Entitlements ...

Discussion in 'Politics' started by DHOHHI, Mar 31, 2014.

  1. LEAPup

    LEAPup

    #21     Mar 31, 2014
  2. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    Except I've posted numerous pics of my progress here on ET.
    NO moron. Pilots design their own planes all the time. In fact they've been doing it successfully since 1903. Do they no longer teach history in your high school?
     
    #22     Mar 31, 2014
  3. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    #23     Mar 31, 2014
  4. #24     Mar 31, 2014
  5. Max E.

    Max E.

    Guess he is on the 10 year highschool program. :D
     
    #25     Mar 31, 2014
  6. Obama lied about the you can keep your insurance and it was a big lie and I think a blatant one and a very stupid one. But the line that people have lost their health care plan as in they no longer have health care is misleading. They could not keep their existing plan and had to or will have to switch to a compliant plan, which isn't the same as having no health insurance.
     
    #26     Mar 31, 2014
  7. LEAPup

    LEAPup

    At least you can admit he lied. And yes, I raise all sorts of hell over republicans who lie, and they're who I usually have to (have to meaning, sadly as a lesser evil), vote for. I'm the guy who can and will call repubs as well as dems out for lying, and other nonsense.
     
    #27     Mar 31, 2014
  8. It's not misleading, it happened and it will likely be worse when the employer mandate kicks in and companies drop their group coverage. this is a whole different topic than what I quoted spike about in the first place and i don't feel like having the same argument over and over. yes they can switch to a 'compliant' plan but we know for a fact that a lot of ppl are getting jacked by the new plans. sure some will make out with subsidies but who the fuck is the gubberment to pick winners and losers? the whole point of the ACA was to cover the uninsured.. the last estimate I saw was something like there will still be 31 mil uninsured in 10 years. it's shit.
     
    #28     Mar 31, 2014
  9. piezoe

    piezoe

    There is just one big fat mistake you have made, and it is a whopper!, but just in my opinion, because I don't consider welfare programs such as food stamps as entitlements, though many do. The food stamp program is not an entitlement program, as far as I'm concerned. Entitlement programs are those programs, or should be, that you have paid into in advance such a social security and medicare. These programs are based on actuarial science and presumably return your own and your employers contributions, plus interest, to you upon your retirement or disablement. They are based on the idea of shared risk, the same as insurance. They work as well, or as poorly, as Congress decides it wants them to work. For example, the Social Security Trustees have been calling for a 2 cent per earned dollar (one cent employer, one cent employee) increase in social security contributions for a number of years now. This is to adjust for changing demographics, but Congress has failed to act on the Trustee's recommendation. These are well designed programs that have become political footballs. Disinformation trumps information, and Congress can make these entitlement programs fail through their own inaction, which seems intentional at times.

    The greatest threat to entitlement programs, besides Wall Street and the Insurance Lobby, is the declining credit worthiness of the United States. All of the advance payments made into entitlement programs are held in the form of special treasury bonds. Even though these Trust Funds are protected by law from being spent for anything other then their intended purposes --currently there is a little less than 3 trillion in the primary social security trust -- Congress can steal the funds by indirect means via deficit spending. When the U.S. runs deficits it has no means of redeeming the entitlement programs' bonds other then borrowing, and this leads, normally, to inflation; thus the buying power of the Trusts', fixed interest bonds, which are not inflation indexed, is slowly worn away.

    In my opinion, we should carefully distinguish between programs based on actuarial science and pure welfare programs. I can't be too critical of you because it is commonplace not to make this distinction, but it is certainly wrong not to do so, and for very good reasons.
     
    #29     Mar 31, 2014
  10. Damn leap are you being polite to me, I appreciate that.
     
    #30     Apr 1, 2014