If government provides "services" that are so good, why do they have to use force ?

[Dr Kynes]

Even if you're right, and Social Security has been adding to the DEFICIT since 2010 (those figures are less than 2% of the deficit for those years) his claim about 60% of the DEBT is still ridiculous.

Not that I think you're right, but you might be.

I have not confused debt with deficit. If a thing does not add to deficit, it can not add to debt.

thats not a matter or ME being right or wrong, that comes directly from the Trustees (who if anything would understate the problem)

when taken as a whole, SS and medi-care/aid total 43% of federal expenditures and that doesnt even include everything under Health and Human Services, O-Care, or any of the other programs which could be called "entitlements"

his estimate isn't terribly outrageous, just a couple inappropriately broad "Rounding Errors" is all you need to get the numbers proposed.

when taken as a whole, since SS and Medi-care/aid DO make up more than 40% of the expenditures, and since there IS a deficit, it is not out of line to propose that SS and Medi-care/aid are responsible for at least 40% of the deficit they help to create, despite their earmarked taxes, and imaginary "trust funds" which have essentially become part of the General Fund Monies.

 

[see4]

thats not a matter or ME being right or wrong, that comes directly from the Trustees (who if anything would understate the problem)

when taken as a whole, SS and medi-care/aid total 43% of federal expenditures and that doesnt even include everything under Health and Human Services, O-Care, or any of the other programs which could be called "entitlements"

his estimate isn't terribly outrageous, just a couple inappropriately broad "Rounding Errors" is all you need to get the numbers proposed.

when taken as a whole, since SS and Medi-care/aid DO make up more than 40% of the expenditures, and since there IS a deficit, it is not out of line to propose that SS and Medi-care/aid are responsible for at least 40% of the deficit they help to create, despite their earmarked taxes, and imaginary "trust funds" which have essentially become part of the General Fund Monies.

The two separately are roughly 20% of the budget respectively, covering most every citizen that requires it, and you are deliberately leaving out the fact the defense budget also makes up a little more than 20% of the budget alone.

When you start cutting the defense budget drastically, then you can fairly start suggesting ways to cut medicare and social security. Deal?

 

[Dr Kynes]

The two separately are roughly 20% of the budget respectively, covering most every citizen that requires it, and you are deliberately leaving out the fact the defense budget also makes up a little more than 20% of the budget alone.

When you start cutting the defense budget drastically, then you can fairly start suggesting ways to cut medicare and social security. Deal?

specious, argumentative, ignorant and obtuse.

i could make the same argument against the MORE THAN 50% of federal expenditures which go to social programs

http://underthemountainbunker.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/1-14.jpg

SS 20% + Medicare/aid 21% (some CBO charts go to 23%) + "safety net programs" 10% + "food" (which is Foodstamps) 3.2% = ~51% to 53% of the budget on programs found NOWHERE in the constitution, which are well outside the congress' mandate.

my argument is far stronger than yours. a 10% cut of 51% of the budget is way better than a 10% cut to 20% of the budget.


i am in favour of cutting defense spending, eliminating the Meals On Wheels missions, closiing military bases overseas, scrubbing the pentagon of it's wasteful perfumed princes, and restoring our military forces to a proper size and configuration for defending the US, rather than the world.

are you in favour of letting americans do for themselves rather than relying on mommy fed's big hanging dugs for their nourishment?

 

[see4]

Ok, so through that entire pile of shit you just regurgitated, you agree, we should cut the defense budget?

 

[Dr Kynes]

Ok, so through that entire pile of shit you just regurgitated, you agree, we should cut the defense budget?

so we have established that in fact you are a liar, and even if defense spending WERE cut, no, you would not allow any cuts to your favorite social programs.

also, if it's "shit" why not dispute the numbers with a citation of your own?

quick! think of a lie!

 

[see4]

so we have established that in fact you are a liar, and even if defense spending WERE cut, no, you would not allow any cuts to your favorite social programs.

also, if it's "shit" why not dispute the numbers with a citation of your own?

quick! think of a lie!

what was a lie? point out exactly what I lied about? you claimed that ss and medicare constituted 40%+ of the budget, I agreed. I then told you they were roughly 20% respectively of the budget, and then went on further to point that the defense spending was roughly 20% of the budget. ALL of the information is fact. so genius, again, tell me where I lied. point it out exactly.

jesus you are really bad at this. i mean really really bad.

answer my simple question. then we can move on. answer to me why you focus on 20% medicare, 20% social security and 10% in welfare and other programs, but choose to ignore 20% in defense spending. why? why can't you answer that? because you don't have a fucking answer. because you're a useless piece of shit who only regurgitates the same bullshit talking points you fuckbags see everyday on Faux Noise. you are transparent.

so go ahead bucko, point out my lie in that statement. point it out, then provide evidence to the fact. do it. i dare you.

 

[Dr Kynes]

what was a lie? point out exactly what I lied about? you claimed that ss and medicare constituted 40%+ of the budget, I agreed. I then told you they were roughly 20% respectively of the budget, and then went on further to point that the defense spending was roughly 20% of the budget. ALL of the information is fact. so genius, again, tell me where I lied. point it out exactly.

jesus you are really bad at this. i mean really really bad.

answer my simple question. then we can move on. answer to me why you focus on 20% medicare, 20% social security and 10% in welfare and other programs, but choose to ignore 20% in defense spending. why? why can't you answer that? because you don't have a fucking answer. because you're a useless piece of shit who only regurgitates the same bullshit talking points you fuckbags see everyday on Faux Noise. you are transparent.

so go ahead bucko, point out my lie in that statement. point it out, then provide evidence to the fact. do it. i dare you.

When you start cutting the defense budget drastically, then you can fairly start suggesting ways to cut medicare and social security. Deal?

apparently it is NOT a deal. you want what YOU want, and everything else be damned.

and the hilarious part is, you dont even see your own hypocrisy

 

[ginwilly]

One place to reduce welfare costs is administrative. There's 20-something agencies that handle welfare. Overlapping bureaus with people filing TPS reports all day are not essential. A great way for lefties to cut defense would be to shut down or convert the VA system and put all military on the wildly successful Obamacare plan. There would be the proof you need about how O'care is the holy grail. Or it could be the nail in the coffin for liberal logic. Let's find out!

 

[NoDrama]

One place to reduce welfare costs is administrative. There's 20-something agencies that handle welfare. Overlapping bureaus with people filing TPS reports all day are not essential. A great way for lefties to cut defense would be to shut down or convert the VA system and put all military on the wildly successful Obamacare plan. There would be the proof you need about how O'care is the holy grail. Or it could be the nail in the coffin for liberal logic. Let's find out!

Duplication of effort is most certainly one of the things that makes bureaucracies tick. Without that there would not be enough red tape to justify their jobs.

 

[UncleBuck]

One place to reduce welfare costs is administrative. There's 20-something agencies that handle welfare. Overlapping bureaus with people filing TPS reports all day are not essential. A great way for lefties to cut defense would be to shut down or convert the VA system and put all military on the wildly successful Obamacare plan. There would be the proof you need about how O'care is the holy grail. Or it could be the nail in the coffin for liberal logic. Let's find out!

paul ryan's latest plan to save medicare is to put seniors on obamacare exchanges.

do you think people will demand the more free market based "solution" that ryan is proposing, or do you think they will prefer the more socialized version that they are used to?



"liberal logic" swipes fall apart when you realize that seniors are happier with their socialized medicine than young people are with their private insurance.

 

[UncleBuck]

Duplication of effort is most certainly one of the things that makes bureaucracies tick. Without that there would not be enough red tape to justify their jobs.

speaking of high administrative costs, does anyone here want to compare the administrative costs of our private, for profit health insurers to the socialized versions around the world?



i sure would!

afterwards, we can have a discussion of why it is that the heavy hand of government in socialized medicine around the globe produces more efficient results than our system of private, for profit insurers, and what to do with this information.

 

[ginwilly]

Seniors, would you rather have your healthcare for free or would you rather pay for it? Free please.

Polls show seniors prefer their free shit, just like any of us.

 

[UncleBuck]

Seniors, would you rather have your healthcare for free or would you rather pay for it? Free please.

Polls show seniors prefer their free shit, just like any of us.

look how free that motherfucker is!

 

[abandonconflict]

thats not a matter or ME being right or wrong, that comes directly from the Trustees (who if anything would understate the problem)

when taken as a whole, SS and medi-care/aid total 43% of federal expenditures and that doesnt even include everything under Health and Human Services, O-Care, or any of the other programs which could be called "entitlements"

his estimate isn't terribly outrageous, just a couple inappropriately broad "Rounding Errors" is all you need to get the numbers proposed.

when taken as a whole, since SS and Medi-care/aid DO make up more than 40% of the expenditures, and since there IS a deficit, it is not out of line to propose that SS and Medi-care/aid are responsible for at least 40% of the deficit they help to create, despite their earmarked taxes, and imaginary "trust funds" which have essentially become part of the General Fund Monies.

"More than 40% of expenditures"

That isn't the deficit the or the debt.

 

[Rob Roy]

speaking of high administrative costs, does anyone here want to compare the administrative costs of our private, for profit health insurers to the socialized versions around the world?



i sure would!

afterwards, we can have a discussion of why it is that the heavy hand of government in socialized medicine around the globe produces more efficient results than our system of private, for profit insurers, and what to do with this information.

Ah "efficient results" eh? A person wants sex, but there are no willing partners or in the case of your friend, maybe no blowup dolls available. In the quest for "efficiency", they simply have sex with somebody else, whether that person is willing or not, efficient huh?


Another example would be say some full of shit person really had to go #2, and the bathroom door at Wendy's was locked. In the quest for efficiency, that person could just dump a steaming pile on the floor. Efficiency that doesn't consider the means of implementation is a little short sighted and inconsiderate eh poopy pants?

 

[justanotherbozo]

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, 'What is Politics ?'


Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way:


I am the head of the family , so call me The President.


Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.


We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People.



The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class.


And your baby brother, we will call him the Future.


Now think about that and see if it makes sense.'


So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad said.


Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him.


He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.


So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep.




Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.


He gives up and goes back to bed.


The next morning, the little boy says to his father, 'Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.'


The father says, 'Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.'


The little boy replies,



'The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep.


The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit!

 

[Hazydat620]

Thanks for asking. First lets see if we agree on what a "service" is. I think a service provider provides a potential customer with something that the potential customer wants, so naturally some individuals may want a given service and some may not. Agreed? Is that what a service is?

To ensure payment at a grocery store ( a common provider of a service) the people that actually want the service pay when they are leaving. This creates a willing exchange, you got a cart of groceries, the store got $150. Both parties got what they wanted. This seems to be a reasonable approach to interactions, yes?

Okay, you want to know what happens when one party doesn't want to pay. That all depends did they seek the service and not pay (theft) or was the so called service not really a service but an offer that couldn't be refused? (extortion) If something is presented as a service, but one party doesn't want it, is it still a service? I say no, what do you say and why?

The store is not selling a service,it is selling goods. The service is acting as a middle man from the producers of said goods. Would I rather get the goods at cost from the producer of said goods, yes, but the producer has bought the service of the store to sell his goods usually by contract from the store to not sell directly to the consumer, extortion as I see it. Or did I not understand your ?

 

[Hazydat620]

If I had a street light and it lit MY property I'd not ask you to or demand that you pay for it. I'd pay for it.

And may I ask how you would go about this? Would you go to a light pole company, buy the light pole, dig the light pole hole,secure light pole so it didn't kill someone in a heavy storm, dig trench for electrical, run electrical, back fill everything back to normal? You would most likely hire out a few contractors to do some of the work, have you ever priced something like that out? ME, I would rather pay a small fee every year to have a light every where I went. I would like that fee to be smaller, but there's too many that say all these services should not be done by the people that get that fee, but contract that out to companies who waste it and usually go over budget or steal it.

 

[Dr Kynes]

speaking of high administrative costs, does anyone here want to compare the administrative costs of our private, for profit health insurers to the socialized versions around the world?



i sure would!

afterwards, we can have a discussion of why it is that the heavy hand of government in socialized medicine around the globe produces more efficient results than our system of private, for profit insurers, and what to do with this information.

and yet, O-Care is the worst of both worlds, huge government bureaucracy leading huge corporate bureaucracy around by the nose, or is it the other way around?

the mandate, penaltax and interference with contracts is what sticks in my craw.

if the O-man really gave a squirt of piss about "healthcare", he would have rolled medicare/medicaid, and various other government programs into one, and created a government insurance plan which follows his rules (no pre-existing condition clause, no managed care, no dumping sick people, children stay on parents plan till 26, etc...) with no profit motive. the expenses of the plan could totalled up at the end of every fiscal year and the bill could be apportioned out equally (or scaled to income) among all those who are members of the government insurance program, and let the people choose which idea is best.

but he never even proposed that.

 

[Dr Kynes]

The store is not selling a service,it is selling goods. The service is acting as a middle man from the producers of said goods. Would I rather get the goods at cost from the producer of said goods, yes, but the producer has bought the service of the store to sell his goods usually by contract from the store to not sell directly to the consumer, extortion as I see it. Or did I not understand your ?

stores do not extort producers, nor do producers extort stores.

stores BUY their goods from producers in the hopes that they can sell em for a profit, and producers sell their goods to stores so they dont have to keep the shit hanging around their farm or factory until somebody shows up to buy it.

if i produce goods which i hope to sell (which i do) i can either take them to a market and sell em myself (which i do) or, sell em to somebody else who will take em off my hands at a lower price so THEY can shift the goods and assume the risk if the bottom drops out of the market or something better comes along.

taxes are imposed on commerce to pay for the costs of regulating that commerce, thus ensuring (hopefully) that weights and measures are properly uniform, health and safety standards are in place, goods are exactly what they are purported to be, the construction and maintenance of the roads, bridges docks and markets, and to pay for police/military protection to reduce the hazards of brigandage, theft and raids by nomadic horsemen from the eastern steppes.

that is the nature of commerce.

despite AbandonConflict's repeated and tiresome attempts to force a meme: "government exists to protect private property", government truely exists to protect COMMERCE.

without commerce, there is no need to build markets, nor cities to serve and be served by those markets, nor city walls to defend those cities, nor borders to establish boundaries between cities, nor roads to link cities in trade networks, nor armies to defend those trade networks and borders, nor kings emperors, presidents or prime ministers to administer and lead those armies which defend the cities and borders which exist solely as a result of commerce.