The Respectfully Republican Conversation

It is fine if the world is interested in America. I just don't think they should be telling us who to vote for. I realize that our economy affects the rest of the worlds and vice versa since the economy is global. I do not think that just because Obama is a smoother talker and can give a good speech using a teleprompter that he will be a good President or good for the economy. Maybe I was mistaken but that is what looked like was being posted - that we should vote for Obama because that is what the rest of the world would like.

I see your point suzfive, that this is an American election.  All countries are somehow globally interconnected these days, but an American election is an American election.

If Shirley is gonna cuss, I will be back, at least till I make others mad.  Summer, you post research and facts, not opinions about how bad the US is.  That is why you are so welcome. 

To Pam2622 This may be harsher than is needed.

Canada made a choice to turn their natural resorces into plowshares rather than swords.  Because they have an army half the size of Banladesh's, they have money to do things such as provide health care to all.  They are able to do this because they know that the US will protect them.  Russia, China, North Korea, Iran,Vietnam, Pakistan, Sudan and on and on and on, have armies much larger than Canade or Europe.  All these countries hate western lifestyles.  Does anyone doubt that the USSR would have controled all of Europe if not for the fact that we here mortgaged our grandchildren to build a suficent deterance to them.  Do you doubt that Saddam would have controled the Oil Supply of Mideast if we had not stopped him in Kuwait.  We do this without gain.  We do not conquer and hold, we do not demand reprirations.  We know when we neglect our army, some dictator some where invades Poland or France or Kuwait. 

Because our Army's are so outnumber by bad guys, somethimes we must be proactive instead of reactive.  We do this knowing the very people that we have liberated or kept free, will scorn us.  To say that we are not open minded and problems caused by Reagan, well my only comment is it's better than speaken Russia, or German, or Japanese, of Farsi.  I am afraid that at some time, the broad back of our Great nation will go weary.  We will become a nation that decides to protect only ourselves, and let the rest of the world fend for itself.  Or I guest spend for itself for it's on defense. 

  

Found this that explains both health care programs a little better:

The Cabinet of Dr. Obama

Yuval Levin Yuval Levin - Mon Oct 13, 11:15 am ET

Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 014, Issue 06 - 10/20/2008 - Over the past few weeks, in a series of television ads, in stump speeches, and in the presidential and vice presidential debates, the Obama campaign has sought mightily to attack John McCain's proposal for health care reform. It's vehemence and tenacity have been striking, especially given how little McCain himself has actually had to say about his plan. Ironically, their misleading critiques actually hint at the strengths of McCain's proposal, and point to the serious vulnerabilities in Obama's own approach to health care politics.

At the core of the McCain health care agenda is the most important conservative policy innovation since welfare reform: the transformation of the benefit now given to employer-provided health coverage into a health insurance tax credit made available to all. For almost 70 years now, the federal government has given a significant tax preference to employer-provided health insurance. When your employer takes money out of your wages to purchase coverage on your behalf, the money is not counted as part of your gross income, so you don't pay any taxes on it. But if you purchase insurance yourself, not through an employer, the money you use to do so gets taxed.

This makes employer-provided insurance vastly more appealing and places a serious burden on those to whom it is not available or who prefer coverage other than what their company offers. It has prevented the development of a genuine market in individually purchased health insurance and therefore artificially keeps insurance costs high. It has kept consumers from having a clear sense of what their health care costs, and so has inflated the price of care itself as well as the price of coverage. It has severely reduced the options available to families, making it more difficult to find insurance that meets their particular needs. It has tied health insurance to employment, leaving people uncertain about career moves and insecure about the future of their coverage. And it has vastly increased the number of Americans without health insurance, since not every business can afford to provide coverage, and those whose employers don't offer it cannot readily find affordable options on their own.

And yet, for all its troubles, the employer-based system is quite popular with the people it serves. Nearly 90 percent of them, in a recent Kaiser Foundation poll, rated their insurance as good or excellent. They would certainly like to see costs go down and to feel more secure about their coverage, but they do not want their existing coverage taken away from them. This obviously poses an enormous challenge for reformers: How can the problems of the current system be addressed without displacing the millions of Americans who are satisfied with it?

The McCain solution is to change the incentives for consumers, but not for employers, so that people find themselves with more options, but are not forced out of their current insurance arrangement. Rather than exempt from taxation all the money used by employers to buy insurance, he would treat it as income but then provide individual taxpayers (regardless of how they obtain their coverage) with a credit that more than covers the taxes. The effect of this, from the point of view of individuals and families, would be to make employer-provided coverage just one option among many.

All American taxpayers, regardless of whether they now have health insurance or where they get it, would receive a $2,500 health care tax credit ($5,000 per family) under McCain's plan. If you now have health insurance through your employer and would like to keep it, you can do that and the economics of the arrangements would change only slightly, and (for all but the top 5 percent of taxpayers) for the better. The money your employer takes out of your wages for your insurance would be taxed, but the new credit would more than cover the additional taxes, leaving you with the insurance you have now, and with a little more money in your pocket at tax time (between $700 and $1,600, according to the estimates of the Tax Policy Center). Things don't change for your employer, and they get a little better for you.

In last week's town hall debate, Barack Obama attacked this feature of the plan as an example of "one hand giveth and the other hand taketh away." But the giving and the taking occurs only on your income tax form, and in the end you're left with the insurance you want to keep and more of the money you've earned. The point of all the giving and taking, meanwhile, is to make options available for those not satisfied with the current system, or not served by it.

If you now receive insurance coverage from your employer but are unhappy with it or would rather find coverage that stays with you through different jobs or better suits your family's needs on your own, the McCain plan would give you the same tax benefit for insurance you choose as you now get only for insurance your employer chooses. If you decline your employer's insurance, the portion of your wages spent on coverage becomes regular take-home pay, which you can use to buy insurance. The additional wages are taxed, but again the new credit would cover those taxes and even leave you with a little extra. You would have just as much money to spend on insurance as your employer did. In addition, the McCain plan would vastly increase the scope of competition in the individual insurance market by permitting insurers to sell policies across state lines. It would thus create both new buyers and new sellers and start to build a genuine individual insurance market, which would bring down costs.

Finally, if you don't have insurance at all now, the new tax credit would put your family $5,000 closer to affording it. Most of the uninsured are not poor (or else they would qualify for Medicaid), and for many families without coverage an extra $5,000 and a real market to buy in would make the difference and allow them to obtain health insurance. A recent analysis of the McCain plan by noted health care economist Roger Feldman and a team at Health Systems Innovation (HSI) found that it would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 27 million--well over half of the present total--and all without forcing anyone who now likes their coverage to lose it.

The McCain approach essentially puts employer-purchased and individually purchased health insurance on a level playing field, giving people more options and a better chance to find and afford the coverage they need.

The Obama campaign's attacks on the plan have mostly sought to confuse the public about its benefits by speaking about the parts without acknowledging the whole. Senators Obama and Biden both mentioned the taxation of health benefits in recent debates, and their campaign has run ads pointing to it as well, but all have failed to note the tax credit that more than makes up for it. The net tax burden on middle class families declines under the McCain plan, while insurance options improve. If they do mention the tax credit, they suggest it is all that families would have if they left their employer coverage--as Joe Biden put it in his debate with Sarah Palin, you would have to "replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company." But that ignores the simple fact that employer-purchased health care is purchased with employee wages. Right now, employers pay workers less in cash wages because they pay so much in premiums. With McCain's reform, workers who opt out of coverage will get more take home pay and a tax credit to more than make up for lost employer contributions to health care.

But perhaps the most dishonest charge concerns the prospects for the employer-based system itself. The Obama campaign has implied that McCain's plan would unravel the system and cause workers to be dropped from their employers' health plans. "Twenty million of you will be dropped," Joe Biden said in the vice presidential debate. In fact, the McCain plan does not alter the basic financial incentives facing employers. Workers might choose to leave employer coverage, but the McCain plan would not force them out.

Indeed, it is Barack Obama's health care plan that raises the prospect of masses being dropped from the employer-based insurance system, and his vulnerability on this crucial front may explain some of his intense defensiveness on health care. In the second presidential debate, Obama sought to address this concern through a brazenly misleading depiction of his own plan. "If you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it," he said. "All I'm going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it." But you can only keep your plan if your employer doesn't eliminate it, and Obama's health care proposal, unlike John McCain's, gives your employer a powerful incentive to do just that.

Where McCain seeks to address the problems of our health insurance system by building a market for private individuals, Obama seeks to do so by building a public-insurance system. His plan would force all but the very smallest businesses to either provide insurance coverage that meets the plan's requirements (which the Obama campaign has not specified, but would surely involve extensive particular coverage mandates like those in the federal employee health plan, which exceed what most popular employee plans provide today), or pay a tax to the government. Many employers would thus face the choice of increasing their insurance costs to comply with the new coverage requirements or dropping their workers' coverage. Obama, meanwhile, would create a new government-run insurance program (funded by the new tax on employers who don't offer coverage) that would compete with private companies to cover people who are not insured by employers.

In effect, the Obama plan creates an incentive to drop employees from existing plans, and then takes private insurers out of the race to cover them by using price controls to make the public option cheaper. The plan's goal is to drive Americans into a public Medicare-like insurance system by default.

The effect would be dramatic. An analysis by the Lewin Group suggests this approach would result in between 32 million and 52 million people moving from employer-provided coverage to the public system (depending on the rate of the "pay or play" tax on employers, which the Obama campaign has yet to specify). A recent analysis by HSI argues that "The offering of a public health plan will practically eliminate the group market medium PPO plan design that has been the most popular [employer-based] plan to date."

The Obama plan would also cost more than $400 billion a year, would impose a new burdensome tax on employment through the pay or play provision at a time of already rising unemployment, and, according to the Tax Policy Center, would increase the health care costs of taxpayers in the top 40 percent of the income range. All of this, HSI estimates, will reduce the number of uninsured Americans by about 25.5 million people, while McCain's plan would reduce it by more than 27 million.

Simply put, Barack Obama's criticisms of the McCain health care plan--that it would raise taxes and decimate employer-based coverage--apply far better to his own proposal.

The case for McCain's plan can be made very plainly: If you like your coverage as it is, the plan will let you keep it and you will pocket a little more money at tax time. If you don't like your coverage now, the plan will give you a lot more options to choose from and let you use the same money your employer now uses to pay for them. And, if you don't have insurance today, the McCain plan will offer you more options, reduce costs in the market for individual insurance, and put you $5,000 closer to having health insurance. Obama's plan would push tens of millions of people out of private insurance they like and into a vast government program. It would, moreover, raise taxes on hiring in hard economic times and break the federal budget.

It is John McCain, not Barack Obama, who should be pushing hard on health care in the next debate.

Yuval Levin is the Hertog fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor at the New Atlantis magazine. His new book, Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy, will be published this month by Encounter Books.

IBC - well said!

Summer - you are welcome to post here. The US is not perfect by any means - I don't think any country is.

For all that Obama wants to do - even if we get out of Iraq - he will have to tax more than just the top 5%. Clinton had a surplus but taxes were higher on people making more than $42,000 a year. I know - we were some of those people - who had to write out a check or pull out a credit card every April 15. Even with 5 children - no tax refund - and my dh makes less as a college professor than teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools. He was a Fulbright Scholar, Rotary Scholar, won teaching awards and teaches at three different campuses! He is nearing retirement age and would like to give up some of his extra jobs but we still have one child in college, one in high school and one in middle school.

Pam2622

I sorry, the discussion can be fairly short if you believe that War is fought for "mafia" coalition of big business and back room trade offs. Wall Street robber barons ordering the US Armed Forces as is own private army.  It has been a while since I have read War is Racket, so memory may be a little short.  Cuba, Mexico, Dupont family, Oil ect ect ect.  I am always suprised when someone uses it as a reference without laughing.  All I was saying is if all nations were able to defend themselves, then the burden of defense would not fall on one.  Or do you belive that Dupont was the cause of WWII and Dow caused Vietnam.  Halliburton caused Iraq, and the US and wallsteet just gets richer and richer.  I

I'm sorry, I'm just a hick from Mississippi, now a hillbilly in Arkansas.  I do seem to be going through an angry period, most times I will play nice.

pam2622 wrote  

I only have one thing to say and I promise it's the only time I'll post on any U.S. political thread.

Don't stay away.  Beesie is from Cannada and If Summer (please come back) comes back that'd make three here.  Come to think of it I don't think I've seen Beesie lately.

Unfortunately, for us, your economy affects ours and vice-versa, so I'm insulted that you think we watch with only a passing interest. We're concerned, just as you are. In all reality it probably doesn't matter who's elected because it's too much of a mess to ever fix, but I'd like to think someone is going to try, for everyone's sake.

You're right.  It probably won't matter who's elected as far as the economy goes.  But if we elect a Democrat for our Prez and the Dems take the house and Senate we're up the creek without a paddle.  No checks and balances.  Sounds like my checkbook.  However, I do trust McCain more than I do the new guy on the block.  His housing projects didn't go so well in Chicago.  They're back to being horrible shape (if they're still rentable) and he has not asked an investigation as to why after giving the slum lord, Tony Rezko, $$$$$$$.

Would it hurt to look at other countries' political models? Problems in the U.S. were obvious years ago to most of the rest of the world (back in Reagan's time), so making a statement like you don't care what the rest of the world wants can only hurt you. Perhaps it's time to look at things with a bit more of an open mind.

I don't know what you mean by being "open minded."  I don't think we're open minded to socialism.  We still believe in Capitalism.....well, at east I hope the majority of Americans do.  Right now they're just getting snowed by a man who talks purtty, is young and pretty good looking.  People have McCain on his death bed.  What did Reagan do that was so bad?  I remember Carter's mess and Reagan had to dig us out of that whole.  And, on top of that, he made "friends" with Kruchef.  Was it Kruchef that said we would destroy our way of life..that it would come from within?  Well, looks like he may just be right.

I'm really scared that a man named Obama may be our next president.  The more I dig deep into his life and his "acquaintances" the more I wonder how much influence they had on his life.  There's so much info out there that the media has not done..they have NOT done their work.  They only go after Joe the Plumber, swarms of people were sent to Alaska to get any "dirt" they could find on Sarah Palin, the N. Y. times just wrote a hit piece about Cindy McCain.  We don't know what Obama did in his college days, but some thinks that makes no difference.  If one was OPEN-MINDED they'd read about the characters in his life and wonder, what did he do in college?..why won't he release his trancripts?...something to hide?.....who did he hang around with?.....where are his friends that went to school with him or worked with him?......I could continue to go on, but I'll just bore you.

As I've challenged many people, I challenge you to watch these videos.  See if you think this may be why our economy went belly up.  There's a lot of blame to go around, but I find this very intersting.  I have posted these before.

This time I'm really going to bed.  Been staying up way too late.

Shirley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64  

Below are some quotes from the video.  But it's best if you WATCH the video.  

And, there's much more to be seen. Click on the above link.  Watch.  

"They would not have qualified but for this Affirmative Action on the part of the bank, yes."    A question was asked, are minorities represented in that low and moderate income group?  And here's the answer, "It is by income and it is also by minorities, yes."   "With the 2.1 billion lending that amount in mortgages will be a higher risk and I'm sure there will be a higher default rate on those mortgages than the rest of the portfolio.   "...that is the remedy that we sought and the remedy that I would prefer 15,000 families.  This is of a scope so, uh, beyond anything that we've really done in the past. Uh, we had one settlement just a couple of weeks ago which was part and parcel of this which was in the range of about a billion dollars, but after that the closest settlement, uh, was three hundred, four hundred, five hundred thousand dollars, so this is of a scope, uh, uh, that much surpasses anything that we had done in the past."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

In their own words:  WARNING!  Who was asking for more regulation?  And at the end is an admission that is hard to believe!  And they blame all of the economical this crisis on who?  And who's paying for this by losing so much money in their retirement funds, foreclosures on houses, ect.  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&NR=1  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

If you want to read some parts of the video pause it.  It's fast.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaABV1CWXug&feature=related    

Thanks Suzfive, Shirley, and IBC, I think the U.S. citizens got this.  You don't need my input. 

IBC, I was just thinking (and that's quite difficult) was part of my cussing coming from that Shi++Y umbrella I posted on the silly, silly post.  I needed to see some smiley faces and lighten up.  That didn't last long.  Then I read about the hit piece of Cindy and something else and I was livid. 

You DO NOT sound like an angry old man!  This is what an angry old man looks like!

Had to take a break and do the important things, had to flush my wife's PICC lines, change the bandage on it, and replace the caps.  We do the 500 mile trip tomorrow to Houston, for treatment.  This is Scan time, so nervous somewhat.  We make the trip every three weeks, and stay from three days to 10 days depending on how appointments go. 

Summer,

can we officially desinate you as Vice President in charge of obscure and relevant research.  When you do commentary, you can change your signature line to read    The opinion expressed above are mine and mine alone and does not officially represent the policies of my country.

Pam2622, 

Your opinions are needed, a discussion either harsh or heated or civil, are totally useless unless opposing ideas and fresh thoughts are represented.

Summer, LOL..I am right after I post this.  A friend sent me an email from her friend and I had to set her friend straight.  She thinks he's brilliant..HAHA!

IBC, you are so sweet.  My dh did soooo much for me during my treatment.  I know your wife and you have it much tougher than me or my dh.  He would drain my drains every night and measure the yucky fluid.  He'd cook, go to the grocery store, clean the kitchen..sometimes I did that...and drove me two hours (it would take me AT LEAST 2 1/2 if I were driving) to my appointments.  I went to Duke and still do for my checkups.  My gyn is there also.  Five hours...YUCK!  We stayed one night for the Neulasta shot cuz my insurance wouldn't let me bring it home.  And you have to stay for 3 - 10 days!  That's rough.  But after a five hour drive I'd say two or there days sounds pretty good.  I imagine the trip is hard on her.

I hope she gets good reports tomorrow or whenever you find out.  I'll be sure to say a pray for the two of you.

I like your suggestion to Summer and Pam.

Daffodil, WHERE ARE YOU GOING!!!??  We need people to help us keep our heads straight.

Okay, I'm going nitey nite!  I think.

Shirley

IBCspouse,

Your comments are refreshing to this debate.

I don't stop by too often because of a full schedule (non political).  When I do, I need to speed read to get through the gest of the conversations.  I think I'm one of the accused "drive by" contributors as it's been expressed.

Have you read GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL?  It can be difficult to get through...enormous amount of well researched facts as the author's expertise is in several fields of study.  The information is very interesting and offers insights into the discussion of why and how societies lean toward non peaceful means of existence.  The author reaches back before "civilization began" as we've been taught.  His premise begins with a question "why so much cargo?" and focused on the tribes in the Polynesian islands.  I take it with me for waiting rooms often. 

Best wishes to you both in Houston.  

Hey Shirley, I'm here!  There just hasn't been anything for me to add to the conversation lately.

ibcspouse, I don't disagree that Canada benefits from the protection of the U.S. military, but it is the choice of the U.S. to play the role of chief protector of Western nations.  You also have to keep in mind that Canada and other U.S. allies are also hurt by our relationships with the U.S..  Canada's close ties to the U.S. is what puts us near the top of all the terrorist's hit lists.  As for Canada's participation in wars, perhaps reading a non-American authored history of the first and second World Wars will give you a different perspective on this.  I don't have the time to look up the numbers on this right now, but I'm pretty sure that as a percentage of our population, Canada sent more troops into these wars than did the U.S.. And we entered the fight earlier.  The U.S. entered WWII only after Pearl Harbor was attacked.  Canada had already been fighting in this war - and Canadian soldiers had been dying - for years.  Today, the primary focus of our military is peace-keeping.  This is a position that is supported by the vast majority of Canadians.   Lastly, the fact that we can afford healthcare is of course in a small way related to the fact that our military expenditures are lower than those of the U.S. but by far the greater reasons are that we are more highly taxed than Americans and we have a significanly less costly medical system on a per capita basis (with no insurance middle-men taking profit).

Can you think of a better reason to vote for McCain?.........

Out of Biden's mouth yesterday at a closed fundraiser in Seattle--

From Wizbang

Joe Biden Lets the Truth Slip: Vote for John McCain over Barack Obama
Posted by Kim Priestap
Published: October 20, 2008 - 1:39 PM

Joe Biden argued why Americans should not elect Barack Obama president of the United States but, instead, should pull the lever for John McCain:

    "Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

    "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

    "I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

    "There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Thanks, Senator Biden. You made the case for John McCain beautifully. 

Hey Anneshirley I am waving my flag.............can you see it?..........Shokk