congress the power under the Commerce Clause to intervene in a sector of the economy that accounts for more than 17 percent of the gross national product. But even I have to concede that the debate over structure has deep roots in the country’s history and a legitimate claim on the Supreme Court’s attention. People will be debating it as long as the flag waves.
But the new Affordable Care Act case, King v. Burwell, to be argued four weeks from now, is different, a case of statutory, not constitutional, interpretation. The court has permitted itself to be recruited into the front lines of a partisan war. Not only the Affordable Care Act but the court itself is in peril as a result.
At the invitation of a group of people determined to render the Affordable Care Act unworkable (the nominal plaintiffs are four Virginia residents who can’t afford health insurance but who want to be declared ineligible for the federal tax subsidies that would make insurance affordable for them), the justices have agreed to decide whether the statute as written in fact refutes one of the several titles that Congress gave it: “Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans.”
If the Supreme Court agrees with the challengers, more than seven million people who bought their insurance in the 34 states where the federal government set up the marketplaces, known as exchanges, will lose their tax subsidies. The market for affordable individual health insurance will collapse in the face of shrinking numbers of insured people and skyrocketing premiums, the very “death spiral” that the Affordable Care Act was designed to prevent. Source It's just astounding to me that for years Republicans have been trying to scrap the ACA but they still don't have a plan for all the people they would be screwing out of coverage, capless plans, pre-exsisting conditions, etc... Maybe they shouldn't have been given coverage in the first place though. Consider social security for a moment. Because so many people are now dependent on it, its practically political suicide to consider altering it in any meaningful way. It's conceivable that there could be serious problems with the institution that are now unfixable, because any politician who tried would be voted out immediately. This is the danger with entitlements. I have a solution for social security so that it can continue to pay out its expected benefits past the supposed year in the mid 2030's that it might not have enough cash flow. Just remove the social security cap for earners over $115k or whatever it is. As it is now, 5-6% of Americans don't pay social security tax on a sizable portion of their income since they earn significantly more than the cap. If we removed the cap we wouldn't have tax revenue problems, and social security would stop being a regressive tax on America's lowest earners.
Are you going to cap the benefits on those wealthy individuals who pay more? The problem with this solution is that it kicks a growing can down the road, virtually guaranteeing a default to the individuals most likely and most able to demand their rights.
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Yes cap the benefits. Not kicking the can.
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so, your solution to a failing system is just make the upper middle class and rich pay for years of mistakes rather than just fixing the system in the first place? sounds about right.
how about we just let people opt out in exchange for giving up their future payments. see how much more responsible people will be after their playing with their own money and not other's.
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On February 06 2015 12:00 IgnE wrote:
Yes cap the benefits. Not kicking the can.
No but this makes it impossible to pass. Hell, every elected or appointed official in Washington makes more than the cap, so you're asking them to impose higher taxes with cut benefits on themselves. Nice masturbatory fantasy but it will never happen. We might as well dream about a world in which the United States gives up nuclear weapons, lobbying, and the tax code too.
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On February 06 2015 12:11 dAPhREAk wrote:
so, your solution to a failing system is just make the upper middle class and rich pay for years of mistakes rather than just fixing the system in the first place? sounds about right.
how about we just let people opt out in exchange for giving up their future payments. see how much more responsible people will be after their playing with their own money and not other's.
That's how taxes work. You may have heard of them? If you wanted to live in a society where no one had anything except what they could "earn" on the market given what their parents bequeathed to them, you can go to some place without a government, like Somalia.
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On February 06 2015 12:41 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 12:00 IgnE wrote:
Yes cap the benefits. Not kicking the can. No but this makes it impossible to pass. Hell, every elected or appointed official in Washington makes more than the cap, so you're asking them to impose higher taxes with cut benefits on themselves. Nice masturbatory fantasy but it will never happen. We might as well dream about a world in which the United States gives up nuclear weapons, lobbying, and the tax code too.
It could pass if enough people wanted it to pass.
Also it's not a "cut benefit." They are getting the same benefit as they would now with the social security income cap in place.
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On February 06 2015 12:54 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 12:41 coverpunch wrote:On February 06 2015 12:00 IgnE wrote:
Yes cap the benefits. Not kicking the can. No but this makes it impossible to pass. Hell, every elected or appointed official in Washington makes more than the cap, so you're asking them to impose higher taxes with cut benefits on themselves. Nice masturbatory fantasy but it will never happen. We might as well dream about a world in which the United States gives up nuclear weapons, lobbying, and the tax code too. It could pass if enough people wanted it to pass. Also it's not a "cut benefit." They are getting the same benefit as they would now with the social security income cap in place.
Its a net loss for them none-the-less.
It doesn't matter if people want it to pass because none of the legislators would. People don't vote on bills.
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Progressive taxes are net loss in general. You are just knee-jerking because you have this silly assumption that Social Security is some kind of lock box where you only get what you paid into it. There's nothing different in theory about this "progressive" social security tax than income tax or any of the other numerous progressive taxes out there.
But why even talk about the issue if your response is going to be, "it will never pass," because that retort can be made about every proposal until it actually passes? We are talking on a message board and I just proposed a workable solution so that Social Security can continue indefinitely. Talk about the solution on its merits.
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getting rid of social security altogether is another workable solution if you are just going to ignore everything else. social security was never intended to be a rich people pay for poor people's retirements. all people who pay into it were supposed to receive a comparable benefit back.
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On February 06 2015 13:09 IgnE wrote:
Progressive taxes are net loss in general. You are just knee-jerking because you have this silly assumption that Social Security is some kind of lock box where you only get what you paid into it. There's nothing different in theory about this "progressive" social security tax than income tax or any of the other numerous progressive taxes out there.
But why even talk about the issue if your response is going to be, "it will never pass," because that retort can be made about every proposal until it actually passes? We are talking on a message board and I just proposed a workable solution so that Social Security can continue indefinitely. Talk about the solution on its merits.
It's likelihood to actually pass is something you should consider though. A law that will never pass is a bad law, regardless of how well it would work.
But fine. Your plan still just kicks the can down the road. Current demographic trends, i.e. an increasing proportion of old people, means that eventually, even with getting rid of the cap, SS payments will outstrip income. Sure, your plan buys more time. But it doesn't solve the underlying issue.
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It's not a solution so much as scrapping the whole project altogether. Considering that the majority of baby boomers have no retirement savings whatsoever, and have increasingly little equity in their homes, if you get rid of Social Security you are going to be stuck with a bunch of poor old people.
But you can cling to your stupid resentment politics, wanting to punish those who aren't "responsible" with their own money by saving retroactively into their old age. The economy will soldier on healthy as ever with millions of baby boomers broke and penniless.
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i was referring to the government not being responsible. people who are forced to pay into the program cant be irresponsible.
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On February 06 2015 13:16 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 13:09 IgnE wrote:
Progressive taxes are net loss in general. You are just knee-jerking because you have this silly assumption that Social Security is some kind of lock box where you only get what you paid into it. There's nothing different in theory about this "progressive" social security tax than income tax or any of the other numerous progressive taxes out there.
But why even talk about the issue if your response is going to be, "it will never pass," because that retort can be made about every proposal until it actually passes? We are talking on a message board and I just proposed a workable solution so that Social Security can continue indefinitely. Talk about the solution on its merits. It's likelihood to actually pass is something you should consider though. A law that will never pass is a bad law, regardless of how well it would work. But fine. Your plan still just kicks the can down the road. Current demographic trends, i.e. an increasing proportion of old people, means that eventually, even with getting rid of the cap, SS payments will outstrip income. Sure, your plan buys more time. But it doesn't solve the underlying issue.
That's not how this works. If you can only vaguely point to some time a century from now when Social Security might not work "if current demographic trends continue" you don't really have an argument. You have to make a coherent argument with dates that warrants concern. Yeah, everyone is dead on a long enough timeline. If you want to say that we are just kicking the can down the road till the heat death of the universe that's fine, but it certainly shouldn't influence our policy decisions where we measure things in human lifetimes.
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On February 06 2015 13:21 dAPhREAk wrote:
i was referring to the government not being responsible. people who are forced to pay into the program cant be irresponsible.
So demographic trends are a result of the government being irresponsible? I don't follow.
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On February 06 2015 13:22 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2015 13:16 Millitron wrote:On February 06 2015 13:09 IgnE wrote:
Progressive taxes are net loss in general. You are just knee-jerking because you have this silly assumption that Social Security is some kind of lock box where you only get what you paid into it. There's nothing different in theory about this "progressive" social security tax than income tax or any of the other numerous progressive taxes out there.
But why even talk about the issue if your response is going to be, "it will never pass," because that retort can be made about every proposal until it actually passes? We are talking on a message board and I just proposed a workable solution so that Social Security can continue indefinitely. Talk about the solution on its merits. It's likelihood to actually pass is something you should consider though. A law that will never pass is a bad law, regardless of how well it would work. But fine. Your plan still just kicks the can down the road. Current demographic trends, i.e. an increasing proportion of old people, means that eventually, even with getting rid of the cap, SS payments will outstrip income. Sure, your plan buys more time. But it doesn't solve the underlying issue. That's not how this works. If you can only vaguely point to some time a century from now when Social Security might not work "if current demographic trends continue" you don't really have an argument. You have to make a coherent argument with dates that warrants concern. Yeah, everyone is dead on a long enough timeline. If you want to say that we are just kicking the can down the road till the heat death of the universe that's fine, but it certainly shouldn't influence our policy decisions where we measure things in human lifetimes.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that the current trend of having more and more old people will not continue?
You also need to remember that as technology improves, there is less and less need for workers, meaning fewer people paying into social security. So payments will continue to increase, and income will continue to fall.
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Wonder who it was that pushed to have supplements be unregulated...?
The New York State attorney general’s office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves.
The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.
The investigation came as a welcome surprise to health experts who have long complained about the quality and safety of dietary supplements, which are exempt from the strict regulatory oversight applied to prescription drugs.
The Food and Drug Administration has targeted individual supplements found to contain dangerous ingredients. But the announcement Monday was the first time that a law enforcement agency had threatened the biggest retail and drugstore chains with legal action for selling what it said were deliberately misleading herbal products.
Source
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On February 06 2015 13:13 dAPhREAk wrote:
getting rid of social security altogether is another workable solution if you are just going to ignore everything else. social security was never intended to be a rich people pay for poor people's retirements. all people who pay into it were supposed to receive a comparable benefit back.
ehh, yes that's kind of the definition of "social", else it's just retirement
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EPT
