I want to respond the Henry Libertarian starting with the purpose of government since this is a fundamental difference between the conservative every man for themselves mentality and a more realistic economics and social governing of Democrats who want to protect citizens and empower our economy.
Henry Libertarian commented:
The Government is NOT here to take care of us.
The government is here to protect and empower. Come on now you are a Libertarian. Look back to your intellectual forefathers such as the Liberal John Locke.
Civil Government is a social contract to protect individuals and their basic liberties from the group. The group. The government is their to protect and empower them as individuals. Its also their to protect and empower the economy. Free-market advocates since Adam Smith have noted that markets require basic structures infrastructure--legal, regulatory, military. Individuals need some entity to protect them from market failures and violence. So your government isn't thier to take care of us is opposed by your own Libertarian ancestory... as well as any accurate conception of how markets work.
Barack Obama promises to "create five million new green jobs." The entire civilian workforce in the US is a little over 145 million people. So if Barack Obama’s adds five million new green jobs then one in every 33 jobs in the United States would be a new "green" job.
The basic response is... I'm not sure where the issue is. I'll outsource this to economist Dean Baker (from email)...
this includes all the derivative jobs that are associated with "green jobs." So if we have 500,000 construction workers employed retrofitting buildings, we might have another 500,000 employed transporting materials, producing the inputs in factories, or even producing raw materials. The same would be the case with fuel efficient cars or hybrids.
The 5 million figure is probably high even by this standard, but it is not ridiculous on its face, especially by political standards.
So Obama may be playing up the numbers... I dunno. Economist fight amoungst themselves on the derivative impacts of policies--since an economy is a collective effort with broad repurcussion outside the direct impacts of the targeted goal.
Henry Libertarian:
Why do "earmarks" always come up? They take up the money that could be spent on things like education and Healthcare.
I'm just going to quote myself on this one...
The Economist magazine pointed out that all earmarks add up to less than $20 billion a year. That for fiscal year 2008 is $64.56. Since that is a very small chunk of my tax dollars and its part of the push and pull of a federal system. I have faith in our processes of checks and balances... and faith that corruption can be founded and dealt with... the sky isn’t falling
This can’t possibly be top priority is it? If it is... we’ll jsut disagree. I put getting Bin Ladin, protecting our national security, protecting our troops, stegthening our economy, ending the health care crise, ending the transportation crisis, ending the education crisis–the Regan revolution sure has created a lot of crisises!
Yes schools are overcrowded. Why? We cannot build schools before the kids are there. Schools get built in responce to the need for them. What good does it do to create 10 new schools if the area does not have enough children to support that? The Federal Government DOES NOT have ANYTHING to do with how the Counties run the school system.
Yeah... part of the problem... Local government is more easily manipulated by feel good economic policies...
Schools are underfunded? Which school systems do not have books?
Couldn’t name them but from what I hear my nephew has had classes where he couldn’t take the book home for homework since there weren’t enough of them. I heard many of the same stories across the board. One of my goals as chairman is to get more substantial data on that one so it’s a fair challenge and I’m certain I can answer it with more than hear-say data–though I trust what these people are telling me, you can’t necessarily take it at face value...
Which school systems cannot provide learning materials for the children?
Teachers pay for large amounts of supplies out of their own pockets... is that really at question here?
Could we possibly give them more money? Sure, but maybe we should look at how the money that the County is being given is being spent first.
The chairmans race here in Henry was focused on economic challenges like bringing in new businesses, fixing the trasnportation issue, development and smart growth... I don’t think penny pinching is a serious solution... but feel free to peruse the henry county budget I’d be intrigued to what you find...
I can tell you this, my child has books at his school and an appropriate amount of educational resources and he attends public school. Teacher pay too low, as compared to what?
Ask his teacher how much out of pocket she has provided... also ask about grants from private sector–families, businesses
Current teacher pay levels do attract talented people to the profession. NEA estimated that the average classroom teacher salary for 2004-05 was $47,674.
Average... If Bill Gates walks into a bar the average jumps sky high... doesn't mean every school gets comparable pay rates... the inner city... and at risk enivronments have trouble with teacher retention. At large teacher retention is a problem because people get fed up with the problems and go back to private sector.
Once again I will repeat myself. Healthcare rises due to lawyers and insurance costs. Also, stop trying to cover illegal aliens. They do not have "rights" to our social benefit systems. In Texas, where the state comptroller estimates illegal immigrants cost hospitals $1.3 billion in 2006. Undocumented immigrants are driving up the number of people without health insurance.
We have an immigration problem... but the idea that this is the reason health care is so expensive is absurd. You got to look at the macro environment as a whole...
Here are the major contributing factors.... NCHC:
Why is the number of uninsured people increasing?
Millions of workers don’t have the opportunity to get health coverage. A third of firms in the U.S. did not offer coverage in 2006.4
Nearly two-fifths (38 percent) of all workers are employed in smaller businesses, where less than two-thirds of firms now offer health benefits to their employees.7 It is estimated that 266,000 companies dropped their health coverage between 2000-2005 and 90 percent of those firms have less than 25 employees.
Rapidly rising health insurance premiums are the main reason cited by all small firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. The average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums for small firms have escalated an average of 12 percent annually.4
Even if employees are offered coverage on the job, they can’t always afford their portion of the premium. Employee spending for health insurance coverage (employee’s share of family coverage) has increased 143 percent between 2000 and 2006.8
Losing a job, or quitting voluntarily, can mean losing affordable coverage - not only for the worker but also for their entire family. Only seven (7) percent of the unemployed can afford to pay for COBRA health insurance - the continuation of group coverage offered by their former employers. Premiums for this coverage average almost $700 a month for family coverage and $250 for individual coverage, a very high price given the average $1,100 monthly unemployment check.9
Coverage is unstable during life’s transitions. A person’s link to employer-sponsored coverage can also be cut by a change from full-time to part-time work, or self-employment, retirement or divorce.10
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 59% of the nation's illegal immigrants are uninsured, compared with 25% of legal immigrants and 14% of U.S. citizens.
Immigration reform--how ever it would end up looking like would help this issue... plus why else do they sneak over the boarder... the third world has an impact on our country... increase prosperity in Mexico and you won't see as many people coming here to pay for their own families health care, food, and well-being. Why do you think McCain (he was for it before he was against it) and Bush supported immigration reform. Its a huge problem that needs to be solved in a way that doesn't hurt our economy. Kick them all out mentality of conservatives would cost us economically...
Illegal immigrants represent about 15% of the nation's 47 million uninsured people.
Sorry.. that would be 47 million Americans. Your numbers are just wrong...
DeNavas-Walt, C.B. Proctor, and J. Smith. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006. U.S. Census Bureau., August 2007. http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf
Even Hillary Clinton's story about the woman who died because she didn't have health insurance turned out to be fake.
I don't know and don't care about that story... it was a narrative... campaigns are full of naratives. But thats why social scientific data is where the debate should be... the my brother know a guy who knows a guy who saw x is not a way to get an accurate representation of the world.
You consistently see Republicans use such tactics... escpecially locally. Moderate Repub's do have something substantial to say on policy data... even when I disagree with their priorities I at least applaud their policy efforts--conservatives on the other hand like magic, voodoo (GHW Bush), and other mythical beasts that fight the evil hobgoblins of the world.
There is no Constitutional Right to health care coverage.
Okay... it'd be absurd to think everything needs to be a constitutional right... that'd just be ineffiecient. As a proponent of markets... I don't want to create more needless gridlock in government... I like and want efficiency. But lets not forget "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness." The markets failures infringe on all 3.
NCHC Facts about Health Care:
Studies estimate that the number of excess deaths among uninsured adults age 25-64 is in the range of 18,000 a year. This mortality figure is more than the number of deaths from diabetes (17,500) within the same age group.10
10Institute of Medicine. Insuring America’s Health - Principles and Recommendations. The National Academies Press, 2004.
back to Henry Libertarian...
Private industry works just fine when you leave it alone and stop all of the Liberal regulating.
How is that working out for us so far? I think turning towards mild regulation and market competion from a non-profit making institution that wants effieciencies since they don't have a profit motive to pay ceo's while denying coverage and making doctors increase their staff--and your doctors bills to pay for that staff--to get people the coverage they need. This can't possibly be a real argument on your part.
Plus John McCain doesn't want to remove protectionisms on Doctors and patents... these would lower the cost of people gonig to the doctor and lower the cost of medication. So thats an empty argument all the way around since he doesn't want to end protectionisms and regulation. Obama vs. McCain we are just debating policy priorities of who we want to protect... people... or share-holder values and CEO pay (at the cost of human lives, American bankruptcies, and harm to small businessnesses
Barack Obama is looking to rely mostly on the heavy hand of the government for regulating healthcare.
Modest smart regulations often make markets work better... not always mind you... but in things like health care its obvious. All you need to do is compare us with other nations--we rank 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization... and pay 2-3 times as much as other industrialized nations to get worse quality of care. You don't have much of a case for that one.
What did Bill Clinton do for healthcare reform? Hillary Care was presented to the Democratic-controlled Congress on November 20, 1993. U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) qualified his agreement against the plan saying "there is no health care crisis" ... "there is an insurance crisis" but also indicated "anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn't living in it." In August 1994, Democratic Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D) introduced a compromise proposal that would have delayed requirements of employers until 2002.
Yes and the reasons health care reform didn't work was--everybody together now--Republicans blocking the efforts.
You can't--well you can, but no one should take you seriously--complain about the impacts of Repubican obstruction. The other issue is the amount of lobbying on behalf of the health care industry... its quite a profitable business if you didn't know. Did I mention we pay 2-3 times as much as other countries... for WORSE care--oh yeah I think I did.
In Great Britain after many decades of shortages, misery and suffering followed until 1989, when some market-based health care competition was reintroduced to the British citizens.
I'm for market competition... the government, with its massive purchasing power, and its lack of a need to pay huge salaries to ceo's (not to mention spending money to keep from getting people care) would be a check on profit motive at the expense of care. I'm not for less market competition I'm for real market competition. No go on that one too...
In Canada, Chaoulli v. Quebec UPDATE (June 9, 2005): In a 4 to 3 decision, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down Quebec's law that prohibits private medical insurance.
Stawman... we're not trying to prohibit private medical insurance. Once again... conservative tactics 101... make up stuff that just isn't true...
The Cuban Government has implemented a two-tiered medical system (e.g. "medical apartheid") that caters to foreign tourists while denying native Cubans access to basic medical necessities (at least it is "free" to them).
If costs keep going up here unchecked by government participation you'll start seeing Americans start going abroad for care... plus once again strawman... you aren't accurately representing the Obama plan. Its market competion with private insurance to bring down the profit motive to a more effieicent and equitable level.
Australia's universal health care scheme is relatively new (introduced in 1983, which built on the 1974 Medibank program). As with all socialized health care systems, there is a mixture of public versus private care (approximately 30% of Australians also retain private health insurance). As a result, the private patients receive better care than their medicare counterparts.
Sure if you are willing to pay for better care... I don't have a problem with that!!!! But citizens... HUMANS deserve a basic level of care. To think otherwise leads you to moral quandaries that would make me appalled. But thats a personal decision for everyone to decide.
The impacts of Republican everyman for themselves... vs. creating an economy that protects and empowers citizens is the distinguishing factor in this debate. plus killing people and unnecessarily creating market inefficiencies in the richest nation in the world is a bit absurd and a very sad statement to the impacts of the conservative revolution on American citizens.
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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com
