Comments by jhoughton1

You're stretching the logic a little, there, Orothen.

There's nothing "unfair" about the fight. Being elected in the first place, often as a newcomer, grants certain privileges. Like, being president. And, the stronger position of incumbency when the opportunity arrives to extend that presidency. The whole thing is structured that way. Home field advantage. Not unfair, just...how things are.

Not sure I understand "bad". NK is the ultimate version of what I'm talking about, people literally starving to support a military program. Stupid more than bad, methinks.

The military budget is the only government-run jobs program the Republicans will vote for. Infrastructure, schools, roads, dams, bridges, pure research, etc. not so much. But things that go boom, things where you sell it for one price but then charge three times as much when it's time to deliver, where all you have to do to create demand is scare people a little -- it's a gold mine! And the same people you scare into wanting more military can be scared into paying for it! Where else can you get a deal like that??

Phooey on sanctions. The poor suffer even more and the ruling elite continue to quaff champagne.

Please don't cite Canada. The Canadians I know love their health coverage. Those who work here go home for anything more than a head cold.

This same debate raged about the constitutionality of Social Security, with good people such as yourself just as convinced that it was a travesty, Founding Fathers spinning in their graves, the whole nine yards. After much political wrangling, it got through. And despite your statistics, there are equal-and-opposite statistics that say SS will be fine for a very long time. The truth is, no one knows...and that's life. But you do the best you can.

There you go again, talking about "wrecking" people's coverage. At the beginning of this convo, I said the biggest misconception is that those who already have coverage are going to be forced to alter their situation. That is not true. If you have coverage you're happy with, you keep it. The difference is that if you get cancer and that coverage you've been so happy with suddenly starts to dry up -- maybe you change jobs and the new insurer wants nothing to do with you, or maybe your existing coverage starts finding ways to make your illness less expensive for them (and they can and do) -- you will find affordable coverage in an exchange, where they can't reject you for that cancer or heart condition. That's the only difference. No one's existing coverage will be "wrecked." Please, you've got to hear that. It's important. Because smart people like you are not getting it, and that means the stupid people are really not getting it.

As for "Constitutional muster," I think we'd better leave that to the justices. Don't forget, the individual mandate was the brainchild of the Right -- and please, it shouldn't matter whether it's a state or the Feds who institute a mandate: if you're against it on Constitutional grounds, then your objection should apply at every level.

I'm not too keen on them, either. It's just that I'm less keen on for-profit insurance companies treating people like customers in a restaurant: "We reserve the right to refuse service for any reason." I'm also not keen, as a taxpayer, about paying for the health care people are going to get no matter what, through emergency rooms -- at least those that are still in business. It's always a compromise, Unk: we never get everything we want because humans are a quarrelsome species who rarely make a plan that everyone likes. But until I see a Republican plan that honestly (i.e. not leaving out the thorny details like Ryan's budget plan does) addresses the problem of rising health costs, the scandal of millions of uninsured, the personal bankruptcies brought on by dropped insurance -- or none -- in time of need, until the Republicans start doing something besides just throwing spitwads at anything that has a (D) next to it, I'm going to stick with the guys who are at least trying to address what everyone agrees needs a solution.

I get it. You're one of those who thinks the sky has already fallen. That we're Greece already. I don't see where you get that, looking around our nation. But I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. To me, America seems far from perfect but a pretty damn nice place to live. The New Deal's been in place for many decades and we're still here; our old folks are taken care of, people out of a job get something to tide them over...where's the "fallen-sky effect" in any of this so far?
There has always been a contingent -- usually old geezers -- who are certain that the Whole Damn Place Is Going Down the Tubes. I don't know, to me that seems like a pretty sorry way to live. Maybe it's genetic.
And, if you have the time...would you please explain to me why ACA is going to cause people to "lose coverage they were quite happy with"?

Right, and you won't hear a peep about how the federal government is taking over our lives in two more years when ACA is in full effect, more people have lower-cost health insurance than they do now, no one has been forced to obtain something they already had, taxpayers aren't paying for health care in increasingly scarce emergency rooms any more, and lo and behold the sky hasn't fallen.
(BTW, why is it lonely on your side of the argument, since you believe yourself to be in the company of 2/3 of the population?)

Har-de-har-har.

That 2/3 figure is pretty misleading. A huge percentage -- a truly lamentable percentage -- of the population is caught up in “death panel” thinking. They actually believe the law is going to make them give up their employer-provided benefits and force them to buy individual policies. Where do they get these inaccurate notions? From the Right.

If your side wants an honest debate, then Fox News and the like need to stop spreading misinformation.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that “We” are the government. "Them" is "us". Yes, we did get to where we are, because “We the People” wanted the things that big government can provide.

It is taken as granted by too many people what “where we are” is some dystopian state of affairs. The sky isn’t just falling, it’s already fallen. To those people, I always say the same thing: Go live somewhere else for a few months, see how you like it. Not Somalia, necessarily. Try Italy. Ireland. Really live and work there, be in their system, not just a vacation. You’ll find that America is a pretty damn nice place to be.

You have decided that the ACA is unconstitutional. Let’s see what the SCOTUS thinks.

You grant states “competent” government -- simply by the fact of being smaller or closer (measured in miles) to their constituencies? -- yet take as gospel that federal government cannot be effective, that it must by its nature bungle and overreach. But all governments, from towns to countries, are staffed by human beings with the same failings and strengths. Incompetent state governments? Let me count the ways...

“I would rather have options, understanding some may turn out to be bad, than one bad option for everyone that is inescapable.” You obviously have not taken a moment to familiarize yourself with the ACA. The only -- ONLY! -- option it FORCES on ANYONE is to carry health insurance, either that provided by your employer or by the for-profit insurance company OF YOUR OWN CHOOSING. Making the American healthcare risk-pool as large as it can be made to be is the single simplest way of making health care cheaper with no loss in quality. It's just arithmetic, Unk.

Great idea. So, you have one health-care system in State A and another health-care system in State B. And yet another in State C, and so forth. One can only imagine the demographic shifts that might happen as sick people gravitate toward better care. Also, since most -- if not all -- insurance companies operate across state lines, these companies will operate differently in each state, collecting different levels of premium depending on how many sick people move to a given state for better care...I mean, seriously, Unk. Have you really thought out the logic of your suggestion to its conclusion? I don't think so.

"The bankruptcy of a favoured solar-cell manufacturer, Solyndra, was a reminder that governments have a poor record of picking winners in technology..."

Baloney. The savviest venture capitalist hopes to pick one winner in twenty investments. Solyndra was not a big deal until Republicans got ahold of it and sold it as a big deal.

I didn't mean to imply that German thinking was farsighted. The Euro provided easy credit to poor countries who bought a lot of German goods. The Germans pushed very strongly for the Euro even though the Mark was working just fine. You tell me if you think there is/was a connection between German enthusiasm for the Euro and the fact that it resulted in a big boost -- however short-lived -- for the German export economy and employment in Germany. Would the Germans prefer that the Greeks had looked themselves in the mirror one day and said, "Geez, we're borrowing an awful lot of money and buying an awful lot of Mercedes...maybe we'd better get serious about managing our ability to pay this money back"? No doubt. But I contend that any such daydreams were just that. Daydreams. And that those who pushed for the Euro ten years ago have already got their yachts paid for and are happy to sit back and let someone else pick up the tab.

And the Germans were happy because it was their products being sold to those happy, drunken Greeks. In fact, the ability to lend and sell to poor countries is precisely why Germany pushed so hard for the Euro. As George notes above, you'd have to be crazy to lend to Greece -- except if the money is coming right back into your economy to keep your export industries at full capacity, and as long as others are going to take the hit when the borrower finally taps out.

Good luck talking to fishermen rationally about overfishing. They see it as their right. Many will tell you, "My grandfather was a fisherman, my father was a fisherman, it's all I know." Well, tough beans. Just because your grandaddy was a taker and your daddy was a taker, doesn't mean we have to put up with you being a taker. They take without putting anything back and consider it their birthright. The rest of us need to make our voices heard: "Start managing the ocean properly, replenishing fishstocks and fishing only where populations are not in danger of elimination. Only then will we let you fish...at all!"

Maybe it is now, but there were a hell of a lot of crashes getting us to this point.

Your point is valid. At the same time, is ALL regulation just an excuse for politicians to empower themselves? Obviously, requiring people to stop their cars at red lights is a regulation that makes sense. So where do you draw the line? Ah, there is no line, is there.
Let me suggest something different: the voters are the guilty parties. Given political freedom unprecedented in human history, Americans sit on their fat asses watching television, letting others do their thinking for them, voting for used-car-salesman types who'd be nice to have a beer with, or not voting at all because getting to the polls is too much trouble. You can't blame politicians for being what they are any more than you can blame a snake for being a snake. They're the crud that floats to the top when people can't be bothered to exercise the incredible gift that is democracy.