House Dems "Nothing left to cut in budget — ‘the cupboard is bare’"

[chucky2]

I've never actually seen an Obama cheerleader... are you referring to something in your head? That is not reality.

Wow...just...wow...

 

[irishScott]

I've never actually seen an Obama cheerleader... are you referring to something in your head? That is not reality.

There are more than a few people on this forum disconnected from reality, and you're in the running for President for that little club.

But since you asked, here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

 

[Londo_Jowo]

I've never actually seen an Obama cheerleader...

Of course you would say this. Your posts in this forum can easily be translated to the following:

Rah Rah Ree
Take a conservative off at the knee
Rah Rah Rass
Kiss the mighty Obama's ass

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Perhaps you misunderstand. There is one socialist in Congress. That is what is meant by there being no 'left" in this country. Any actual liberals in this country, outside of Vermont, are not represented in government, and for all intents and purposes, therefore, does not exist.

Don't play ignorant please.

LMAO!!!! Still trying to sell there's no liberals or left BS.

 

[compuwiz1]

I'm doing a bit of reasearch, trying to get "facts' as to who our most lying president in history is. I'm struggling because there are pages and pages of Obama worshipers out there, that you just can't get there. Try the google search and you will see what I mean. I actually want to exclude Obama from the search. Can anyone give me some true facts, excluding Obama. I can research him on my own. I already have his list of broken promises or outright lies. I want some other data to compare him to.

 

[Matt1970]

Perhaps you misunderstand. There is one socialist in Congress. That is what is meant by there being no 'left" in this country. Any actual liberals in this country, outside of Vermont, are not represented in government, and for all intents and purposes, therefore, does not exist.

Don't play ignorant please.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Or modern Republicans are the minority party, the party of No!

What radical agenda do you speak of? Adoption of the Heritage Foundation's ideas about healthcare? Carrying through on the Bush Admin's much needed economic stimulus?Feeding children in the face of the worst economic catasdtrophe in 3 generations? Raising taxes on America's wealthiest to rates well below those of the Reagan era?

What, *exactly*, has been radical about Dems' agenda, anyway?

I'm getting tired of the incessant regurgitation of this lie. But I expect no less from hacks like you. Here's the truth of the matter from the horses mouth. Assuming, of course, that you give two shits about the truth.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...individual-mandate-reform-heritage/52951140/1

Column: Don't blame Heritage for ObamaCare mandate

Is the individual mandate at the heart of "ObamaCare" a conservative idea? Is it constitutional? And was it invented at The Heritage Foundation? In a word, no.

The U.S. Supreme Court will put the middle issue to rest. The answers to the first and last can come from me. After all, I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years. And make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the myth persists. ObamaCare "adopts the 'individual mandate' concept from the conservative Heritage Foundation," Jonathan Alter wrote recently in The Washington Post. MSNBC's Chris Matthews makes the same claim, asserting that Republican support of a mandate "has its roots in a proposal by the conservative Heritage Foundation." Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have made similar claims.

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."

My idea was hardly new. Heritage did not invent the individual mandate.

But the version of the health insurance mandate Heritage and I supported in the 1990s had three critical features. First, it was not primarily intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance required in most states, our requirement focused on "catastrophic" costs — so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance.

Second, we sought to induce people to buy coverage primarily through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher, financed in part by a fundamental reform of the tax treatment of health coverage, rather than by a stick.

And third, in the legislation we helped craft that ultimately became a preferred alternative to ClintonCare, the "mandate" was actually the loss of certain tax breaks for those not choosing to buy coverage, not a legal requirement.

So why the change in this position in the past 20 years?

First, health research and advances in economic analysis have convinced people like me that an insurance mandate isn't needed to achieve stable, near-universal coverage. For example, the new field of behavioral economics taught me that default auto-enrollment in employer or nonemployer insurance plans can lead many people to buy coverage without a requirement.

Also, advances in "risk adjustment" tools are improving the stability of voluntary insurance. And Heritage-funded research on federal employees' coverage — which has no mandate — caused me to conclude we had made a mistake in the 1990s. That's why we believe that President Obama and others are dead wrong about the need for a mandate.

Additionally, the meaning of the individual mandate we are said to have "invented" has changed over time. Today it means the government makes people buy comprehensive benefits for their own good, rather than our original emphasis on protecting society from the heavy medical costs of free riders.

Moreover, I agree with my legal colleagues at Heritage that today's version of a mandate exceeds the constitutional powers granted to the federal government. Forcing those Americans not in the insurance market to purchase comprehensive insurance for themselves goes beyond even the most expansive precedents of the courts.

And there's another thing. Changing one's mind about the best policy to pursue — but not one's principles — is part of being a researcher at a major think tank such as Heritage or the Brookings Institution. Serious professional analysts actually take part in a continuous bipartisan and collegial discussion about major policy questions. We read each other's research. We look at the facts. We talk through ideas with those who agree or disagree with us. And we change our policy views over time based on new facts, new research or good counterarguments.

Thanks to this good process, I've altered my views on many things. The individual mandate in health care is one of them.

Stuart Butler, Ph.D., is a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org), where he is the director of the Center for Policy Innovation.

 

[thraashman]

your right. the left has been going further left for decades. The right finally woke up and decided they weren't going to be lib's 2.0.

I'd say this is the stupidest thing you've ever said, but at this point with you, it's hard to keep track. This would be the stupidest thing most people have ever said. For you it barely even registers in the top thousand.

There is this thing called the override. Bush did not abuse his veto power. Go look at what he veto'd and why, and how many times he did it.

You honestly can't be this clueless. First, Bush had both chambers of Congress as his part for half of his presidency. Second, how about you go look at his signing statements and how many of those contained challenges to laws (hint it's significantly more than any other President ever). He didn't use the veto because he used signing statements instead as a pseudo line-item veto.

 

[michal1980]

I'd say this is the stupidest thing you've ever said, but at this point with you, it's hard to keep track. This would be the stupidest thing most people have ever said. For you it barely even registers in the top thousand.

apparently you failed chart reading 101.

 

[nehalem256]

apparently you failed chart reading 101.

Well to be fair to him the chart does show the Democrats being more conservative when pushing through FDR's New Deal than Obamacare.

Maybe he just reached the obvious conclusion that it is full of shit?

 

[thraashman]

apparently you failed chart reading 101.

A quick shift towards center by Dems followed by a slow move back to right around where they originally were on the left is a correction back to the norms, not a long shift left. And the Repubs have never been further from center than they are now and the Dems have never been as far from center as the Repubs are now.

Well to be fair to him the chart does show the Democrats being more conservative when pushing through FDR's New Deal than Obamacare.

Maybe he just reached the obvious conclusion that it is full of shit?

I know you love to latch on to something and repeat it and repeat it despite people correcting you. This is normally revolving around your hatred of women and homosexuals or any of your other innumerable horrible traits you have. But I'm simply not going to debate this stupid point with you, you're not worth it, you're just too fucking stupid to bother with.

 

[nehalem256]

I know you love to latch on to something and repeat it and repeat it despite people correcting you. This is normally revolving around your hatred of women and homosexuals or any of your other innumerable horrible traits you have. But I'm simply not going to debate this stupid point with you, you're not worth it, you're just too fucking stupid to bother with.

As usual "stupid point" appears to be a dog whisper for your irrefutable point makes me butt-hurt.

 

[ivwshane]

I'm getting tired of the incessant regurgitation of this lie. But I expect no less from hacks like you. Here's the truth of the matter from the horses mouth. Assuming, of course, that you give two shits about the truth.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...individual-mandate-reform-heritage/52951140/1

Lol! So a loss of tax breaks for not getting insurance? A realization that and I quote, "I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage)."

But you are right, it wasn't their idea, they just supported it.

Thanks doc! Another great post!

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Lol! So a loss of tax breaks for not getting insurance? A realization that and I quote, "I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage)."

But you are right, it wasn't their idea, they just supported it.

Thanks doc! Another great post!

Did you read the rest of the article? Or did you just fail to understand it?

 

[ivwshane]

Did you read the rest of the article? Or did you just fail to understand it?

You mean the part where he tries to redefine "mandate"? Or where he tries to back track on their "original intentions"?

Lol

 

[dainthomas]

You mean the part where he tries to redefine "mandate"? Or where he tries to back track on their "original intentions"?

Lol

"We were doing it because we love America. Obama is doing the exact same thing because he hates America. Therefore it is now a bad idea."

 

[werepossum]

I'm doing a bit of reasearch, trying to get "facts' as to who our most lying president in history is. I'm struggling because there are pages and pages of Obama worshipers out there, that you just can't get there. Try the google search and you will see what I mean. I actually want to exclude Obama from the search. Can anyone give me some true facts, excluding Obama. I can research him on my own. I already have his list of broken promises or outright lies. I want some other data to compare him to.

Trying to get "facts' as to who was our most lying president in history? Why not do something simple, like figuring out which ocean is the most wet.

All Presidents lie because Presidents are politicians, and in politicians that's what we reward. Tell me what I want to hear and I'll ignore the fact that you've spent your career doing just the opposite.

 

[ichy]

It's probably too late for rational discussion, but she's sort of correct if she's referring to discretionary spending. 80% of the budget is consumed by Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, defense and interest on our government debt. Of course what you'll never hear Pelosi say is that entitlement spending needs to be controlled.

 

[boomerang]

Trying to get "facts' as to who was our most lying president in history? Why not do something simple, like figuring out which ocean is the most wet.

All Presidents lie because Presidents are politicians, and in politicians that's what we reward. Tell me what I want to hear and I'll ignore the fact that you've spent your career doing just the opposite.

Are you old enough to remember when the press asked meaningful questions? Where they would structure the question to get an actual answer? I am. Now, their idea of an interview is to ask them whether they wear boxers or briefs.

I've thought for the longest time that the best question to ask a Congressional candidate would be, "will you vote the people's wishes"? In a true representative democracy, that's the only thing that matters. Now we want to know their "position" on such and such a matter. You'll be elected to serve the wishes of the people, your position shouldn't matter.

Yeah, I'm old fashioned this way.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm getting tired of the incessant regurgitation of this lie. But I expect no less from hacks like you. Here's the truth of the matter from the horses mouth. Assuming, of course, that you give two shits about the truth.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...individual-mandate-reform-heritage/52951140/1

Heh. The pertinent part of your propaganda piece-

So why the change in this position in the past 20 years?

The author conveniently claims to have changed his mind in the meanwhile, obviously so that he can blame Obama for adopting much of his original idea.

The piece actually supports what I offered, and there's a lot more to the story than Butler is telling-

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/08/21/obamacare-the-heritage-foundation-disowns-its-baby/

Yep, they were for it before they were against it, which is just another way of saying Hate-um Obama! Hate-um!

 

[DucatiMonster696]

That frankly is so bizarre with the Dems. They get control of Congress in 2006, Bush works with them unless they try and impose a pullout date on Iraq or Afghanistan, which makes sense. Dems are in working with Bush, and vice versa, to run the country. Economy crashes in 2008 - it's all that evil Bush fault...but no mention of the past 2 years of control by Dems. Then in 2008, after knowing the entire time that a Dem is going to be POTUS, and thus having what is years now at that point time for planning and having ready their legislation, we get...a 90's Rep HC plan?!?! Rather than have public meetings on it (that would largely be pre-scripted because they should have already had them to craft their legislation) and then passing a US version of UHC, we get what we got. That is, nothing to really control what makes needing UHC important: costs.

It's like the Dems are so incompetent, they can only snatch failure from the jaws of victory. This is to say nothing of the crazies they have in their party - they are as crazy, if not in more important ways more so, than their Rep crazy counterparts.

HowTF does a responsible US citizen decide who to vote for???

Chuck

Anyone but the two groups you mentioned. If you are responsible and have principals you let those guide your voting not a capital letter in front of a person's name.

 

[michal1980]

Heh. The pertinent part of your propaganda piece-



The author conveniently claims to have changed his mind in the meanwhile, obviously so that he can blame Obama for adopting much of his original idea.

The piece actually supports what I offered, and there's a lot more to the story than Butler is telling-

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/08/21/obamacare-the-heritage-foundation-disowns-its-baby/

Yep, they were for it before they were against it, which is just another way of saying Hate-um Obama! Hate-um!

You on the left want it both ways. Conservatives should be more open minded and when they learn new facts they should change their positions. And whatever position they have, they need to hold forever.


However if a liberal changes their position, they are enlightened.

 

[ivwshane]

You on the left want it both ways. Conservatives should be more open minded and when they learn new facts they should change their positions. And whatever position they have, they need to hold forever.


However if a liberal changes their position, they are enlightened.

Is it any surprise that you missed the point of the discussion they were having?

I say no.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I'm getting tired of the incessant regurgitation of this lie. But I expect no less from hacks like you. Here's the truth of the matter from the horses mouth. Assuming, of course, that you give two shits about the truth.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...individual-mandate-reform-heritage/52951140/1

Heh. The pertinent part of your propaganda piece-

So why the change in this position in the past 20 years?

The author conveniently claims to have changed his mind in the meanwhile, obviously so that he can blame Obama for adopting much of his original idea.

The piece actually supports what I offered, and there's a lot more to the story than Butler is telling-

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/08/21/obamacare-the-heritage-foundation-disowns-its-baby/

Yep, they were for it before they were against it, which is just another way of saying Hate-um Obama! Hate-um!

Each side is able to find data to support their position and reject the opponents position.

Is this anything new :\

Attitudes also change and reality becomes more clear.

 

[Incorruptible]

There is lots to cut and pelosi is a disgusting piece of shit for what she did. Cut the salaries of all politicians, cut the salary of obama. End the drug war, bring all the troops home.

There is such a massive bureacracy that needs cuts and abolish the department of education and energy, abolish the TSA and DHS. There is billions in cuts but pelosi is too stupid like a typical leftist.