YES! Compromise is needed to get tax increases on the rich.
8%
NO! Any cuts to any social program should be off the table.
92%
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Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
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At Mondragon - both the mountain and the cooperative city - in Spain (written about in "Threshold" book)
From Screwed:
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"Thom Hartmann ought to be bronzed. His new book sets off from the same high plane as the last and offers explicit tools and how-to advice that will allow you to see, hear, and feel propaganda when it's directed at you and use the same techniques to refute it. His book would make a deaf-mute a better communicator. I want him on my reading table every day, and if you try one of his books, so will you."
No compromise is necessary to raise taxes on the wealthy. Simply allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. After the last 4 years, I don't believe there is anything a Republican has to offer worth listening to. They will always have their agenda in mind. Even if it sounds good, there will be a catch and a payment to either corporations or the wealthy. We need to stick together and implement what we know is right.
Absolutely NOT! Everyone needs to be on Medicare from 99 seconds to 99 years. We can pay for this and more if we tax those in the higher income brackets at 1970's tax rates, stop subsidizing big oil, big gas and big banks, charge a transaction fee for all stock exchanges transactions in the USA, eliminate this countries over-reactive security agencies and slash the military budget by at least 70%. And we can still be the biggest, badest, bad-ass in town.
The GOP is Playing hard ball Chicken with the 98%, again. GOP Leaders act as if the election did not change anything. They fail to examine more carefully the total votes of all third Party candidates, who showed well. The numbers change dramatically whey examined with Democratic vs Republican and primarily Republicans numbers drop greatly. Democrats whold their own. But it also shows how right wing has lost substantial credibility with its base. As you compare total number that went out to vote.
It is high time that we begin to talk seriously. Any Changes to Medicare should be to lower the age for eligibility a couple of years to allow those close to retirement to take their benefits without penalty and leave work space for younger people.
THe same goes with Social Security's Eligibility age. In the same vein, any discussion of cutting benefits should be out of the discussion as this is a stand on it's own merits. IF anything, the ceiling that caps who pays into Social Security should change with all persons with earning, and income paying a percentage. instead of the cap at the top at $100,000.
Talks of ending the 2006 "Drain on Postal Services profits by funding the Retirement 75 years in advance should be terminated. A portion of that money should go back to restoring the black line on the balance sheet and the plans for converting the fleet into an electric/solar energy fleet implemented. with no further closing of Postal Offices. This helps greatly as it would guarantee that Services and jobs are preseved.
Defense budget must be discussed as it is the major cause of the Debt. Starting with subcontracting of services to Para-military entities. Especially, in the case of helping to rebuild after desasters such as Katrina. Return this work to the Services of the Coast Guard and regualr Services. Who are paid at a more reasonable rate. The Rich must pay their fair share and we must allow the top 2% to end their gauging of the wealth created by workers that they hord in other parts of the world. Only those who have a proven plan written which brings jobs and factory work back to the states should receive a one-time reduction in taxes for reinvesting money that ws stored in foreign banks.
Raising the Medicare age as part of the deal would be certain political suicide for Obama and the Democrats. Hasn't the middle class been ripped off enough thanks to a lack of fair representation in Washington? Out of control Military spending and the outrageously idiotic lack of a single payer system accounts for much of the spending problem, both Republican in nature.
I think President Obama needs to consider the following from "Strengthen Social Security"...."Rep. Paul Ryan has buried in the FY 2013 budget resolution a radical proposal to raise the medicare eligibility age from 65 to the age of 67. Undoubtedly worried about the unpopularity of this proposal, Rep. Ryan did not include raising the age in the GOP's FY 2013 budget proposal. Instead, he slipped the proposal into instuctions to the Congressional Budget office, hoping the American people would not find it."
So in other words, this proposal is so toxic that even Paul Ryan was trying to hide from it. There has to be lots of mocking laughter behind the right wing curtains given that Obama is even willing to put this on the table. In my opinion raising the age would be one of the biggest political blunders in history.
My hope is to work well past 65 (hopefully to 85 or older) so as to not need to take my Social Security benefits. But, I like knowing that they will be there in full at 65 just in case I can not is very comforting. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to receiving my Medicare benefits at age 65 (8.5 years from now) so that I can stop being gouged by the private health insurance companies. For Social Security just end the cap of just over $100,000 and tax every dollar of earned income. Let Medicare get Rx at cheaper prices. Perhaps even lessening the time protection for patents on new drugs to make generics available at an earlier stage would be worthwhile. Perhaps a complete overhaul on the way medical services are billed would make sense to allow doctors to bill for their time instead of just things done or other ways that would be fair to the health services professions and providers.
THIS is THE problem we have with government. MEDICARE drastically needs reform (I am 72, using it). However, in our dysfunctional divided government it is part of a game of words. It's all or nothing, fought tooth and nail -- I assume by people who have no idea how it is implemented in practice. It's a concept (or 2 self-serving concepts), neither of which have anything to do with reality, Medicare in practice. Meanwhile, healthcare distribution is a mess, financing is worse.
One tribe wants singlepayer, the other tribe (per their patrons propaganda) wants it privatized. Meanwhile we have the worst convoluted mish-mash of a camel-istic system designed by a long-series of committees (half adding poison-pills to sabatage it, others compromizing just to get anything). It's the worst "system" I could possibly imagine.
My complaint: despite a tone of bureaucratic paperwork, it is almost impossible for the ultimate consumer (the patient) to understand much less have any affect on cost-control. Invoices if available are unintelligible, with gorsely inflated prices denied, retracted, paid -- always with some left for me to pay (on top of my Medicare contribution, my "advantage" supplement and my Copay. It's a mess and the overall healthcare system "In accordance with Medicare requirements ..." is utterly beyond reason and control.
Don't get me wrong, I think Social Security works great (Money in; 3% Admin, Money out). Exceptionally clean and simple. It works great. Fine-tuning, can easilly account for demographic ebbs and flows, without destroying everything. I'd have no problem with increases or cutbacks -- based on receipts and disbursements -- as long as the safety-net is still there. Get real.
However, Medicare and the US Healthcare Finance/Delivery Systems are a horrible mess. Quality-of-care can be excellent (IF you have coverage, or use the Emergency Room access); however, the Financial Admin Management side of healthcare is insane. Pricing and reimbursement are beyond any words I can muster. Medicare's botched-up cost control totally messes the whole system.
So, when I hear utterly silly simplistic slogans like: "Medicare on the table" and "Medicare off the table" -- I just shake my head wondering if there is any hope for EVER cleaning up the mess, getting anything resembling a rational US Healthcare System.
Unfortunately, not in this civil-class-war climate, not in my lifetime, I fear.
i dont care for democrats but i REALLY hate these SCREWBALL REPUBLICANS
To answer Thom's question.... HELL no. - Aliceinwonderland
As we used to say when I was stationed in Germany: Not only no, but nichts, kein, nein und HELL no!