On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
GREER, S.C. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that he has paid a federal income tax rate of at least 13 percent in each of the last 10 years, bowing to months of political pressure to disclose more information about his vast personal fortune.
“I did go back and look at my taxes, and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year,” he told reporters here Thursday.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
We've gone over a whole ton of issues in this thread. Hell, we just went over a huge section on taxes. Politics is complicated man. Abortion is just one of several diversions in here.
And social issues have serious economic consequences. Of course, conservatives never like to bring those up because they are almost exclusively in favor of the liberals. And liberals don't like to bring them up because we prefer to be warm/fuzzy and talk about 'civil rights' and things like that.
Anyway, here's Paul Ryan flip-flopping a bit on Ayn Rand:
This election is gettin' stupid honestly. I don't like either, but at least Mitt has stopped tryin' to muddy the water in the ads I've been seein' recently. In his most recent adds I don't think I've heard Obama's name mentioned more than once, but Obama's ads are just terrible. Also that video, that guy who is tryin' to pull the race card has to be the stupidest person I've ever heard on a major news network...this guy has no clue, he just tries to sling mud where there is no mud to sling.
Not that I'm a liberal per se but I am definitely not worried about any debates. In fact I am anxious to see them and hoping both parties can lay it all out on the table. May the best man convince me on what is the "right" course of action for that political black hole.
On August 17 2012 10:44 Souma wrote: Not that I'm a liberal per se but I am definitely not worried about any debates. In fact I am anxious to see them and hoping both parties can lay it all out on the table. May the best man convince me on what is the "right" course of action for that political black hole.
I would actually squeal with delight if just once during any of the debates Romney actually says something that makes me think he would be a decent president.
On August 17 2012 10:36 xDaunt wrote: Just out of curiosity, are any of you liberals/Obama supporters worried about the upcoming debates on Medicare?
Well, I'm not really an Obama supporter, and I consider myself a leftist rather than a liberal, but hell yeah... that's a debate I'd love to see all day long. I don't think either candidate has a good plan on Medicare or any form of safety net programs though. :D
I can see where your going with this though, the fact that there would even be a question about Dems being on edge with what is historically their platform, speaks a lot about the current state of the party.
On August 17 2012 10:36 xDaunt wrote: Just out of curiosity, are any of you liberals/Obama supporters worried about the upcoming debates on Medicare?
Quite the opposite (notably because of the two fact-checks listed here - the truth and good policies are on Obama's side).
Politifact's articles on the Medicare cuts are precisely the kind of crap that makes them look like a hack outfit disturbingly often. I don't know in what world they can classify what Obamacare does to Medicare as not being a cut. It takes money out of the system. Period. Do the cuts directly reduce services? No. However, the cuts do reduce reimbursements to providers, which will reduce the availability of providers that are willing to take Medicare (and this has already been a problem for a number of years).
Regardless, here's the bottom-line problem for Obama. Though Paul Ryan advocated a budget with significant cuts to Medicare that are much like Obama's, Romney has not and will not. In stark contrast, not only Obama proposed significant cuts to Medicare, he has actually enacted them. If I were Romney, I'd remake the DNC ad showing Paul Ryan rolling granny off the cliff and insert Obama instead.
On August 17 2012 10:36 xDaunt wrote: Just out of curiosity, are any of you liberals/Obama supporters worried about the upcoming debates on Medicare?
Quite the opposite (notably because of the two fact-checks listed here - the truth and good policies are on Obama's side).
Politifact's articles on the Medicare cuts are precisely the kind of crap that makes them look like a hack outfit disturbingly often. I don't know in what world they can classify what Obamacare does to Medicare as not being a cut. It takes money out of the system. Period. Do the cuts directly reduce services? No. However, the cuts do reduce reimbursements to providers, which will reduce the availability of providers that are willing to take Medicare (and this has already been a problem for a number of years).
Regardless, here's the bottom-line problem for Obama. Though Paul Ryan advocated a budget with significant cuts to Medicare that are much like Obama's, Romney has not and will not. In stark contrast, not only Obama proposed significant cuts to Medicare, he has actually enacted them. If I were Romney, I'd remake the DNC ad showing Paul Ryan rolling granny off the cliff and insert Obama instead.
Romney declared Paul Ryan's budget "marvelous" in debates. He's advocated time and time again for entitlement reform. That he would not try to alter Medicare, as you seem to say, to is not the platform he's been running on for 4 years.
The Affordable Care Act cuts funds from Medicare Advantage, a pilot program designed to cut costs. Ultimately, Medicare Advantage ended up costing 12 percent more without providing higher quality care. The program involves a government subsidy of private insurers to try and encourage competition and drive down costs. It was unnecessary government involvement in the private industry that did not cut costs compared to traditional Medicare. Scaling back funds for this program, (especially for those private insurers that don't meet basic health benchmarks, where much of the savings come from) and strengthening the rest is an obvious, and long overdue solution. In fact, I believe most Republicans call this cracking down on waste.
So okay, the ACA reduces some money given to private insurers, which by itself would reduce some coverage provided to seniors. Other parts of the legislation, however, strengthen Medicare by providing seniors free annual wellness visits, free preventative services, and a 50 percent discount for drugs in the Medicare "donut hole"; that is, drugs that were not covered at all under the pre-Obamacare law in the (unpaid for Bush era) Medicare Part D. So "Obamacare" removes some of the outlays to a monetarily expensive and inefficient program (Medicare Advantage) and provides it to services that actually go directly to seniors. Hardly rolling granny off a cliff.
Probably the most interesting thing to me is that the media (and supposedly the public) seems to think that picking a 12-year career Congressman whose budget formed the centerpiece of a lengthy news cycle is "reaching outside the establishment." Bizarre.