Blog Rantings

I was responding to comments on the popular blog ThinkProgress and I ended up going on much longer than intended. I figured I would share that here on my site. My post is below.

Ok, all kinds of somewhat related messages are getting mushed into this one.

First, Social Security has some issues, but they are not nearly as bad as the republicans have been saying for the last 30 years. Before Bush took office, the program was going to be pulling in more money than it was paying out until 2037, according to the Social Security Board of trustees (a 3 year gain over 2034 from the year before). After that, we would be able to pay full benefits for much longer assuming no change. or so if left unchanged. With some minor adjustments (and maybe not giving it to those that don't need it - I mean you John McCain), we probably could have increased that a bit.

Although we can't remove the disastrous Bush years, it does show that progress can be made without screaming FIRE. Closing loopholes to company and having to pay more in when we are young is a small price to pay to keep the elderly from skipping medications and food due to lack of funds.

That being said, the Bush tax cuts, poor policy, and increasing health care costs have forced the government to dip into the social security coffers. That has reduced solvency to around 2015.

So what do we do? Well, first, we start taxing those that can afford it. Throughout the history (before Reagan) we had a more progressive tax rate and the top ranged from 60% - 92%. In 1982 Reagan pushed the top tax rate down to 50% and made it much less progressive. Now the top bracket is 35% and most of them have loopholes to lower it further. These republicans start reminiscing about the "good old days" when America was great etc... well, look how much we re-invested into our country. That would pay for a big chunk of our problems.

Now let's talk about jobs. Republicans love to talk about how these taxes kill small businesses. Well that is just bull crap. Allowing big companies to by-pass our labor laws and outsource labor to countries which allow their people to work for slave wages kills the small business. We need to rescind the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements and start implementing tarrifs again. How do we expect to keep jobs when companies are permitted to pay there employees in other countries 10 cents an hour? Guess what, we will pay more for goods, but who cares - we will have jobs to afford it! If you are a country that pays a decent wage, you don't have to worry. The beauty is that just by doing what is good for us, we would be encouraging other countries to pay their workers more so their products do not incur too much of a tarrif.

Now that we have jobs and a much larger revenue base, we can tackle Healthcare. This is simple. We need a public option (preferably single payer). Medicare is more efficient and more of the dollars put in go to actual healthcare instead of profit, marketing, and executive salaries. Private insurance does not work.
1. The health industry is not supply and demand - you can't shop around when you need something.
2. Insurers benefit if they can AVOID paying for procedures.
3. Everyone should be able to be healthy - healthcare is a service no different than police, fire, education, roads, etc... You shouldn't have to be wealthy to get services.
4. Quoting our idiot king "The math doesn't work": Healthcare + Profit + Marketing IS MUCH MORE THAN Healthcare

Most of these arguments like "medicare is bankrupt" are red herrings and designed to confuse. If we only give medicare $1 it is bankrupt immediately, that does not mean it was bad, just that we didn't fund it. Let's start really debating the issues instead of playing these stupid games. I know, the Republicans are making it hard, but Democrats need to grow a pair and start taking informed stands instead of trying to please the uninformed masses.