I know I’m preaching to the choir here but this bugs me.
Obamacare has the subsidies built in. Can’t afford the bronze/silver/platinum plan and make less than X? No problem, we’ll use TAXPAYER money to “help” you. Make above X? You’re fooked, too bad so sad. :mad:
The Cap and Trade bullshit that was floated a few years ago (and still lurks in the shadows) was going to “…necessarily skyrocket energy costs”. Guess what? There were subsidies as part of the proposal to help the pooooor pay those exorbitant electricity costs. That’s right…Bessie Sue in the trailer park and Shaniqua in the 'hood could run their AC and heat with impunity but you and I would sweat/freeze our asses off 'cause we couldn’t afford a tripling of our electric bills each month.
If these socialist utopian plans are sooooo brilliant and awesome then why aren’t they applied evenly to EVERYONE? I mean, if energy costs were going to “skyrocket” and this nifty healthcare plan was available why wouldn’t they be laid upon us all equally?
VOTES
As if you couldn’t have guessed it, the Marxists are clever that way. You see, Bessie Sue and Shaniqua are going to go along wholeheartedly with the ACA (and Cap and Trade too if it came to fruition) because it’s no skin off their backs. Someone else’s money is going to insulate them, take the “pain” and discomfort away. Screw ABNAK and company, they’re “rich” (always gotta be careful who defines that word). The Marxists have garnered more votes in their column that they’ll never lose. The EITC is another good example of something that will likely never go away; good freaking luck getting 47-49% of citizens to vote for you when you’re proposing “leveling the field” on income taxes.
I’m a firm believer that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, lawdy-dawdy EVERYBODY. Especially when it comes to these “brilliant” :rolleyes: socialist schemes. If a HUGE segment of the population is protected/insulated from pain (i.e. loss of mo money) then they have no stake in it. Either they benefit from it (subsidy for healthcare) or just won’t suffer from it (subsidy for electric bills under Cap and Trade proposed). Anyone who seeks to remove those insular layers will be demonized as “cold-hearted”, “callous”, “evil”, or most likely just “evil Republicans”.
Bottom line? If a plan isn’t good enough for EVERYONE in this country then it isn’t good enough for ANYONE. If said brilliant epiphany needs special funding to help the poooor then perhaps it shouldn’t be implemented in the first place, no? There will be the usual folks here soon who will criticize me for bashing the poooor, but read closely what I said: EVERYONE or NO ONE. Can you reasonably (as in non-socialistically) argue against that? Maybe the plan ain’t so brilliant after all if EVERYONE doesn’t benefit—or suffer if that is the goal—equally.
Isn’t there an Equal Protection clause in the Constitution?
I believe we have to subsidize industries because our dollar under the current system is declining faster than incomes can keep up. Subsidizing food makes it available for the masses and allows the middle class to exist but it is failing and subsidizing is merely a bandaid and not a fix in this losing and failed economic system we have.
Are you referring to capitalism in general or our economy in particular?
If it’s a subsidy that benefits the ENTIRE population I’m not AS opposed to it. It’s when it benefits specific groups of citizens and not others under the umbrella of some brilliant socialist plan (like Obamacare, Cap and Trade, or the EITC) that I have an issue with it.
Still, subsidizing industry, banking, or other facets of our economy can lead to a “hollowness” that will eventually catch up to us.
I’m talking about the 9% inflation that the gov is trying their damnedest to pretend doesn’t exist and do everything they can to hide it by subsidizing the marketplace, price fix gold, change COLA to include the prices of computers and tablets.
It’s a game. If the people can go buy some bread, eat everything that contains corn, and grab a gallon of milk then they and their kids eat. Subsidies ensure this.
This is one of those catch 22 things with most Subsidies. It does help and is good for some things. Food being one. Electricity is another. But oil, oil is an odd one. Right now from what i understand we subsidize oil to keep cost down. But we are taking tax money to do this. So if they don’t tax us as much we can pay more for gas. So you pays your money and makes your choice as they say.
Subsidizing is redistribution. Redistribution keeps the middle class from rising above their current state and become independent. Redistribution makes the lower economic class dependent on elected politicians (remember who to vote for!). Redistribution also provides an excuse to force massive sums through crony businesses.
The short answer is that we must redistribute wealth to keep the middle class shackled like mules, the poorer class dependent and controlled like whores on crack, and the fascist crony elite ever wealthier. Oh and to make sure no honest politician survives more than one term.
Right. But on the flip side of that coin is that companies are not paying a livable wage and thus can command a cheap source of labor which also is subsidized by our government. How you ask? The answer I have for you is simple, food stamps and Medicare offset the burden of these low wages so the fool or rather mother/father can stand and take your order at McDonalds or check you out at Walmart.
China has adopted subsidized labor force but instead of allowing their labor to go home at night they live in work camps. As far as the middle class, well, there isn’t one really anymore. The good paying jobs left on the last boat and we all work as slaves to the government for 5-6 months of the year before seeing a penny in our own pockets.
I am not trying to make light of this situation or be argumentative but I am saying we really need to look at the whole picture. There is a huge inequality in this country and the 1950s era is over ans in the wake has left us with what we have today. Rich are richer and the poor pay taxes while the remainder merely survive by government handouts and worthless jobs. There is no middle class it’s 1% and then everyone else. The class system at its finest.
You’re referring to what you would have previously called the “middle class” there, correct? 'Cause roughly half this country pays no federal income tax so I can only surmise you are equating the “poor” in your comment to what we have come to know as the “middle class”.
As far as “worthless jobs” and “livable wages” are concerned do you really think a Wally World job should pay $15/hour? If so do I get a $7/hour raise too? You mention inflation but do you realize what an automatic, across-the-board “livable wage” increase would do to inflation? Gradually more worthless $$$ being printed on top of a sudden, marked increase in the cost of basic goods and services ('cause if you think Wal Mart and others are just gonna eat the cost of this “livable wage” I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you).
The days of steel mill workers or auto industry folks making upper-middle class wages for assembly line work are long gone or well on their way out.
If farm subsidies ceased, food costs would skyrocket. The farm subsidy also allows the nation to have a source of cheap grain to export and thereby help reduce balance of trade numbers.
Disruption from ceasing farm subsidies could likely wreck the many other industries that support farming and ranching. I’ve said all I know about economics except for this: Our economy is so complex and so intertwined with subsidies that monkeying with them may open Pandora’s box.
I need to back up for a second and do some explaining. I don’t have many important things to say very often but this is one of those rare times.
First I want to explain the dollar. It is currency, almost a bond, but not money. The Feds produce dollars in abundance with interest owed immediately upon printing. They are promissory notes backed by the faith of the government. The government does not care about the dollar. They can print as many as required. What they want is labor. Your labor.
This is a terribly macabre example so please bear with me as I have no other parable from which to draw.
Say you were a plantation owner of many large fields. You need workers to labor for you and for their labor you print a currency that allows these workers to go to the stores and exchange with one another. But you have a lot of fields that need to be worked and you need these workers to work. So instead of allowing them to save up their currency to one day stop working you devise a plan to increase the amount of currency devaluing their savings by roughly 10% each and every year. That means that all those saved currency these workers labored for years ago are worth less and now they have to work more to get the same item. They keep saving and those hours worked basically vanish over time due to this inflation. This keeps your workers from ever quitting because they can’t quit. Well not for long anyway. Add on some taxes for the “well off” workers and you capture the remaining that have enough currency built up that could retire and now they can’t either.
So there you have a mini economy. You really don’t care about the currency as you created it from thin air. You need the labor and you basically made slaves of these people working for you. And that is what the government has basically done.
So to answer your question yes even the poor pay taxes. It’s hidden in the form of inflation and in time will continue to do its job ensuring that all that currency saved is wiped clean of any value and you and I will continue to labor as good little slaves believing that we are living in a free market. Sorry but this is how I see the macro economic policies in place today and again I didn’t mean to offend anyone that could take offense.
new zealand got rid of their subsidies, farming output improved by 600%, exports rose, prices fell
A simple example is ethanol subsidies cause food prices to rise. Precious farmland has to be used to grow, get this, inedible corn that is used for ethanol. Over 50% of our corn production is devoted to ethanol. Devoting huge amounts of farmland to grow inedible corn? AWESOME. Thats less farmland to grow edible food which equates to higher prices. The funny thing is Dept of Ag subsidies ethanol and causes food prices to rise. Then that same dept issues food stamps so that poor people can afford the food that govt caused to be overpriced. Having our food supply compete with fuel was an economic disaster of epic proportions.
Not only that we used to export huge amounts of excess corn to 3rd world countries. Now that its being diverted to ethanol instead, the price of corn has risen dramatically overseas. This damages the 3rd world countries that needs it the most and literally helps starve them by making food prices rise. Thanks subsidies. Corn is better used to feed people than to fuel our cars.
Subsides are incredibly damaging to the economy because it distorts the marketplace and diverts scarce resources to wasteful, unviable, and inefficient parts of the economy.
Subsidizing healthcare as the ACA is defined is unviable and inefficient, and will artificially increase the price of said healthcare for those NOT getting it subsidized. It is also not viable (as we are finding out) if the young healthy males do not sign up in droves like they’re not doing. ***Of course in fairness to the libtards this may all be by design…fail horribly so we can have single-payer.
If, God forbid, there were a Cap and Trade bill ever passed then subsidizing it for the, uh, “poor” would be the epitomy of an artificially created transfer of wealth (artificial in the sense of it being done for NO GOOD OR VALID REASON, as this global warming/climate change garbage is bullshit pseudo-science).
Industry subsidies carry their own risk. The government has dabbled in things for so long it is now seen as a given and can’t be undone or the world will end. :eek:
Don’t forget the whole illegal alien thing. “Cheap labor” isn’t. The employer just passes on all the costs and risks to others (time, money, effort and risk to get into the US, find food, shelter, employment, and if sick or injured, the taxpayer foots the bill. The taxpayer also foots the bill for any associated crime or car crashes, birth of children and continuing welfare costs. If by some bad luck the illegal is caught, the cost of processing him and shipping him out is on us. Meanwhile the poor struggling farmer/contractor/employer has hired another illegal at crap wages.
The only " comprehensive" action we need is to clean house. But we might have to hurt people’s feelings to do that. Hell, some unicorns might get hurt.