Posted on 11/21/2003 6:25:48 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Please at least stick to facts and read the article at the top of the thread:
Perrin's argument runs as follows: The government's existing health-care policies will, if not changed, over time generate increasing pressure for a governmental takeover of the field. For decades, federal tax policy has bribed people to finance their health care through their employers. That policy has caused rampant inflation. It has meant that losing your job, and sometimes just changing jobs, entailed losing your insurance. It has called into being rationing devices such as HMOs so that employers could control costs when the market was disabled from doing so. Medical savings accounts, by extending tax breaks to individuals who pay out of pocket for their own routine health-care needs, would transform the health-care marketplace. Consumers will be empowered, more people will have catastrophic coverage, a rational pricing structure will emerge, and costs will fall. Moreover, conservatives have been making the argument for the radical potential of MSAs for a decade now. We were never — Perrin continues — going to get MSAs without giving something to liberals in return. The expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drug benefits is that something. If conservatives defeat this bill, they are likely to end up with that expansion anyway. But, he says, there is no guarantee that they will be able to get MSAs in some other vehicle.
That's the basis on which Joe Wilson, a conservative representative from South Carolina, supports the bill. It's also a large part of Gingrich's argument. Gingrich also believes in the bill's provisions for competition within Medicare. A conservative Senate staffer who has worked on health care for years — he played a part in defeating the Clintons' health plan in 1994 — tells me that Gingrich is right: "People who say [that the bill is] not reform don't understand how bad the current system is. [They don't see] the absolute insanity of our current Gosplan system."
That's great!! Especially since they haven't taken effect yet. Good herd-speak though.
Check your own record, and stop avoiding the question.
Are you on your elected Republicans throat for dividing, and abandoning conservatives; or is this "productive passion for correcting the errors of division" something just discovered today?
Clearly the answer is NO. You will allow them any behavior, and chastise me for flinching. You would have us all bend over, grab our ankles, and...above all, just shut the hell up about it.
Here is another for continual avoidance:
Why are abandoned voters held more to their "logical consequences of behavior" than those who abandoned them? Why do they get to stab me in the back, but I don't get to bleed? Why is that?
I will not support socialism.....period. Even if it is socialism-lite. You will. That, and the egotism of the herd, is the difference between us.
Case in point: You know this medicare bill is wrong, and you will support it. Good strategy.
I am sorry, but you are being ignorant. This is quite incorrect. While the tax cuts passed in 2001 phased in, there was an increase in std deduction and child exemptions as of 2001, lower tax rates in 2001 and 2002. The remaining phase-in of cuts was accelerated by the May 2003 tax cuts. Also the tax cuts passed in May take effect this year. For example, long-term capital gains is reduced from 20% to 15% and the dividend tax cut, both take effect in this year. In short, the Bush tax cuts are in effect NOW. That is why the economy is booming now, the positive economic stimulus of the tax cuts.
btw, name-calling is a poor substitute for reasoned discussion.
How much do you pay in taxes? How much should you pay?
Apx. 50% of my income goes to taxes. I believe that 6% is more than generous.
The Republicans are fully complicit in this extortion. They are only able to succeed in this tyranny because of the support you give them.
I didn't realise you were so sensitive. However; I have not called you any names.
Claiming to have been called names is a poor substitute for reasoned discussion, but a damn good way to avoid answering any question.
Is this "strategic conservatism"?
Are you on your elected Republicans throat for dividing, and abandoning conservatives; or is this "productive passion for correcting the errors of division" something just discovered today?
You have re-worded the question, insisted I look at your record, and heralded the fine work you've done, but; have not answered the question.
Try this one, also re-worded, also avoided:
Why are abandoned voters held more to their "logical consequences of behavior" than those who abandoned them?
Or these:
Why are conservatives considered an embarassment, and a handicap, by the Republican party?
Why is it such a foreign concept that elected public servants represent those who elected them?
Why should I vote for someone who will not represent me?
I fight socialism where I find it. Popularity, or nomination into the herd, are benefits sought by cowards.
Not doing anything about it?!!!
Paying apx 50% reflects poor tax planning on my part, yet you pay 45%!!! What does that reflect? Go on, pay your taxes, screw over my kids, grow your government, support your herd.
Look. You win. As a Republican, you have had my support, my money, my argument, my talent, my time, and my advocacy. I've worked with this party for 30+ tears. My taxes have more than doubled in that time.
Now you insult and belittle me.
Congratulations!! You win!!!
I should be ashamed that I cannot bend over silently anymore. But, I'm not.
Socialism is evil, regardless of any title it adopts....Republican. Well done.
The name of the game now is 'will of the people' and politicians must play by their rules which requires them to scrap limits previously placed on government spending and fleecing.
The result of course, will be a train wreck at the end of the line. "All aboard!"
"YES" to your "when did you stop beating your wife" type question ... It was asked an answered three times you bonehead!
"Why are conservatives considered an embarassment, and a handicap, by the Republican party?" They arent. Now it is true that divisive whiners (no matter the ideology) are considered an embarrassment to any organization because they harm its success. For Republicans, division causes elections to get lost to Democrats.
"Why is it such a foreign concept that elected public servants represent those who elected them?" Its not. This is why when Bush for example ran on the prescription drug benefit in 2000, we should not be shocked at all that he tried to fulfill this promise. It's also why Republicans are not going to end medicare: the Republicans responded to charges from the Democrats that Republicans were out to "destroy" medicare and social security by saying that wasnt so. The Republicans are keeping their word. Their strategy on both is to "mend it, not end it" by introducing some conservative reforms into the programs. That is the most that can be reasonably expected on these programs, as there is a large depedent class of elederly who who vote and create a Democrat pro-tax-hike majority if they felt the programs would be ended.
"Why should I vote for someone who will not represent me? " You should vote for the best candidate on the ballot, using these 3 criteria: Character, competence and conviction (ie ideology and beliefs). It's not a binary thing - no candidate will represent you 100%, find the one closest to 100%. Vote to influence outcomes, not to make a 'statement'; voting for minor party candidates for example is usually a good way to get the opposite of what you want in office.
"Why are abandoned voters held more to their "logical consequences of behavior" than those who abandoned them?" Everyone is held to logical consequences of behavior. That's a univeral law of nature.
Now, you have asked a number of (mis)leading questions without caring to grasp my point of trying to advance our agenda instead of merely griping about things... before you let the door hit you on the way out, answer these:
Do you think that you can lower your taxes by harming the Republican party?
If a Republican candidate runs on a platform of supporting a particular program like social security, should we be shocked that they keep their promises?
If conservatives stopped this medicare bill and the more liberal bill that the Senate passed was sent up and passed instead by the Democrats and RINOs, would that be a victory for conservatives?
Do you think it is a bad idea to work with those who agree with you 80%? Or, like Reagan, do you consider them allies?
If you can get a bill out of Congress that Ted Kennedy says would "gut Medicare", you think it just might be a bill a bit more conservative than the socialism he supports?
Since politians only respond to what the people want, isnt it the case that to move politics and advance agendas you have to change WHAT PEOPLE WANT to effect politics?
There is no connection between asking a (mis)leading question to a fellow conservative repeatedly after it was already answered and "fighting socialism".
Why, then, do you think your congressman abandoned & divided conservatives if he did not consider them and embarrassment and a handicap? Why did he do it?
" Do you think that you can lower your taxes by harming the Republican party?"
I have helped the Republican party, and watched my taxes rise.
"Since politians only respond to what the people want..."
I am truly shocked by the willing naivety of this statement. You know this is not the case. Politicians concern themselves only with retaining power.
"As we moved into the 1996 elections, we again began to see this tug-of-war between the principal ideals of the party and the pragmatism of those who said we need `Republican' victories. Conservatives became a problem: We have to keep the conservatives quiet; let's not antagonize the conservatives, while the pragmatists talked about how we must win more Republican seats. Conservatives should be grateful, we were told, because we were playing smart politics, we were broadening the case. Elect more Republicans to Congress, elect more Republicans to the Senate and win the White House. What do we get? Power. We are going to govern.
In meeting after meeting, conference after conference, the pollsters and the consultants--and I have been a part of all of this. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I have been involved in it. I am not saying I have not, but the pollsters and consultants advised us not to debate the controversial issues. Ignore them. We can win elections if we do not talk about abortion and other controversial issues, even though past elections have proven that when we ignore our principles, we lose, and when we stick to our principles, we win. In spite of all this, we continued to listen to the pollsters and to the consultants who insisted day in and day out they were right.
Why did we change? We won the revolution on issues. We won the revolution on principles. But the desire to stay in power caused us to start listening to the pollsters and the consultants again who are now telling us, for some inexplicable reason, that we need to walk away from the issues that got us here to remain in power. Maybe somebody can tell me why.
Some of the pollsters who are here now who we are listening to were here in 1984. Indeed, they were here in 1980 when I first ran. I had always thought the purpose of a party was to effect policy, to advocate principles, to elect candidates who generally support the values we espouse, but it is not.
Let me be very specific on where we are ignoring the core values of our party.
'We defend the constitutional right to keep and bear arms,' says the platform of the Republican Party , but vote after vote, day after day, that right is eroded with Republican support.... Then I hear my own party is planning to work with the other side to allow more gun control to be steamrolled through the Congress which violates our platform. Not only does it violate our platform, it insults millions and millions of law-abiding, peaceful gun owners in this country whose rights we have an obligation to protect under the Constitution."
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