US Politics XXX

[peterbound]

Hot damn that motherfucker can give a speech.

[ThinkerX]

Pax...you did note that the author pointed out some very serious unresolved issues with that small biz tax credit, right?

Plus, the article says *nothing* about *individual* tax credits.

Nope...reducing the rate of health insurance increase by a couple of percentage points per year really does not help make insurance more affordable for a huge number of US citizens.

To actually help make insurance affordable, it would have to cause the cost of insurance to *decrease* by *at least* several points a year.

As it is, it looks like a major fail.

[Jon Sprunk]

As it is, it looks like a major fail.

True, anything less than a single-payer universal hc system is a major fail, but the ACA is still a huge step in the right direction.

[awesome possum]

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has a piece on Bachmann. Read it.

Pretty good read. She is even scarier than Palin.

Particularly enjoyed this line:

"Imagine Joe McCarthy dragging Cabinet members into hearings and demanding that they publicly disavow the works of Groucho Marx, and you get a rough idea of the general style of Bachmannian politics."

[Asarlai]

Pretty good read. She is even scarier than Palin.

Particularly enjoyed this line:

"Imagine Joe McCarthy dragging Cabinet members into hearings and demanding that they publicly disavow the works of Groucho Marx, and you get a rough idea of the general style of Bachmannian politics."

:lmao: Beautiful :rofl:

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/22/barney-frank-and-ron-paul-will

Barney Frank and Ron Paul to introduce legislation to fully legalize cannabis at the federal level. It doesn't have a prayer of passing but hopefully it gets some floor debate and decent media coverage.

[Asarlai]

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/22/barney-frank-and-ron-paul-will

Barney Frank and Ron Paul to introduce legislation to fully legalize cannabis at the federal level. It doesn't have a prayer of passing but hopefully it gets some floor debate and decent media coverage.

At least they're being bipartisan.

[TerraPrime]

So...with the ACA, no matter if you are insured or not, you end up loosing money, either to the IRS or to the insurance companies.

How did you figure that?

If you drop the $4000/yr insurance in exchange for a penalty of $600/yr, you saved $3400 but you now have no health insurance.

I mean, I'm blinded by my ideology and all, but this math just doesn't justify your quoted statement.

[Swordfish]

Saw this too, although I saw it on Salon and not Reason. :P

Hey, on this we agree. The War on Drugs is the biggest joke ever. It's probably the issue that I'm most fiery about. I read one of Paul's books recently. I think he's mostly wrong on economics, but I really like him in most other ways, and this is one area. What frustrates me most is that most of the people who are want to keep the War on Drugs in place claim to be "conservative' and thus claim to be "fiscally conservative." Why is it that they cannot perform a relatively simple cost-benefit analysis on this?

Yeah. I don't think he'd make a good president, but I love the fact that Paul is around precisely because of stuff like this.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

How did you figure that?

If you drop the $4000/yr insurance in exchange for a penalty of $600/yr, you saved $3400 but you now have no health insurance.

I mean, I'm blinded by my ideology and all, but this math just doesn't justify your quoted statement.

Sure it does. Under the ACA, you either 1) pay for insurance, or 2) pay a tax penalty. So either way, the ACA forces money out of your pocket. The point is reelvant to this discussion because under Ryan's plan, you pay no penalty if you choose not to get insurance.

[TerraPrime]

Sure it does. Under the ACA, you either 1) pay for insurance, or 2) pay a tax penalty. So either way, the ACA forces money out of your pocket. The point is reelvant to this discussion because under Ryan's plan, you pay no penalty if you choose not to get insurance.

Really? So how does the Ryan plan pay for the tax exemption for those who do carry insurance?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Really? So how does the Ryan plan pay for the tax exemption for those who do carry insurance?

There isn't a tax exemption under the Ryan plan. There is a tax credit. And the Ryan plan "pays" for the tax credit by eliminating the exemption that exists under current law.

The voluntarily uninsured, who by definition chose not to take advantage of the exemption under current law, are free to continue not to taking advantate of the replacement credit. For them, nothing really changes from the status quo to Ryan's plan, and their take-home pay is completely unaffected.

Under the ACA, the voluntarily uninsured have their take-home pay reduced by the amount of the penalty/mandate.

One thing that is striking me about the mandate in the ACA is how small the fine really is. My guess is that there still are going to be a lot of people who choose to remain uninsured.

[awesome possum]

There isn't a tax exemption under the Ryan plan. There is a tax credit. And the Ryan plan "pays" for the tax credit by eliminating the exemption that exists under current law.

The voluntarily uninsured, who by definition chose not to take advantage of the exemption under current law, are free to continue not to taking advantate of the replacement credit. For them, nothing really changes from the status quo to Ryan's plan, and their take-home pay is completely unaffected.

Again, semantics. If you have insurance, then decide to drop it, that "credit" disappears so your take-home pay is completely affected.

[awesome possum]

Again, the American electorate shows how fickle it is. Or maybe it shows that it's waking up and realizing how unAmerican some of the tea party views really are. GOP poll: Tea party movement could cost Republicans in 2012

Republican pollster and consultant Alex Patton, who conducted a recent survey showing that, by a 2:1 ratio, registered Florida voters said the tea party movement did not represent their views.

The sentiment against the tea party is significantly higher among self-described independent voters, who swing elections in Florida and who looked unfavorably on the tea party by 3-to-1, the poll showed. Only Republican voters favored the tea party movement, with 68 percent in support and less than 20 percent opposed.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Again, semantics. If you have insurance, then decide to drop it, that "credit" disappears so your take-home pay is completely affected.

That makes absolutely no sense. The amount of the credit is significantly less than the cost of most insurance, and isn't permitted to exceed the cost of the insurance in any case. If you drop your insurance, the worst that can happen is that your takehome pay is unaffected, and that only happens if the credit was equal to the cost of insurance. But in most cases, dropping your insurance will increase your take-home pay. It's really no different from the current system where the deduction for employer paid insurance doesn't apply if you don't get insurance. But nobody in their right mind calls that a mandate or penalty, because it isn't.

Ryan's plan is like the "green energy" credit, where you can get a certain tax credit if you invest in energy-efficient things for your house. If you don't spend the extra money to get the energy efficient improvement, you don't get the credit. But that doesn't mean you get penalized if you don't buy that green energy improvement. It's not a mandate by any stretch of the word.

[awesome possum]

That makes absolutely no sense.

Of course it doesn't. The sky isn't blue if you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.

It's not a mandate by any stretch of the word.

Who is calling it a mandate? As has been stated over and over and over and over and over again, one is a "credit" while one is a "penalty." If you don't have insurance either you lose the credit or you pay the penalty. They both equal the same thing: loss of money in your pocket.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

As has been stated over and over and over and over and over again, one is a "credit" while one is a "penalty."

You appear not to have even a basic understanding of tax law, so this is getting pointless.

By your logic, the homeowner tax credit, energy tax credit, etc. all are no different from the penalty in the ACA. That's ridiculous. Such credits, at best, only compensate you for your own out of pocket expenses. They are not just cash in your pocket that you get regardless of out of pocket expenses. So, you don't "lose" that money if you don't make the out of pocket expenditure, because you're also not out the out of pocket expenditure necessary to qualify for the credit.

And since the credit, tax wise, is not substantively different from a larger deduction, you're also equating college loans, deductability of mortgage expenses, deductability of medicals over 7.5%, etc. as all being equivalent to the penalty contained in the ACA as well.

If you truly believe that, then you're clueless. If you don't, then I'm clueless for getting suckered into this. So unless you can post something showing you have a basic understanding of taxes, I'm not continuing this with you.

[awesome possum]

Ahh yes, FLoW. If you can't sufficiently twist around your argument to fit the talking points you've been given, then start whining and tossing about insults. Again, how very Fox News of you.

[DanteGabriel]

Georgia kicks out its illegal immigrants, then discovers just how much their largest industry (agriculture) depended on them.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100038095&docId=l%3A1438993076&start=9

After enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.

It might be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars' worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they've done to Georgia's largest industry.

Barely a month ago, you might recall, Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the TV cameras into his office as he proudly signed HB 87 into law. Two weeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal ordered a hasty investigation into the impact of the law he had just signed, as if all this had come as quite a surprise to him.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap, ye xenophobic motherfuckers.

(edited to fix causality in final statement)

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Georgia kicks out its illegal immigrants, then discovers just how much their largest industry (agriculture) depended on them.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100038095&docId=l%3A1438993076&start=9

As ye sow, so shall ye reap, ye xenophobic motherfuckers.

(edited to fix causality in final statement)

I've worked on farms with illegals before. If they think they can replace them at 1/1 ratio (11000 jobs needing filled) they are fooling themselves. Nobody works as hard as those guys. You'll need 20000 highschoolers/excons working to fill the gap.