REWahoo
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
You need to move to a better neighborhood...Every small restaurant in my area has an ATM and won't take a credit card.
Location: In a van down by the river
You need to move to a better neighborhood...Every small restaurant in my area has an ATM and won't take a credit card.
Location: In a van down by the river
I would take Nancy out and show her a good time. That would include "making her happy" on her personal vineyard "product".Question--If you believe action is needed to balance the federal budget, what mix of tax increases and spending cuts would you prescribe as being "about right"?
Gee ERD...I underlined it for you.
What about we start throwing some people in jail for unpaid taxes?
Sam, I think your graph would be much more meaningful if it were spending and taxes as a percent of GDP.
Thanks, yep, I saw it and it is interesting. It's easier to think in "% of GDP" rather than "$X trillions." But, one value if showing things in constant dollars is that it shows how much govt (spending and revenue) has grown ona an absolute basis (without reference to GDP). After all, our defense needs don't necessarily climb with a higher GDP, likewise our social services costs, etc.I posted one in another thread.
Here's where the US Treasury believes we are headed (page xi, Chart 9):. (Sorry--I can't post the image)
I can help with that.
What you'll notice is that nearly the entire long-run budget problem is due to growth in Medicare (and associated interest on future borrowings.)
- Large govt subsidies for the new health care law--where are they? This report was written before that legislation was passed. Be need to add a large chunk of additional spending for that. The picture just got worse, not better.
There is no market that will insure the very sick or the very old except at a price that exceeds their cost of care. And because we all become very sick or very old at some point the "market" will fail every single living person sooner or later. You know there isn't a free market solution to health care, why do you pretend otherwise?Market based competition is going to work far better than artificially limiting access to care.
Where's this coming from?You know there isn't a free market solution to health care, why do you pretend otherwise?
and with the appropriate legal framework, and judicious subsidies . . .
Where's this coming from?
I know that there can certainly be a competitive market for health insurance, and with the appropriate legal framework, and judicious subsidies, this can offer affordable health insurance for everyone regardless of age or infirmity. And I firmly believe that competition between insurance providers and between providers of medical services is the most effective and most humane way to control medical costs.
We can put some regs in to cover that group, and let the free market fill the demand created by those regs. It isn't a "pure" free market, but nothing is. It's all a matter of degrees.
The Swiss seem to be able to make it work.
Yes, and what I'm saying is that when you work through the details of actually making that work, you end up with something that looks a lot like the reform that was just passed (which doesn't look much like a "free market" at all).
So lets look at the Swiss system . . .
1) Individual mandate - check
2) Basic insurance policy coverage dictated by the government - check
3) Price controls on the basic coverage - check
4) Subsidies if basic insurance premiums are above a certain % of income - check
5) Private supplemental insurance available - check
That sounds almost identical to the legislation that just passed. Surprise, surprise.
The Swiss system didn't have all the rest of the junk that is in that bill, . . .
How can you be so sure?
Those Swiss, so efficient. Somehow they crammed our 2000+ page law into 59 pages, plus attachments. But, it's in German, so their 59 pages have 20 times as many words longer than 10 letters than our law does.Here you go.
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/8/832.10.de.pdf
It's in Swiss German, though. 59 pages, but... There are an additional set of laws that apply, from the original Swiss laws a century ago that set up federal regulation of the health insurance industry, to various attached bills, and amendments over the past 15 years.
Whack the ever living cwap out of the defense budget would be a good start.
+1
It's amazing that most politicians seem to think that the defense budget is off limits. Why is that?
The other 58 pages appear to be devoted to a chocolate recipe. . .
+1
It's amazing that most politicians seem to think that the defense budget is off limits. Why is that?