The same kind of lame crap we've been getting in Democrat rhetoric for decades is served up fresh by John Kerry:
“I can’t find anything in any religion anywhere, I certainly cannot find anything in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ, that says you ought to take health care away from poor children or money away from the poorest people in the country to give it to the wealthiest people in the nation.”
Kerry made the statement to a Democrat women's group in Iowa.
What I would love is for any of the lefty-lurkers at Reform Club (well-loved, of course) to defend Kerry's statement. Exactly how does this transfer take place? What program takes health care and money from the poor and shovels it into the accounts of the wealthy? I haven't heard of it or seen it debated on Capitol Hill. It must have been covered extensively. I mean, it sounds so terrible.
Is this just willful mendacity?
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Well, I could take a shot at what I think he meant, but it's poorly worded and thought-out rhetoric nonetheless.
My guess would be that he is referring to the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, resulting deficits, and then, in order to pay for massive expenditures (say, a needless war in Iraq and a bungled hurricane response in New Orleans), the proposed dismantling/stark reduction of programs like food stamps.
OR he could be speaking of massive governmental subsidies to hugely profitable businesses (like the energy industry) and gargantuan pork-barrel, campaign-donor-pocket-lining in spending bills that also slash programs for the needy.
Viewed like that, it's a fairly rational statement.
Of course, worded like it was, it's rather convoluted and designed merely to inflame. But then, rationality gets in the way of firing up the base.
DEATH TO THE PIGS OF CAPITALISM!! VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!
That tends to work much better.
I like your version better, at least then we can be honest with each other.
I'd like to know what programs for the needy have been CUT recently. Not a decrease in the rate of increase. I mean a real, honest to goodness cut without anything new replacing the old program.
we would all communicate better if we we would quit with the us/them antagonism, particularly when we are trying to dialogue.
Although I am by nature irascible, I have made a conscious effort in the past four or five years to moderate my reflexive separation of the world into protagonist and antagonist. However, I must draw the line at people who use dialogue as a verb. Such remain forever "them."
Quite true, Connie. Bullsputum is provocative, but I feel strongly about the falsity of what Kerry is saying. There is no transfer of wealth. It is impossible to show that money is being taken away from the poor and given to the rich. It simply does not occur and progressive taxation ensures the reverse is occurring daily.
It is impossible to show that money is being taken away from the poor and given to the rich.
Here I must disagree with you Hunter; there is one tax system in the US that does precisely this. It is called Social Security, and people like John Kerry are among the biggest political obstacle to reforming it.
Kathy, I see how Social Security represents a transfer of wealth from young to old, but not necessarily from poor to rich. You could just as easily say it transfer money from working poor to retired poor. There's no direct correlation, but I think I take your point.
I'd like to know what programs for the needy have been CUT recently. Not a decrease in the rate of increase. I mean a real, honest to goodness cut without anything new replacing the old program.
It's a complex manner of defunding such programs. For example, Workability, a vocational education program for adult education and special needs high schoolers used to be funded at an 80% level by the Feds. One of Bush's first budget actions was to cut all federal support for Workability, effectively funding it at 20% of its initial capacity. This leads to massive state-defunding. This has been a trend in education and other welfare fields.
Another example might be the disastrous Medicaid prescription bill. The day after the president announced the bill that would give seniors a discount on medication of 15-20%, the average price of the medications most-used by seniors rose 25%. The elderly are most likely to live in poverty or near-poverty (though children are approaching knocking them off their top spot). This is clearly an example of government-sanctioned taking advantage of needy folks to the benefit of America's most profitable industry.
The last example looks like a good argument for not making government a consumer of medical services.
Only if you're monumentally dumb and don't look at the whole case. Really, it would have been a fine example of the good government could do. They sat down with the pharmaceutical companies, negotiated a discount for seniors, and drafted the legislation. Once the legislation passed, Big Pharma raised its prices. It's an example of corporate avarice.
Mr. Elliott, I think your last speaks to your philosophy of economics.
You think capital is a dog, to be ordered about. But it's a cat.
You think capital is a dog, to be ordered about. But it's a cat.
So, what you're saying is that a company agreeing to provide a set discount to needy seniors, and then raising their prices by a percentage greater than the discount, so the seniors actually pay MORE than they were before is merely good economics? That's disgusting, not to mention dishonest and cold-hearted. And you wonder why I hold free-market boosterism in such contempt.
What capital really is -- is water. It flows to the point of least restriction. And if you try to hold it in one place, it either stagnates or evaporates. This why very equitable nations tend to be very poor ones.
I get tired of trying to get computer technical assistance from people who barely speak English.
My ISP is Hughes satellite broadband (Direcway -- oh, and BTW, do not fall for the commercials Direcway runs on DirecTV and cable. Satellite broadband is marginally faster than dialup, but considerably more unreliable. Every time a bleepin' cloud crosses the path of the sun my connection goes down.) Being a Hughes customer, I spend a lot of time on the phone with customer support, who I must say are unfailingly polite and almost always able to walk me through a problem fix. When I get a support person with an obvious foreign accent, I always ask where they're located, just because I'm curious about the whole IT outsourcing thing. Up until last month, they were always in either Delhi or Bombay. Last call, I got a guy in Glasgow. No kidding -- Hughes is outsourcing IT support to Scotland.
The Indians were easier to understand. It wasn't even close.
I can't tell the difference between Medford, Oregon and Reading, Pennsylvania freeway exits as they are all loaded with the identical stores and restaurants.
You've hit on the key here, perhaps without realizing it. America is becoming homogenized along high-traffic corridors, I think any of us can tell that without an SBA white paper. But the SBA figures do not support the conclusion that small business is disappearing in the US. Not even small retail. It's just located in places that fewer people see. I happen to live in fairly rural area, and being a curious person I spent a lot of time when I was new here driving around on back roads finding out-of-the-way stuff. Now I can direct you to the local free-range turkey farmer, the best place to get your tools sharpened, cabinetmakers, finish carpenters, the handmade tack shop, several greenhouses, fishing and crabbing paraphernalia.....but I'll bet people who've lived here four or five times as long as I have, but who never stray off of the four lane highways, have no idea these places exist.
I think the GOP notion would be go with free trade. We'll some jobs because it is more efficient to do so and our dynamic economy will create new opportunities in other areas. That has happened consistently for many, many years now and is the only reason we keep the unemployment rate at acceptably low levels.
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