[QUOTE=Prime95;140792]Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. You are intentionally trying to get my goat! Stop making me defend the indefensible.

They are not hypocrites. To be a hypocrite they would have to accuse the Dems of "wanting to raise your taxes" when then they secretly want to raise your taxes too.

No, the Republicans are guilty of being irresponsible, big-spending, economy-ruining, clueless, reckless, war-mongering idiots. But they are not hypocrites (at least in this particular case).

Aaaah, and I got that out of my system without violating the 24-hour rule. No mention of the Republican V.P. candidate :)[/QUOTE]What is hypocrisy ? If being irresponsible, big-spending, economy-ruining, clueless, reckless, war-mongering idiots while denying, amongst other things, the fact that spending must be paid for (what revenues does a governement with a debt have except taxes ?) is not hypocrisy, what is ?

And I do not think that they are such idiots, (some of them are, but very few,) for most it is "first me", "après moi le déluge" and "don't let facts spoil your opinions" (or justifications of them).

Jacob

I realise I might be influenced by the French meaning of the word hypocrite.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;140794]In both cases [GOP and spendthrift wife] the parties doing the spending know full well that one day the real bill will come due.[/QUOTE]

Sadly, I think the opposite is true. I think the GOP truly believes the deficit is not a problem, it can be deferred forever or paid for by "growing out of it" - whatever that is. Many a spendthrift wife and husband today really do think there is no problem as long as they make the minimum monthly payments. Most Americans are economically clueless. As partial proof, the payday loan stores are doing a booming business all over town.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;140637]Another thing driving costs is hospitals having to treat uninsured.
I say "f*ck 'em". Why should the general public have to pay for
treating people who won't get insurance? Here in Massachusetts,
[b]everyone[/b] is required by law to have insurance. TANSTAAFL.[/QUOTE]I'm missing something.

Everyone in Mass. is required by law to have health insurance (with exceptions clarified in a subsequent posting for the truly indigent). I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that minors are not required by law to have insurance but maybe you could clarify their position.

Everyone in the UK is required by law to contribute through taxation to the costs of providing the National Health Service (with exceptions that can be clarified if required). Minors are not required by law to contribute to the NHS.

What's the essential difference?


Paul

P.S. In a conversation, held in Boston Mass. as it happens, it turned out that a chap from Carnegie Mellon and I (then at Oxford) were paying very nearly the same monthly sum for health cover in our respective systems.

[QUOTE=S485122;140795]What is a hypocrite ?[/quote]

From wikipedia: the act of preaching a certain belief or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself

[quote]If being irresponsible, big-spending, economy-ruining, clueless, reckless, war-mongering idiots while denying, amongst other things, the fact that spending must be paid for (what revenues does a governement with a debt have except taxes ?) is not hypocrisy, what is ?[/quote]

Hypocrisy would be campaigning on the slogan: "GOP, party of smaller government". The GOP used to do that but proved over the last 8 years that they do not believe in that at all.

One of the GOP's core beliefs is that "If you cut taxes, the economy grows, which raises tax revenues. You come out ahead in the end." Thus, they are not being hypocrites when they campaign on the issue of "Dems want to raise your taxes", because they truly believe the best course of action from here is to cut taxes more.

I've never had a chance to ask one of these true believers what would happen if you cut the tax rate to 0%? The economy would soar to unimagined heights. Revenues would probably double or triple!!

Hope that helps,
Your friendly neighborhood hypocrisy policeman.

[quote=ewmayer;140789]When the Republicans slam the Dems for "wanting to raise your taxes", they are being - you guessed it - hypocrites.[/quote]I agree with George that they are _not_ hypocrites.

As I've explained before at various times in this forum (but perhaps need to condense into a single thread), during the '60s and '70s, after Goldwater's utter defeat, conservative think tanks came up with a revision of conservative strategy. Candidate Reagan debuted that new strategy, and it's been in effect ever since. And it's been spectacularly successful.

I won't try to lay out all my understanding of it here, just a couple of points about monetary/budgetary/financial matters. I can't explain all the interconnections, but if you question some statement I make, I'll try to expand upon it to show how it all ties in.

Let me also preface that when I refer to conservatives or Republicans below, I'm referring to the leaders of those groups who "get" the new conservative strategy, and that not every single conservative or Republican is necessarily the same.

The revised strategy changed the way conservative politicians would think/speak about government economics. They now no longer view national debt as necessarily undesireable. Whereas they used to sincerely believe/say that it was important to minimize budget deficits, they now use a specialized terminology. In it, government spending for stuff that conservatives favor, such as national defense, security, etc. [I]doesn't count[/I] toward undesireable deficits. That's why they seem supremely unbothered by the debt we're running up to pay for Iraq.

Tax cuts are now a very important conservative goal and tool. Not just because of the above, but also because (a) [I]tax cuts slow or stop general wealth transfer from the rich (to the poor)[/I], (b) [I]tax cuts are an extremely convenient and effective campaign theme[/I] (Note how uniformly conservative politicians commend them), (c) [I]the increased national debt resulting from tax cuts pumps money back into the wealthy class via interest payments on U.S. treasury bonds[/I], (d) [I]tax cuts are most practically applied to the wealthy[/I], (e) [I]the more conservatives can reverse the wealth transfer that formerly existed from rich to poor, the more they can afford to contribute to political campaigns to perpetuate conservative political power (and the less the poor can afford the reverse)[/I], and (f) -- there are more aspects that don't occur to me right now.

(Nore: I've written the above in a relative hurry, so if you see inconsistencies or misunderstandings or whatever, ask me about them so I can correct mistakes or expand explanations. As I said, I really need to collect the whole thing in an essay, showing all the interconnections I know of, then post that with a title like "The New Conservative Strategy, from my viewpoint".)

So you hear Republicans complaining, as ever, about Democratic social spending as contributing to deficits and debt, but never acknowledging that Republican spending on war or security does the same. They're not being hypocritical; they're simply speaking from a revised worldview in which the two areas of spending have such different moral value as to make their similar fiscal effects irrelevant.

[quote]The Republican president and legislators over the past 8 years have ballooned Federal spending more than any administration in history, and beyond not having the guts to raise the necessary taxes to actually PAY FOR IT,[/quote]It's not a matter of not having guts. It's a matter of having a different worldview than you or I, in which spending, taxes, deficits, and debt have different meanings than you or I attach to these items.

[quote]have done the most reckless thing possible, namely to cut taxes,[/quote]... not at all reckless, from the new conservative view.

This sort of thing is why I've been urging folks to read Lakoff's [I]Moral Politics[/I]. Attacks on conservatives from outside their worldview will not have much effect.

[quote]moreover in a way that disproportionately favors those who least need their taxes cut.[/quote]Exactly. That's the point. Restore wealth to the wealthy, rather than [I]immorally[/I] steal it from them via unequal taxes.

[quote]The result? The first trillion-dollar yearly account deficit in our nation's history,[/quote]Not important to them.

[quote]an increase in the total account deficit so large that it will either saddle multiple future generations with high taxes,[/quote]... which is desirable insofar as it ties the hands of future liberal presidents and legislators to enact immoral social spending ...

[quote]or require a drastic Weimar-like hyperinflationary episode, or an outright default on the Federal debt, or some combination of those things in order to pay it off.[/quote]Not really, as long as certain conservative assumptions about the world remain true.

[quote]Even in advance of the aforementioned debt endgame scenarios, the current yearly interest payments required on the Federal debt [roughly $300 Billion, last time I checked] would be enough to provide health care to every U.S. citizen,[/quote]So much the better that it instead goes to those who earned their wealth, so can lend it to the government, instead of to those who beg from the government.

[quote]But at least the Repugnicans "didn't raise your taxes".[/quote]Of course. That is a laudable goal of almost the highest level, to be proud of when achieved, and which bears lasting benefits.

Don't sneer. This is serious, Ernst.

[quote=Prime95;140796]Sadly, I think the opposite is true. I think the GOP truly believes the deficit is not a problem, it can be deferred forever or paid for by "growing out of it" - whatever that is. Many a spendthrift wife and husband today really do think there is no problem as long as they make the minimum monthly payments. Most Americans are economically clueless. As partial proof, the payday loan stores are doing a booming business all over town.[/quote][u]I agree with every sentence.[/u]

[quote=ewmayer;140794]As far as I am concerned, saddling untold future generations with a monstrous account deficit is a form of deferred "stealth" taxation.[/quote]Yes, but you seem to think either (a) that conservatives "must" evaluate this the same way you do, which is your mistake, or (b) that using a liberal, or even "neutral" worldview to analyze conservative fiscal policy is a useful idea, which is also mistaken.

[quote]A federal budget analog of the negative-amortization, pay-option-ARM in the mortgage business.[/quote]... but much less straightforward, and with immense political benefits.

[quote]Your "non-hypocrisy" characterization of the GOP's reckless fiscal policies strikes me as similar to a husband saying "my wife isn't spending any of *my* money" because she's not taking his cash or writing checks, but instead is furiously running up their shared credit card and using the wages from her part-time job at the hair salon to make minimum monthly payments on it, while the amount owed continues to balloon.[/quote]No, Ernst. [U]It's a much more serious, well-thought-out, and deliberate policy than that, well-considered within conservative think tanks for decades.[/U] Don't trivialize it. They mean business, serious business (acquisition of long-term political power).

You need to learn the conservative worldview, and aim at its actual weaknesses (such as their assumption that their worldview is the only correct one).

[quote=xilman;140797]I'm missing something.

Everyone in Mass. is required by law to have health insurance (with exceptions clarified in a subsequent posting for the truly indigent).[/quote]I work in healthcare in Mass, so I know a [I]little[/I] about this... Actually, even that is not an exception -- technically, someone who is indigent becomes eligible for one of a variety of safety net insurance plans that are fully funded by the state and/or federal gov't. Nobody is uncovered per se.

The catch for the providers is that those who are indigent often times don't really give a darn about it one way or another, so when they show up in your ED (Emergency Department) drunk 10 times in a month (sadly this happens, seriously), they'll give a different name each time, and so on. This makes payment from the state extremely difficult.
[quote=xilman;140797]I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that minors are not required by law to have insurance but maybe you could clarify their position.

Everyone in the UK is required by law to contribute through taxation to the costs of providing the National Health Service (with exceptions that can be clarified if required). Minors are not required by law to contribute to the NHS.

What's the essential difference?[/quote]Winston Churchill put it best:
[quote]
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
[/quote]In all seriousness... the Mass. system is still essentially capitalist and free-market at its core, with a more solid safety net underneath than other states. Those who are better off or have better benefits from their employers can still get better coverage -- meaning the best hospitals, doctors, faster service, and so on.

NHS, as I understand it, is truly universal in that everyone other than the queen has the same coverage. Or is it not as egalitarian as that?

[QUOTE=tallguy;140908]The catch for the providers is that those who are indigent often times don't really give a darn about it one way or another, so when they show up in your ED (Emergency Department) drunk 10 times in a month (sadly this happens, seriously), they'll give a different name each time, and so on. [/QUOTE]San Fran. has been targeting a group of about 50-100 of their homeless. They comprise a large number of ambulance runs and ER visits, etc. Spending [B][U]a lot[/U][/B] of money to get them off the streets actually saves quite a bit of money. My local FD knows at least a couple of the local homeless, one is a "frequent flier" to the ER. Spending to target this individual to keep them on their meds, etc. would save thousands every year.

[QUOTE=tallguy;140908]I work in healthcare in Mass, so I know a [I]little[/I] about this... Actually, even that is not an exception -- technically, someone who is indigent becomes eligible for one of a variety of safety net insurance plans that are fully funded by the state and/or federal gov't. Nobody is uncovered per se.

The catch for the providers is that those who are indigent often times don't really give a darn about it one way or another, so when they show up in your ED (Emergency Department) drunk 10 times in a month (sadly this happens, seriously), they'll give a different name each time, and so on. This makes payment from the state extremely difficult.
Winston Churchill put it best:
In all seriousness... the Mass. system is still essentially capitalist and free-market at its core, with a more solid safety net underneath than other states. Those who are better off or have better benefits from their employers can still get better coverage -- meaning the best hospitals, doctors, faster service, and so on.

NHS, as I understand it, is truly universal in that everyone other than the queen has the same coverage. Or is it not as egalitarian as that?[/QUOTE]In the UK, those who are better off, or have better benefits from their employers can still get better coverage... It's called private health insurance. Such coverage was part of my compensation package when I worked for MS Research.

I've no idea whether the queen is treated any differently vis-a-vis the NHS. She can certainly afford to pay for private treatment.


Paul

I agree with Mrs Palin that the difference betweem her self-proclaimed
persona and a Rotweiler is the lipstick.