With all due respect, if you lose your job and have a pre-existing condition, or a member of your family does, it is very possible, even likely, that you would be denied coverage. Whether you are "dumb" (I'll leave that for the gentle reader to decide) or not is beside the point. If an insurance company doesn't want to take you on as a risk, then it is also very likely that just about every other insurance company would decline covering you, unless the insurance is amazingly expensive. Better make sure you don't get sick... or that we have national health insurance coverage. Ayn Rand can't help you. She's dead.
Plus, she wrote of fantasy that isn't anything close to the real world, though her acolytes keep trying in vain to make it so... and often with tragic consequences.
Nope. I ask questions like these (and have my lawyer check and do my own research as well) when I am picking out insurance because it is an important decision. I don't need the federal government helping me avoid these pitfalls at the expense of other citizen's rights (such as the right to not have insurance). That would be selfish of me. That is an insurer's right. A person may have the right to health care (it's debatable), but a person does not have the right to cheap,affordable health care provided by a private insurer. So is Jesus and MLK. People still find answers in their words.
Interesting? As a case study, sure. Smart? Kind of. One must admit that she is a very good writer. As a philosopher, however, she is a study in selfish contradiction - a sort of inverse bolshevik.
Oski2005's signature: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Can't wait till these guys get to D.C. and kick some ass: <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VnrIppYp8y4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VnrIppYp8y4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ovHGc4vb9JE?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ovHGc4vb9JE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
RNC's Financial Picture Even Worse Than It Looks As if a bad fundraising report released in the dark of night on Friday wasn't bad enough for the Republican National Committee, a closer look suggests the party's financial picture is worse than it appears. By the numbers, the RNC brought in $5.5 million in July, compared with $11.5 million for the DNC. But only $4.6 million of the haul actually came from donations -- tucked inside the RNC's July report was a $900,000 insurance payment. The payment came from Illinois National Insurance, a subsidiary of AIG. But Democrats are exploiting the bigger picture of their own financial health and made sure reporters knew about the insurance settlement and that it came from AIG, which received bailout funds. The RNC won't reveal the nature of the claim due to confidentiality. A GOP official explained that it's an RNC-specific "payment on an insurance claim" that is not related to class action lawsuits. The official stressed it's "Nothing Wall Street related at all." As of July 31, the RNC had $5.3 million in the bank and $2.2 million in debt, while the DNC had $10.8 million in the bank and $3.5 million in debt.
so mccain beat hayworth 56% to 32%, was it really necessary to sell his soul? what does that say about the tea party movement
Had a lady call me last week: Age 53. 5' 4". 220 LBS. Two blood pressure meds and one for Cholesterol. Fun or sad?
A handy, little reminder... Estimates Say Fewer Jobs, Larger Deficits if Republicans Were in Charge Nothing is more important to Republican politicians these days than jobs and the deficit—at least according to Republican politicians. As House Minority Leader John Boehner put it in a "major economic address" on Tuesday, President Obama is "doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created" while refusing to do anything at all "about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy." Elect Republicans in November, Boehner assured his audience, and we will put an end to this insanity. There's only one problem with Boehner's message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won't actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed. The math is pretty straightforward. Let's start with the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama's stimulus plan is projected to increase budget deficits over the next decade by $814 billion. That's a big number. But Republicans opposed the legislation refused to provide an alternative, and now insist that it's been a total failure. So let's be generous and subtract it from their side of the equation. The Obama deficit: $814 billion. The GOP deficit: $0. Next up is health-care reform. Obama passed it; Republicans want to repeal it "lock, stock, and barrel." The reason, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained in July, is that "we all know that it's going to increase the deficit." Unfortunately for the GOP, though, nonpartisan experts tend to disagree. Just this Tuesday, for example, the CBO released a letter saying that Obama's health-care-reform legislation would "reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years,” while repealing the law would generate "an increase in deficits ... of $455 billion ... over that [same] period." Factor those figures into the equation and the Obama deficit falls to $784 billion. The GOP deficit, meanwhile, rises to $455 billion. Getting warmer. The final piece of the puzzle is the Bush tax cuts. Obama wants to extend them for the 95 percent of taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year; Republicans want to extend them for everybody. How will these extensions affect the deficit? Glad you asked. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, "the Democratic proposal would add about $3 trillion to the deficit during the next decade, while the GOP plan would cost $3.7 trillion." That brings the total Obama deficit to $3.784 trillion over 10 years, and its GOP counterpart to—drumroll, please—$4.155 trillion. That's right. Even if we assume that the Republicans would've spent $0 to stimulate the economy in the wake of the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression—an unlikely scenario, given the very real risks of inaction—their proposed policies would still produce a deficit $371 billion larger than President Obama's. (Or $335 billion; Boehner also says he'd like to freeze nondefense discretionary spending at 2008 levels, which would save a grand total of $36 billion.) On jobs, it's a similar story. So far, Republicans have only said they'd do—or that they would've done—two large-scale things the Democrats haven't: (1) scrap the stimulus, and (2) extend the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 so as not to (in Boehner's words) "impose job-killing tax hikes on families and small businesses." How would these measures affect employment? Regarding the stimulus, the answer is pretty clear. In a report out this week, the CBO estimates that between 1.4 million and 3.3 million fewer people would be employed right now if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had never made it through Congress. Split the difference, and the pro-stimulus Obama moves ahead of the anti-stimulus GOP by about 2.35 million jobs. (A more dramatic estimate by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi [a McCain 2008 adviser] puts the number at 2.7 million, but we'll stick with the CBO stats for now.) The effect of tax cuts on job creation is a little trickier to tally. Extending all of them, according to the CBO, would lower unemployment by 0.3 to 0.8 percent over the next year or so; extending them solely for people making less than $250,000 would produce a somewhat smaller effect, for a difference of roughly 200,000 to 500,000 people. The problem, as economist William G. Gale of the Brookings Institution has noted, is that "of 11 potential stimulus policies the CBO recently examined, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts ties for lowest bang for the buck." In fact, he continues, "letting the high-income tax cuts expire and using the money for aid to the states, extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, [or] tax credits favoring job creation ... would have about three times the impact ... as continuing the Bush tax cuts." In addition, it's unlikely that extending the cuts for the richest Americans would have much of an effect on small-business hiring, which is a claim that Republicans make with some regularity. Why? Because of the taxpayers that report running small businesses on their taxes, only 2 percent fall into the top two income brackets.* The other 98 percent of small-business owners make less than $250,000 a year and wouldn't pay higher taxes under Obama's plan. History isn't on the GOP's side, either. If keeping the top marginal tax rate at 35 percent—the rate under Bush, and the rate that Republicans are fighting to preserve—spurs so much hiring, why didn't America experience any job growth at all during Bush's time in office? And if a top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent—the rate under Bill Clinton, and the rate that Democrats are fighting to restore—is such a job killer, why did payrolls grow by 20 percent during the 1990s? The implication here isn't that higher tax rates equal more jobs. Far from it. But there's simply no evidence, either in the history books or the latest projections, to suggest that extending all of the Bush tax cuts would provide an employment boost large enough to offset the number of jobs that would've been lost if the GOP had succeeded in blocking the stimulus—let alone lasting enough to justify adding another $700 billion to the deficit. The bottom line, then, is that recent GOP proposals would produce fewer jobs and far larger deficits than the plans Obama has already passed or currently wants to pass. This isn't to say that the Republicans couldn't create jobs or cut the deficit if restored to power—just that right now, they've chosen to support policies that would prove less effective in both respects than the Democratic programs they so vehemently criticize. On the trail, it's easy to talk about cutting pork, slashing taxes, and reducing "uncertainty." But if the party wants to provide voters with real alternatives on jobs and deficits, they should start talking about the sort of deep spending cuts and targeted tax incentives that might actually make a difference someday: reforming Medicare and Social Security, cutting defense spending, reducing payroll taxes, and creating tax credits for job creation. Otherwise, they're worse than what we have now.
Just reading this pisses me off. They have no reason to take this stance other than relying on a certain demographic's tendency towards ignorance. Just plain aggravating.
Add to the fact that Democrats are notoriously horrible at messaging and not calling republicans out on their dis-information and distortions only adds to the aggravation.
It's crazy to think that something as intrinsic to government as taxes is now a veritable wedge issue. The actual mechanics and impact of a particular stance no longer matter. Ordinarily, this type of thinking is annoying, but ancillary. In regards to taxes, it's dangerous.
if our fellow americans vote these idiots back into office, we'll all get what we deserve. The thing that's starting to get me is this argument that businesses aren't expanding in fear of taxes. as if businesses really see the next opportunity out there to make money but don't want to make a few extra billion because their tax rate might go up 3%.
