OK.
Posted on 06/22/2003 11:46:04 AM PDT by The Old Hoosier
Are We All Socialists Now?
Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson would be proud of what the Republicans who run the federal government are doing now: They are planning to add a massive new element to the welfare state.
Cheered on by President Bush, the Republican Senate is poised to approve a bill adding a prescription drug benefit to the already bankrupt Medicare program. So far, there is no organized resistance to the plan in the Republican House.
This new entitlement is politically shortsighted, pandering to forces that could eventually smother the Republican Party. But worse, it is fiscally and morally indefensible.
In the short run, Republicans figure it will help them in the 2004 elections—particularly in the pivotal state of Florida, which George W. Bush barely won in 2000, and which has a large elderly population. In the middle run, however, the GOP may pay a great price for it at the polls. And, in the long run, it could help precipitate an economic and social crisis unequaled since the Great Depression.
A Fiscal Joke
As the Senate Finance Committee describes it, this benefit will give all 40 million Americans currently eligible for Medicare huge annual subsidies to buy drugs. For a nominal monthly premium of $35, a recipient gets a drug insurance plan with a $275 annual deductible. Between $275 and $4,500, taxpayers will cover 50% of the cost of all drugs that a Medicare recipient purchases.
Above $4,500, the benefit lapses until a recipient has paid a total of $3,700 for drugs out-of-pocket (equal to $5,873 in total drug purchases). From there on, taxpayers will pay 90% of a recipient’s drug costs.
Congressional Republicans estimate this will cost $400 billion over 10 years. The estimate is a joke.
"Since the program is an entitlement, there is no fixed budget," writes analyst Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation. "Moreover, the evidence from both private and public sectors in recent years suggests that future costs are likely to exceed projections. But even if they are accurate, it is not the next 10 years that matter. It is the years after that, when the full force of the Baby Boom generation hits Medicare and Social Security. Within 15 years Medicare already faces a Niagara of red ink. Adding a drug benefit without serious reforms and constraints on future spending means massive tax burdens on generations to come." Butler may be optimistic.
Medicare is already in the red—even if the government sometimes tries to hide this fact with smoke-and-mirrors accounting gimmicks worthy of Enron. In April 9 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Health, Richard S. Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (which runs Medicare), stated the program’s bottom line for fiscal 2003. "Medicare, overall," he said, "is . . . projected to draw a net amount of $87.7 billion from the budget."
Fiscal Armageddon
Over the horizon looms fiscal Armageddon.
The two major elements of Medicare are Hospital Insurance (HI, or Part A) and Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI, or Part B). HI is underwritten by a 1.45% payroll tax paid by all employees and employers (2.9% for the self-employed). By statute, SMI recipients are supposed to pay an annual premium set at 25% of its cost, with taxpayers picking up the other 75%. There are now fewer than four workers per Medicare recipient paying the taxes to cover these costs. By 2030 there will be only 2.3 workers per recipient. (For more info, click here.)
When Social Security and Medicaid (federally subsidized health care for the poor) are added into the fiscal equation for tomorrow’s welfare state it becomes obvious there is no realistic prospect for sustaining that welfare state—even without a prescription drug benefit—unless the government is willing to tax middle-aged working people into poverty.
On July 25, 2001, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker spelled out the problem for the House Budget Committee. "Taken together, the two major government health programs—Medicare and Medicaid—represent an unsustainable burden on future generations," said Walker.
"Assuming, for example, that Congress and the President adhere to the often-stated goal of saving the Social Security surpluses, our long-term simulations show a world by 2030 in which Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid absorb most of the available revenues within the federal budget," he said.
"Absent changes in the structure of Medicare and Social Security," he predicted, "sometime during the 2040s government would do nothing but mail checks to the elderly and their health care providers."
Between then and now, Republicans would find themselves perpetually out-bid by Democrats in their mutual efforts to pander to retired Baby Boomers who had been tutored by government to depend on government.
America would become a socialist country—with an increasingly aggrieved and impoverished bloc of people struggling to pay the taxes to cover the Social Security, drug bills and other medical costs of other people’s grandparents.
Conservatives believe freedom is a moral imperative—for old and young alike. Bloating the welfare state today with a new prescription drug benefit will diminish American freedom now, and could help extinguish it in the future. Republicans who call themselves conservatives should fight the plan, not help push it through.
Yeah, you might call it that.
But if we wanted someone that is out Democrating the Democrats, we should have voted for one.
Why do y'all give Bush a pass on his spending?
OK.
The good thing about fads and fetishes is that they eventually fade.
The bad thing is the damage caused while they last.
Though drug companies whine on about the high costs of research and production, they happily sell their products at low prices to countries like Mexico, where the price level is low, and to socialized countries like Canada, where price controls keep the price down. Allowing Americans to buy online from any country in the world would do a lot to bring down the high price of prescriptions.
That has got to be the stupidest damn thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Why do these people keep insisting that the "crack whore" level of spending, the creation of all of these giant new bureaucracies and the out of control growth of government initiated by this admin is all some brilliant plan by the secretly conservative Bush to cut government? It's uncanny.
I think we need to understand that anyone can be a Republican. All you do is register and if you want to run for public officer, you register for the primary and pay a fee and that's it. There's no means testing for Republicans, and yet we're surprised that they're just like Democrats. The truth is that political opportunists will gather to whichever party appears to be the most in fashion.
The solution is to watch your congresscritters closely, and see who votes conservative and who votes liberal. This requires actually paying attention to voting records, and not just going off the party labels you see in the polling booth, so I doubt the fad of Attentive Voting will ever catch on.
Not everyone would agree with that statement.
Suit yourself, but when the likes of FDR becomes President again you will soon find yourself lamenting the "Dubya' Years".
Oh? And just when in our history was this period?
Your negativity is disconcerting, Montag.
Did you mean SO and Ma Bell excluded? Because prices rose for kerosene after the trust was broken up. Not exactly in tune to the phone prices though, seems most of the bill is a bunch of made up BS alleged to be taxes and fees (wife attached the lamprey of NOS to us a while back and we just finished removing it...)
Yes, and the lament will go something like this...
"What were we thinking, to install an expensive new bureacracy that the Democrats were certain to exapand once they regained power? Why didn't anyone warn us?"
That last sentence is the ironic coda which is obligatory in all laments. You are free to ignore it, of course, since no one is warning you.
The purpose of government is to protect life and rights. The purpose of government is not to act as distributor of goods it pilages from the rest of society at gunpoint. So no matter what the people think and conjure up as justification, they are still stealing and it is wrong.
The public servant idea goes out the window when the rulers aquire office though such bribery as this. It is a fact that if these voter folks really were concerned about prescription drugs for others, they would have formed and org, or business to serve the need. They never did, because they don't really want to pay for it. They want someone else to, they are coveting their neibors goods and are selfish to the core. That's why the con artists that utilize and pander to these bozos are not public servants, they are rulers.
Government was instituted to protect folks from criminals, not pander to their desires to aquire the seat of power.
Unfortunately, the gains are rapidly being outweighed by the losses - personal freedom, what WILL be higher taxes (despite the supposed "tax-cuts" many of us will actually be paying higher taxes over the next few years - thanks a lot GW).
Lest we also forget that we are loosing ground to armies of illegal aliens who come across the boards basically un-impeded (other than by natural elements - and even that is going to change when we start putting water and food outposts so these lawbreakers can make it - ugh)
Here's my plan - based on one of the few things the governor of Arkansas has said or done that makes sense in the last few years: Now - as I said all social programs should be funded EXCLUSIVELY by VOLUNTARY taxes. Each year when you file your taxes, you have a box to check if you want $1 to go towards the presidential election fund. Well have another box with a specific tax already entered (total program costs divided by the average number of taxpayers filing). If you choose to pay the voluntary tax, you add this total to your regular tax total and pay the sum (or the difference if you are getting a refund).
With a VOLUNTARY tax to subsidize the social spending, taxpayers will see the true cost of these handouts. If the left feels so strongly about providing these giveaways, let them pay for them themselves.
Furthermore, if the taxpayers decide to not pay the voluntary tax, then whatever is collected is used to provide the handouts to the extent that collected funds last. Once the funds run out - goodbye.
If a social program fails to meet at least 50% of it's budget in voluntary collections, the program is eliminated.
The problem with American people is that they have a big heart - they want to do what's right for people who are not able to take care of themselves, the poor, the elderly - unfortunatley the majority of Americans have absolutely NO CLUE what the REAL cost of these programs adds up to. By adopting my proposal, every American Taxpayer would know exactly what the cost to them is - and I don't think they would settle for it.
We have a representative democracy, where politicians have to weigh importance of issues to thier constituents. The idea is that voters then express how important an issue is to them, not just yea/nea. The end result is a small motivated group (as much as we hate some of them) can overpower a larger majority. I like to call this "tyrany of the special interest groups".
Theoreticaly, if the system measured exactly how bad people wanted things, it could optimise utility for people. Government pork wouldn't even be much of a problem and you could run some fairy tail socialist state. But, It doesn't.
Personally I think if there were more than 2 real parties things would work better. We'd probably need something like IRV or proportional representation, both pretty radical ideas though.
I have my doubts about that.
Alas, it is just an effort to convey the good Dubya' has bestowed. I remain optimistic that our collective concerns in our great country will keep us great for decades to come.
I enjoyed the thread ya'll but my "John Deere" rider awaits me! :)
They wouldn't like to have to give up their big 4 bedroom homes even though their children are gone or the big luxury RV's for when they travel. They as a group are taking more medicine by far than they actually need. We'll end up having to go the do-it-yourself way because the money will soon be gone.
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