Ain’t that the truth! (sorry… out of likes for the day!)
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Good input, thanks. Bernie Sanders wants to lead us towards large government programs paid for by raising taxes, my experience has been when ever I have to deal with the government be prepared for disappointment and frustration.
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I know, right. Take the Expansion of Civil Rights - what’s really in that for me?
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Ever try a dispute with a corporation?
At least we can organize democratically to control the government.
We have almost no democratic control over corporations.
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That’s only been my experience when government services have been severely defunded by Republicans (who then turn around and blame government itself for not working well).
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I think he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy bankers, and other business elites; us middle/low class folks are safe.
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I actually have no problem paying taxes when I get services out of it. A system like in North Western Europe would actually provide value for our dollar. If we have less coming out of our pockets in terms of health care (which, you have to admit, under the current, for profit system, is out of control and bankrupting people left and right - except for the fact that our right to declare bankruptcy has been seriously curtailed, so it’s just ruining people), transportation, education, etc, we’ll likely make up whatever they take out of our paychecks to pay for these services.
Part of the problem with our current system is the hybrid nature of the thing. If you’ve experienced frustration, it’s because we underfund government programs and underpay and undertrain the people who provide them. I don’t know what state you’re in, but you’d likely see a big difference in government services in the red south vs the bluer north. Likewise, I and I think just about anyone else here, yourself included, can think of moments of frustration with private bureaucracies, too. Large scale institutions almost always have these Kafka-esque problems because they are less responsive. I’d argue that government programs have became vastly less responsive in the past 20-30, perhaps 40 years.
Your argument on government services also falls flat when European (or Canada) examples are taken into consideration. A friend of mine, who is French, very nearly flew home recently in order to get some dental work done because the cost of the trip and the work at home, would have been cheaper than getting it done here. She found a work around, but she almost did that. Wrap your head around that for a moment.
And then there is this.
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Very much so.
The “let’s subsidise private health insurance and make it virtually compulsory, but regulate it a bit to soften the innate scummyness of for-profit healthcare” approach of Romneycare/Obamacare, if it were to be proposed in Australia or the UK, would be decried as a right-wing plot to destroy the public healthcare system through parasitic privatisation. Costs would soar, service would decrease (except at the very top of the market).
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Well, I am disappointed and frustrated with you, so maybe I should cut your budget. And put somebody in charge of you who will manage you badly. Is that likely to make us both happier?
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Here are the countries left-wing rag Forbes thinks are best for business. What do most of the top countries in the list have in common?
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Eh?
As I recall, we copped that shit with nary a peep. There were those of us who despised that cunt Howard with a burning passion, but most people couldn’t understand why. Fucking morons.
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Obnoxious as that was, it is a long way short of abolishing Medicare and replacing it with Ozbamacare. The private health cover tax rebate is a very gentle nudge in comparison.
Howard spent most of his Prime Ministership attempting to destroy Medicare by stealth, because he knew he couldn’t get away with doing it overtly. Another couple of terms for him (or just two terms for a kamikaze nutter like Abbott) and he might’ve managed it.
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No, to make the math work, practically everyone’s taxes would rise some amount, but the result would be a populace that could afford to take risks in the marketplace without putting their physical survival at risk. This is too subtle a point for Gerard, but the rest of us need to be honest and stop seeing low taxes as a carrot.
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Right? I mean if we expect to have any sort of shared resources, we have to actually pay into the system. Otherwise, it’s not going to work. I’m happy to pay taxes when the money isn’t frittered away by corrupt or inept politicians who care nothing about us.
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Sure, to make a health service work, everybody would have to pay more in tax. But that’s not taking into account the fact that people would also no longer need to pay for insurance. This tends to be disengeneously elided by opponents. It would actually work out as a saving for the vast majority. (Source- every other single player system in existence)
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Yes, agreed. I don’t think @andy_hilmer was arguing against that, just pointing out that low taxes are not necessarily a helpful thing when you want a functional government…
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I don’t think that was his intent either, and I’m sorry if it came across that way. I just thought it was worth throwing that point out there, because I have seen quite a lot of that sort of fuzzy mathematics used as political argument.
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Sure, fair enough!
I’m pretty sure that fuzzy everything is probably at the core of politics! The more fuzzy their arguments are, the less they have to hold themselves to whatever promises they make come the day they take office.
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Wyoming Caucus results coming in. Looks like Clinton is doing surprisingly well. Some weirdness with surrogate voters being mentioned on the twitters - I’m going to imagine that Clinton’s campaign has a better grasp of the rules and is maximizing her vote.
Linky to google docs spreadsheet of incoming results.
