2008 USP(G)ET pt. II: counting the days to 2012 primary thread 1

How can anyone from any planet be the next president and NOT raise taxes?

I'm thinking he's planning to pay for it with something that a lot of people won't like. I'm wondering what.

he will pay for it several times over by ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ.

fingers crossed. But that's not going to happen a whole lot faster than drilling in Alaska is going to bring down gasoline prices. Iraq is a money suck, but no Iraq is not a source of new revenue.

That second sentence is a mess. I mean, wars like this don't just BOOM end, and yay we have all this extra money lying around. That's the "offshore drilling will make it all better" argument.

how hard is this to understand - you don't need to increase receipts to pay more for one initiative if you reduce spending on others. FY08 spending on Iraq is nearly $200 billion. Obama's health care plan calls for annual spending of less than half the cost, perhaps as little as 1/3. No, we're not going to pull out of Iraq immediately. But we're not going to universalize health care access immediately either. By the end of the first term, we will both be out of Iraq and have a health care plan.

and iraq is not the only way to pay for health care. Obama will also do so by increasing efficiency in both governmental and private health care administration via government modernization initiatives, and reducing costs through government involvement in the market, promoting competition and reinsuring certain risks.

you could very easily answer these questions on your own, of course.

increasing efficiency in both governmental and private health care administration via government modernization initiatives

Yeah, I've been writing like this a lot lately, too. Polishing the resume.

government modernization initiatives

Computers. Wow.

promoting competition

Yeah, that's the whole McCain health care plan in a nutshell, and it's scary as shit. As if the insurance and pharmaceutical companies won't lock arms, form a proper cartel, and keep prices artificially high if challenged. "Market-based" is a non-starter.

reducing costs through government involvement in the market

This is where my hopes lie. Heavy, heavy regulation. REGULATION. It's not a dirty word. You can't "work with" these markets, they need to have swords dangling over their heads at this point. Hard to work that into a campaign speech, I guess.

maybe you should go do some research about how health care payment works and then do some research about obama's health care plan.

hey, it's September 2008!

FUTURE THREAD: It's September 2008. Explain to me why I should vote for Hillary instead of Giuliani.

haha... yeah, I was young and foolish. Drill baby drill.

maybe you should go do some research about how health care payment works

Explain me what I have failed to address that will answer all my questions about how Obama plans to pay for it.

It's not like I'm not going to vote for the guy, I'm just saying. That Youtube video made my brow furrow, and I don't furrow every day.

So... who pays?

kenan see the last page of this: Obama will let the Bush tax cuts expire, so the Richie Rich's of the world will help pay for the plan.

www.barackobama.com/pdf/Obama08_HealthcareFAQ.pdf

Godammnit, you partisans. Will you stop telling me about Obama's magical taxes on the rich? I've heard of them.

you understand that obama can increase receipts while sustaining tax cuts on 95% of Americans (and increasing tax credits for some) if his economic programs drive the economy up, right?

and again, who pays for what? the plan reduces costs, if not immediately then in the long run - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/us/23health.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1216818268-QxfgwABKRY0VCt4Ec7MSPA&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin. to the extent that some costs are not reduced, they are shifted onto the government via the reinsurance program you've ignored. the early spending on the program can be paid for, if not through cost containment, then easily through savings from the drawdown in iraq not to mention the possibility of increase receipts as above.

the reinsurance program, btw, could operate as a path to future implementation of a single-payer (om shanti) program

you understand that obama can increase receipts while sustaining tax cuts on 95% of Americans (and increasing tax credits for some) if his economic programs drive the economy up, right?

So the plan is "if"?

I'm playing devil's advocate, you understand that, right? I'm *for* more taxes, redistribution of wealth, all those thing O'Reilly wanted to nail him on that he can't outright say.

By the way, that's a pretty great interview. Not for any great points made, but just because Obama comes off so controlled in the face of so much ranting. Character, I think.

obviously he is not for 'more taxes' (though he is for more receipts) and is for 'redistribution of wealth' (just like mccain is, tho he wants to redistribute in the other direction).

So the plan is "if"?

we don't live in a command-and-control 5-year-plan state. as i have said several times now, the government will have money to pay for any costs that aren't simply eliminated, no if's about it.

obviously he is not for 'more taxes'

Well, obviously he can't say that. Who was the last person who said that? Mondale?

But whatever, fundamentally, I don't think we really disagree about anything awfully important.

i thought the devil knew how to google stuff.

psh. the devil might. the advocate doesn't.

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/political-pictures-barack-obama-chill-out-got-this.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/2vl3csh.png

lol

Spanish language ad accuses Democrats of sinking the immigration reform bill (it was Republicans) and calls Obama's amendment (a provision indicating that the reform would be reevaluated in five terms) - which actually helped the bill stay alive! - a "poison pill".

Explain me what I have failed to address that will answer all my questions about how Obama plans to pay for it.

seems to me murrcins other than Kenan be paying a shit-ton into various insurance plans on a monthly basis. pretty big pool of cash that.

punditkitchen.com mad correct motherfuckers need to chill

seems like most of the press on Palin is negative this weekend. But I suppose that the cherished middle class swing voter isn't sitting around on a Saturday afternoon reading about politics.

i wonder if it wasn't a mistake for McCain/Palin to attack the media so vehmently.

Can someone please explain why there are people in this country who are undecided about the election? How is that even possible?

Most people don't vote based on issues/policy, but on some more abstract scale of who is more Presidential, or who is more trustworthy, or who will be better for our country in an entirely abstract-not-connected-to-issues way.

and the frustrating thing is that all this negative publicity isn't going to do much to Palin. the people who like her like her for reasons that apparently have nothing to do with honesty, experience, or qualifications. Why would all the news leaking now undermining her change their perception of her?

punditkitchen.com mad correct motherfuckers need to chill

― HOOS clique iphones fool get ya steen on (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Saturday, September 13, 2008 3:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

v much in character

and the frustrating thing is that all this negative publicity isn't going to do much to Palin. the people who like her like her for reasons that apparently have nothing to do with honesty, experience, or qualifications.

Also they're inclined to like her because "she's so anathema to the liberal media establishment, see how they just can't staaaaaaand her, they're just attacking her all day!"

If anything this kind of stuff will endear her more to that base that thinks she's The One and the communist media is irreparably biased against her.

Most people don't vote based on issues/policy, but on some more abstract scale of who is more Presidential, or who is more trustworthy, or who will be better for our country in an entirely abstract-not-connected-to-issues way.

even w/that kind of analysis it seems like Obama should win all 3 of those categories in a cakewalk

In April, 1 in every 10 Americans thought Obama was a Muslim.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-04-01-obama-muslim_N.htm

The numbers don't seem to be decreasing.
http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=509

I've been taking a Media + Election course, and what I've learned is that the majority of voters don't vote for the same reasons or in the same ways as college-educated voters. (About 25% of Americans have a college degree of some sort.) And consider that the number of college-educated voters are overrepresented in places like NYC + LA, which can make the reasoning of non-college voters seem very foreign.

THOSE PEOPLE aren't presidential, or trustworthy, or better for our country. I thought everyone knew!

xpost

I assume that the numbers of people who would vote for a Muslim, and the people who believe Obama is a secret Muslim, doesn't have a huge overlap.

Seeing things like that makes me rethink my opposition to a very basic "What Does Each Candidate Stand For" multiple choice test required for voting.

37% of those who think he's Muslim intend to vote him

xp

See, now /that/ blows my mind.

lol so apparently Palin never actually visited iraq and hadnt crossed the kuwait border

when she was visiting alaska troops

you mean commanding the alaskan troops

bravely making executive decisions about the alaskan troops in iraq

i heard she personally beheaded sadaam

yeah i heard she chopped his dick off and made jerky out of it

At the Values Voter Summit this weekend, vendors sold an item called “Obama Waffles” featuring a racist cartoon of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) on the box front — with “popping eyes and big, thick lips” — and another image of him wearing an Arab-like headdress on its top flap. Its creators, Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, said it was meant as “political satire,” and sold the box for $10 from a booth at the Family Research Council event. CNN’s Lou Dobbs stopped by the booth and exclaimed, “My wife will love this!” A photo shows Dobbs with a box of the mix in his hand.

Hey no fair; I'm at my cousin's wedding right now, and the lady an uncle married has on a McCain 2008 sparkly brooch thing. Why can't I wear my Obama pin?!

(ps ON IPHONE beep beep ba beep beep yeah)

I've been taking a Media + Election course, and what I've learned is that the majority of voters don't vote for the same reasons or in the same ways as college-educated voters. (About 25% of Americans have a college degree of some sort.) And consider that the number of college-educated voters are overrepresented in places like NYC + LA, which can make the reasoning of non-college voters seem very foreign.

you had to take a course for that? does it cost money?

oh stop it

Asked if he considered the pictures of Obama on the box to be racial stereotypes, Whitlock said: "We had some people mention that to us, but you think of Newman's Own or Emeril's — there are tons and tons of personality-branded food products on the market. So we've taken that model and, using political satire, have highlighted his policies, his position changes."

Now with more political satire!