Why am I conservative??

Pat

Supporter
I would like to introduce you to my wonderful Granddaughter Emily and tell you some things about her. She’s 7 months old and is amazing. She loves to be in the center of conversation and adds her babble when you look at her. If you put your face near hers and tell her you love her, she will try to give you a kiss. She loves to hear her mother, a classically trained opera singer, practice and at the top of her lungs tries to sing along. It is hysterical.
There are some other things about Emily that I think about - a lot. According to the OMB Medicare Hospital funding will run dry in 2024. Emily will be 13. The so called Social Security “trust fund” will be bankrupt in 2036. Emily will be 25. She dare not be injured on the job as Social Security Disability runs out of money in 2018 a dozen years before she is old enough for her first job. In all likelihood, she will need to pay a full social security tax to fund current obligations for her parents and grandparents her entire working life and will at best receive a fractional benefit herself. Currently no one is paying into the social security system due to the “tax holiday”.
When Emily is 18 and ready for work, Fred Bergsten, former assistant secretary of international affairs for the Treasury, projected that annual current federal deficit will thus climb to almost $6 trillion by 2030, more than seven times its previous high,” he wrote. “Such a sum would account for more than 15 percent of GDP, or two and a half times the peak rate of 2006, and would be at least triple the accepted international norm for sustainable current account deficits, which is four or, at most, five percent of GDP.” He further predicted that by 2030, the United States will be paying $2.5 trillion a year to the rest of the world, equal to the nation’s current total spending on health care, just to pay the interest on U.S. debt. It is projected to be $50 trillion.
Emily will face college costs that will probably be unobtainable. Data from the College Board projects a bachelor’s degree would cost the class of 2034 in 2011 dollars. The result: Total tuition and fees would top $232,000 for an average-priced four-year private college and nearly $81,000 at an average-priced public university — up 111 percent and 167 percent, respectively, from the average class of 2012 tuition. If she sought college, she would need to be able to sing like her mother, play the trumpet like her aunt and scholarship or go deeply into debt. (It is unlikely she would be able to work offshore on oil rigs like her grandfather).
Savings for her own home, family or college will be a challenge. According to Daniel Shaviro, Professor of Taxation at New York University Law School, "Today ... a family of four making the median income — $94,900 — pays 15 percent in federal taxes. By 2035, under the C.B.O. projection, payroll and income taxes would claim 25 percent of that family’s paycheck. The marginal tax rate on labor income would rise from 29 percent to 38 percent. Federal tax revenue, which has averaged 18 percent of G.D.P. since World War II, would hit 23 percent by the 2030s and climb even higher after that.
"Such unprecedented levels of taxation would throw up hurdles to entrepreneurship, family formation and upward mobility. (Or as the C.B.O. puts it, in its understated way, they would 'tend to discourage some economic activity,' and 'harm the economy through the impact on people’s decisions about how much to work and save.')
This is not the world I want Emily to face. So I’m a conservative that wants smaller government, fiscal restraint and the ability for Emily to determine her own future without the “discouragement” of government dependency or insolvency. And I deeply hope I’m wrong…
 

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Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
I am liberal because we fix all of those problems so she has a bright future, rather than sit around and gripe about them.
 
Emily is a sweetie, and you are a fiscal conservative.

I am also a fiscal conservative and am disgusted by the manner in which our past, and especially our current administration has spent money like it's going out of style.

I don't really care for Mitt Romney but one thing you can say about him is that he would move aggressively to put our fiscal house in order, unlike Obama who either doesn't grasp the magnitude of the problem or who does yet still puts his personal and political agendas above the fiscal health of the USA. Isn't it interesting how the Obamacare spending doesn't really kick in until after the 2012 election?
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
A very good case can be made that alleged "fiscal conservatives" got us into the position we are in by reducing taxes and increasing spending. That's be Mssrs Reagan and Bush II.

While the spending levels of the first two years of the Obama administration were high, most economists agree they were necessary in order to make sure the economy didn't fall off of a cliff.

Now, it's time to do what we did in the 90s. Work TOGETHER (imagine that, liberals and conservatives, kumbaya and stuff) to make sure we get our debts and deficits down while still maintaining the level of government services required in a modern democracy.

What we don't need is one side or the other claiming some BS moral high ground about how only THEY defend the Constitution or only THEY are truly looking out for future.

The Democratic equivalent of this? No Medicare/SS reform. Clearly has to be done.

The Republican equivalent of this? No tax increases at all costs. Clealry has to be done.

Work together people!
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
By working together I assume you mean the way ObamaCare was pushed through congress without a single Repub vote?
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Bzzt, try again. You have some history learnin' to do. When I hear "conservatives" claim Obamacar was forced on Republicans I just have to laugh at the ignorance of what has gone on.

Let's start from the start.

I believe (other than the "mandate"system for US merchant marine that was enacted in the 1790s) the first real attempts at health care reform and a nationalized system started with Teddy Roosevelt in the early part of the 20th century.

There were various discussions about it during the New Deal, but for a variety of reasons it was decided to focus efforts elsewhere (Social Security in particular).

Truman gave it a shot with his Fair Deal, and then Kennedy with the New Frontier. It went nowhere primarily because (a) it was a single payer type proposal similar to what much of Europe has and (b) the AMA/Doctor lobby went ballistic in trying to stop it.

Next up was Medicare under Lyndon Johnson, which was a hybrid government insurance system for the elderly. Again, the AMA (using Ronald Reagan as their mouthpiece) went after it as "communism" but it got pasted.

And most Americans realized we needed somethign similar for the "non-elderly."

The typical Democrat position at the time was a single payer system.

And on the Republican side? It was none other than Richard Nixon who first proposed an insurance mandate system very similar to what we have now as a compromise. Thus, "Obamacare" really has its roots in a Republican proposal from the early 70s.

Health care reform went nowhere in the 70s and 80s, and was revived by the Clintons in the early 90s, again using a modified single payer model.

The Republican response? Newt Gingrich led the way, again proposing an insurance mandate very similar to what we have now. Maybe we should call it "Care of Newt."

This was the Republican "market approach" to health care reform. Continue our system almost exactly like it is now with a requirement that everyone hav einsurance and susbidies for those who couldn't afford it.

2008 rolls around. The question is not whether we need health care reform but what do we do. Both McCain and Obama focus on it as a critical part of their campaigns.

Obama wins. First proposal? A compromise. Instead of single payer, he proposes an insurance mandate with a limited public option.

Republicans scream "socialism!" at a modified version of their own proposal.

Next up, Obama eliminates the public option. Republicans, now faced with a proposal identical to what they first proposed in the early 70s and then again in the early 90s, do what? They scream "socialism."

The President says he is open to ideas from the Republicans on the mandate system, but his core position remains that we were not going to rely solely on illusory "market reforms" to try to solve the problem of 40 million uninsured in the US.

Republicans? They do nothing other than say no. Read David Frum's article on this -- former speechwriter for George W. Bush. He theorizes that the Republicans gave up a huge opportunity to influence the shape and scope of Obamacare in 2008/2009 by their frankly petulant refusal to do anything other than say "no."

The Democrats and Obama will were left -- after trying to engage the Republicans on this for DECADES -- one choice. Pass something their way. And even then, they didn't do that. They gave the Republicans essentially what they ahd been asking for for 40 years. An insurance mandate system without a public option.

And yet, this is somehow viewed by people like yourself as the President ramming reform down the throats of the Republicans?

Like I said, much learning you have to do young Padawan.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
I feel bad for you. You just wasted what 20 mins typing that all up and yet not a single mind has been changed. Carry on lol.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
5 minutes actually. 80 words per minute.

I don't intend to change any minds. I just am here to point out glaring factual errors and ignorance.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Another well established liberal trait... yes, they really are just that much smarter than everyone else lol.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Open minded... as long as we all agree with you. If not, then we're ignorant lol. No thanks.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Translation: I got nothing.

Got it.

P.S. I'm really not trying to be difficult although I am sure it sounds that way. What I posted above is what happened. I'm trying to understand how basically passing the Republican plan from the last 40 years for health care reform was not compromise?
 
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Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Haha I think you have that backwards. See, what I have that people like you don't, is a life. I've already wasted more time in the last 10 mins bantering with you than on any other day I normally would or should have. Feel free to carry on living in your little bubble of liberal utopian perfection where you are the genius and everyone around you simple doesn't get it. In the mean time I'm going to go work on my sled after an awesome weekend in the high country. Then I'll spend a little time on my GT40 as I am making several mods over the winter in preparation for another fantastic summer which BTW is coming up after what has been another fantastic winter I'm having as we speak. This is what I was doing Sat while you were burning up the keyboard trying to edumicate another one of those clueless ignorant conservatives. Enjoy my friend lol.

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Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
(QUOTE: Jeff,

I have found that these debates go along just like this one, until you post actual data.

Then the debat turns to some version of "that's bullshit".

Now we enter the last stage, when you say "show me were I'm wrong" or my favorite "what have I said that is not true".

Then they will either change the subject, become bored, or use some variation of "I know you are wrong, but I have better things to do"..........but someday......

Finally they turn to personal attacks.

Here we have a different cast, but the play still has the same ending.
 
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Mike

Lifetime Supporter
become bored
Guilty as charged lol! Maybe you two can take this to PMs and congratulate each other on being the only two geniuses in the room. Knock yourselves out lol!

PS someday when I'm feeling particularly brain dead, I will waste 30 mins of my life and destroy about every liberal truism you cling dear to. Today is not that day. Gotta go!
 
Translation: I got nothing.

Got it.

P.S. I'm really not trying to be difficult although I am sure it sounds that way. What I posted above is what happened. I'm trying to understand how basically passing the Republican plan from the last 40 years for health care reform was not compromise?

What you failed to include in your forty year synopsis is that even poor immigrants, like my family, could afford to pay a doctor's visit out of pocket before Medicare destroyed the free market.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
You'll have to explain how Medicare -- which for the most part covers old folks only -- "destroyed the free market?"

And you are telling me that poor immigrants could pay for open heart surgeries, and 3-4 year courses of cancer treatment or for premature babies that need weeks in intensive care, or long term care for Alzheimer's patients?

Here's the fact of the old "barter system" (the one the governor? in Arizona seriously referred to as trading chickens for health care): until after WWII, the most serious "health care" you would receive would be (a) birth (which was often done outside of the hospital to save costs, resulting in high infant and mother mortality rates and (b) broken bones, which were pretty cheap and (c) death.

You had a heart attack? You died. You got cancer? You died. You had an aneurysm? You died. You didn't pay for any healthcare.

So, you might want to rethink that. What has resulted in much higher health care costs are the fact we hae amazing new procedures that extend lives....and that cost money.

And Jim, you pretty much called it word for word on our friend in Colorado.
 
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