CS Lewis on American Politics

[Starlight]

Tell me, do you even read what the other side says because I try to read both right and left news sources.

Most of what I read in US news is from Digg.com which simply aggregates whatever articles are currently highly popular on the web, so I tend to read a very broad spectrum of articles from all sources as a result of that. All of the US news sources that I watch show video snippets regularly of US conservatives expressing their views, so I feel like I see and hear plenty of US conservatives expressing their views.

I agree that initially it is worth listening to and reading the views and arguments of both sides. However, once I've reached the view that one side is a combination of stupid/insane, why would I want to go out of my way to read anything they had to say? Asking if I read both sides comes across as like asking me if I listen equally to both intelligent people and dumb people, or if I give experts and liars equal weight. I don't think the current Republicans in the US deserve to be taken seriously and the shills that do their propaganda aren't trustworthy, so anyone who reads/listens to them too much is probably deluding and indoctrinating themselves.

Yeah, it is so affordable that insurance cost have been raised

It is well-documented that insurance costs have gone down across the board as a result of the Affordable Care Act, by more than predicted in fact. The Republicans found about 3 cases where they alleged that the person's costs had gone up, and when the media looked into those cases more closely they subsequently found that the person was now much better off. Of course, people who didn't previously have insurance would now have to pay more money, but the costs of the premiums themselves have gone down significantly.

and the taxes to pay for those who 'can't afford it' are stuck to others. Yeah, that is wonderful... just make other people pay for your cost.

You asked what Obama has done for the poor, and making others pay higher taxes to provide free health-care for the poor directly and obviously helps the poor. You don't have to like that. You're allowed to oppose helping the poor. But if you do that, I'm going to label you a person who doesn't care about the poor.

You also have objections to raising the minimum wage which seem to boil down to "poor people like it!" Yet again you seem to implicitly oppose helping the poor.

You're basically saying:
"Dang Obama giving those poor people higher wages and better health care! How dare he, and out of my taxes too!"
Whine all you like about his policies, but it says a lot about you as a person, and it also contradicts your previous complaint about him that he's done nothing to help the poor.

You though are trying to make Republicans all appear as evil monsters.

I think they run the full spectrum of ignorant, stupid, insane, poorly-educated, selfish, evil, corrupt, and monstrous. I don't think all Republicans fall under the monstrous category.

Since you're so interested in making your opposition into mere caricatures

They're not my opposition, I'm a 3rd party observer in all this. The major reason I'm so interested in it is because the Republicans are so crazy that it's hilarious. The politics of the rest of the English-speaking world aren't nearly as interesting, because they are relatively sane and normal and have validly different and interesting viewpoints on complex issues. Yes, there are occasional outliers such as crazy minor parties (eg BNP), and the occasional crank in one of the major parties (eg Tony Abbott). But US politics are just off-the-charts-crazy compared to the rest of the English-speaking world, and the Republicans are the source of that, so it's AMAZING to watch.

To pick an example issue: Publicly funded health care. In all the rest of the Western world, public health care is free. Just so you are absolutely clear what I am talking about: I have no health insurance, and if tomorrow I had a car crash and broke multiple bones and needed to spend weeks in hospital and needed dozens of x-rays and a couple of surgeries to put metal rods in my legs and several consults from specialists, and subsequently needed weeks of physiotherapy to learn to walk properly again, the total cost I would expect to pay at the end of all that would be $0.00. (In fact the government would begin paying me money due to me being unable to work, and would provide various ongoing services if I remained too injured to support myself properly.) That's sometimes known as "universal health care" and it's standard in the entirety of the Western World except for the US. That free health care is ultimately funded by taxes just like roads, police, and defense, and is considered an essential government service in exactly the same way.

My country of New Zealand is somewhat unusual on this issue insofar as we were the first Western nation to introduce universal health care, and have had it in place for about 75 years now (depending on exactly which law you regard as being the 'start'). My grandmother claims she can't remember a time before health care was free: So I've grown up in a country in which healthcare was free my entire life and in the entire life of everyone I've known. The rest of the Western world has also realized it's a good idea and over the course of the 20th century the entire Western world except the US adopted universal health care. (I don't want this to come across as a "my country's the best" type thing, as I'm well aware of our national shortcomings, I'm simply trying to explain my own perspective on the issue of government provided healthcare)

So having had 75 years of universal health care, my country must be now totally well aware of just how terrible it is, right?

Let me try and convey to you just how much people here just hate that universal health care policy...
There were 9 serious political parties that contested last year's election here (7 won seats). Do you know how many of those parties had a policy of wanting to abolish our system of free public health care? Zero. Do you know how many candidates in any of those parties suggested that it might be a good idea to abolish it? Zero. Do you know how many newspaper articles or editorials I have ever read in my entire life in this country that suggested that not having free public health care for everyone might be a good idea? Zero. Nobody here, conservative or liberal, Christian or atheist, would regard it as anything other than absolutely and completely off the charts insane to get rid of universal healthcare. People argue over whether the government should be putting slightly less or slightly more money into healthcare in any given year, but nobody and I mean nobody thinks the government should get out of the business of providing free health care for everyone. That idea would strike most people as akin to saying "I think having a police force is a bad idea, why don't we simply abolish it?" It's simply not a viewpoint that even the craziest people in the craziest parties adopt. Various parties have differing positions on how tax rates and hospital funding should be adjusted with respect to one another, but literally no one would think abolishing public funding of hospitals would be in any way any type of good or sane idea.

As a result of the fact that the entire rest of the Western world has universal health care, a lot of people in the rest of the Western world don't realize that the US doesn't. People just assume that since the US is a modern Western industrialized nation that of course it would have free health care, just as they would assume that it has treated water, roads, a police force etc. Not having free public healthcare is literally something that people here associate with Third-World nations. So it comes as a serious shock to many Westerners to realize that the US actually doesn't have that. In my experience this often makes it quite hard to explain US politics to the average NZer, because they simply refuse to believe that anyone could be against universal healthcare and so they assume I must be misunderstanding the US politicians since no sane person could possibly be against universal free health care.

But what we here find beyond shocking, and to in fact be freaking hilarious and horrifying is when the Republicans work themselves up into a frenzy at the very thought of Obama taking any small step along the road towards improving US healthcare coverage, and then vote literally over 40 times to repeal it. Once people here grasp that (1) the US really and truly doesn't actually have free healthcare and (2) what the Republicans are getting sooo worked up about and opposed-to is the fact that Obama is taking some baby-steps towards getting free healthcare... then (3) people grab the popcorn and sit down to watch the cra-cra-crazy. When your own country has been a democracy for 160 years and had universal health care for 75 years and when literally everyone thinks both of those are extremely good things (if you were to poll people here as to which of "democracy" or "free public health care" they preferred, I think most people would struggle to choose. I suspect it would poll about 50-50.), then watching people ranting that steps towards universal healthcare in their own country will "dEsTRoY FrEEdoM!!" are a great source of entertainment. I think the Daily Show has gotten quite popular here because it gives all the best sound-bites of the craziest of the crazies and provides some great comedy along with it.

It does, of course, raise an interesting cultural question of what the factors are that cause US politics to be sooooo crazy compared to the rest of the English-speaking Western World. The policies of the Democrat party seem pretty typical, by and large, of policies of center-right parties in the rest of the Western world, and the Republican party are off-the-charts extreme-right / insane / crazy-pants in the eyes of any of the rest of the West, but the US seems to be missing any party that the rest of the Western World would regard as occupying the center-left area of the political spectrum. As far as I can determine the historical origins of this are that since 1970, both parties in the US have drifted steadily right on the political spectrum, and I would speculate is probably a combined result of a rise of the Religious Right in the US, the US Supreme court striking down campaign finance laws which resulted in the rich having more political power, and the rise in popularity of new and extreme economic views in the US during this time (eg Milton Friedman, trickle-down economics, etc).

[/tangent] Okay, that example went a little longer than expected. But the basic point is that compared to the politics of the rest of the English-speaking West, the Republicans are simply off the charts of insanity. People are interested in them because they appear to be crazy.

So why do you keep wanting to support your democrat buddies if they are as corrupt as you say they are?

Because the alternative is sooooo much worse, both for the US and for the rest of the world. The rest of the world gave Obama the Nobel peace prize for not being George Bush before he'd even done anything. There's a noticeable difference between your average corrupt and dishonest politician vs world-endangering-crazy-nutbars.

Why didn't the democrats push though such a bill back in 2009, when they controlled both houses and the presidency and the Republicans couldn't of done a thing about it?

I think the Democrats should have done a lot more to address all the issues when they had the chance. That said, their congress passed more legislation than any congress in 50 years despite the Republicans constantly filibustering everything as much as possible, so I can't be too harsh on them. (They needed 60 Senate seats to be able to properly bypass the Republican filibuster and they only had that many for a 5-month period. They had 57 to 59 seats the rest of the time.) Compare that with the 2012 & 2014 congresses, in which the Republicans controlled the house, which achieved historic levels of inaction and historic lows in approval and literally managed to shut down the government. So, could the Democrats have done more? Yes. Are they in any way comparable to the Republicans? No, no, no, and no.

The US Supreme court gave the Citizens United decision, striking down some of laws on political donations, in 2010. The Democrats quickly responded with the DISCLOSE act, twice trying to pass it and twice failing in the Senate with having only 59 of the 60 votes needed to bypass the united Republican filibuster. Increasingly they have tried for a constitutional amendment instead, to simply overrule the Citizens United decision entirely instead of having to patch up the pieces with a piecemeal less-strong anti-corruption framework, however a constitutional amendment requires a super-majority and the Republicans keep blocking it.

Think about it... why would they bite the hand that feeds them? You just admitted above that they receive lots of money from these rich people too.

I've heard from numerous US politicians that they loathe the amount of time and effort and grovelling they have to do on a daily basis to acquire these donations from rich people. It appears now standard for US federal politicians to spend the majority of their working day ringing up potential donors and asking for money. In terms of job satisfaction, that's about as enjoyable as being a door-to-door salesperson: The politicians personally hate that part of the job. (That is not to say that there aren't forms of corruption that can be very pleasant: Being wined and dined, invited to parties, flown around in corporate jets etc. But from the sounds of things, what most of the rank-and-file politicians do on a daily basis is literally make phone calls to ask for money which apparently is about as fun as begging on the street.) The Republican party, however, is prepared to put up with the situation because they do better out of it than the Democrats do - the rich are more eager to donate to the party that helps the rich and lowers their taxes than they are to donate to a party that helps the poor.

So though I suspect most Republicans hate the current situation on a personal level in terms of what it requires of them day-to-day, they're prepared to let it continue happening because it gives them a strong political advantage. Whereas the Democrats as a party hate the corruption because it disadvantages them politically, in addition to not liking it personally.

And yet... when they were in control of both houses and the presidency... what did they actually do with their huge advantage?

Organized a trillion-dollar stimulus package to salvage the world economy. Made significant historic improvements to the US's healthcare system. Regulated upon Wall St. Repealed Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell. And various other things.

[lilpixieofterror]

Most of what I read in US news is from Digg.com which simply aggregates whatever articles are currently highly popular on the web, so I tend to read a very broad spectrum of articles from all sources as a result of that. All of the US news sources that I watch show video snippets regularly of US conservatives expressing their views, so I feel like I see and hear plenty of US conservatives expressing their views.

My goodness, can't you type a post out without going on and on and on for pages and pages, to the point where it just gets boring? Anyway, posting video snippets of people saying stupid things is hardly all that hard to do. I remember a pretty funny one with Nancy Pelosi where when Bush was president, she said capturing and/or killing Osama Bin Laden was too little too late, but when Obama announced his death; she praised him for it. Hypocrisy and saying stupid things is hardly purely a republican thing. Pretty much all of them have some pretty amusing quotes/video's of them.

I agree that initially it is worth listening to and reading the views and arguments of both sides. However, once I've reached the view that one side is a combination of stupid/insane, why would I want to go out of my way to read anything they had to say? Asking if I read both sides comes across as like asking me if I listen equally to both intelligent people and dumb people, or if I give experts and liars equal weight. I don't think the current Republicans in the US deserve to be taken seriously and the shills that do their propaganda aren't trustworthy, so anyone who reads/listens to them too much is probably deluding and indoctrinating themselves.

Of course, the propaganda of the democrat party should be trusted without question and it appears democrats have never said stupid things or never seem to be wrong on anything.

It is well-documented that insurance costs have gone down across the board as a result of the Affordable Care Act, by more than predicted in fact. The Republicans found about 3 cases where they alleged that the person's costs had gone up, and when the media looked into those cases more closely they subsequently found that the person was now much better off. Of course, people who didn't previously have insurance would now have to pay more money, but the costs of the premiums themselves have gone down significantly.

Than can you explain why the liberal Huffington Post wrote this:

So what's going on? First, most people will pay more for health insurance next year. That's true whether you get coverage from a job, on your own through an exchange or directly from an insurer, or from Medicare. Health insurance prices tend to go up. It's their nature, and it's closely tied to how much the cost of medical care rises.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5691773.html

Now while I do know that Republicans talking about 20% increases, across the board, are likely wrong, picking a few examples, even outright lying. The legend among liberals is that heath care prices are not rising. They are and even liberal news sources will tell you that much. That is why I picked a liberal news source, just to show you that while you complain about legends and lies from republicans, you seem to believe several from the other side yourself. Premiums and cost of health care are rising and that is just what even liberal news sources are reporting. Denial will not make it go away.

You asked what Obama has done for the poor, and making others pay higher taxes to provide free health-care for the poor directly and obviously helps the poor. You don't have to like that. You're allowed to oppose helping the poor. But if you do that, I'm going to label you a person who doesn't care about the poor.

Giving people free stuff, that they have not earned, does not help them out in the long run at all. It just creates co dependency upon the government to provide for all of your needs. You can label me whatever your little political hack mind whats to decree, I don't care what an idiot has to say on the topic. I personally want to know what Obama is doing about the horrible unemployment and underemployment rate across the country. I want people to be given a chance to provide for themselves without having to be dependent upon the government to provide for all of their needs and before you rant that I have no clue what it is like. I do because my parents are far from wealthy and I did grow up in a household that did live paycheck to paycheck. I hardly had any new stuff. I can remember that we got an old desk and I spent a few hours with a staple gun, some nails, and a hammer fixing it so it wouldn't fall apart if I tried to use it. Trust me, I know precisely how it works because I've been in that situation and I found a way so I wouldn't have to live pay check to pay check because I know how much it truly sucks. This is what Obama seems to fail at... he creates dependency upon the government and you claim this is 'caring about the poor'. I wasn't aware that creating a dependent class that is always going to be dependent upon the government is 'helping the poor'. Where did you come up with that nonsense from? The same hacks that told you that healthcare cost are not rising?

You also have objections to raising the minimum wage which seem to boil down to "poor people like it!" Yet again you seem to implicitly oppose helping the poor.

Let me help you out here... the people who are on minimum wage are mainly those under 25. In other words... they are mostly people who are starting out on their career path and working they way along. Do you think creating more unemployment helps the poor? If so, you're even stupider than you look. Remember, your neighbors (Australia) have the highest min wage in the world. Yet, their unemployment rate among those under 25 is far higher than it is in countries with lower min wage. Do you think putting thousands out of work is helping them? Wow... you are even dumber than I thought... so I hate to burst more of your fantasy land, but my issue with raising the min wage is that it puts more people out of work, cuts their hours down even more, replaces them with machines, etc. If you think anything of these things I said are wrong... go ahead and prove it.

You're basically saying:
"Dang Obama giving those poor people higher wages and better health care! How dare he, and out of my taxes too!"
Whine all you like about his policies, but it says a lot about you as a person, and it also contradicts your previous complaint about him that he's done nothing to help the poor.

None of the stuff you mention 'help the poor' out my dear. Have you noticed that when min wage goes up... people end up out of work? Here in the states, we have been getting automatic check out machines, so what do those things do? Oh, that's right... if the min wage goes up; companies look for ways to reduced their cost. One way is to hire less people and/or replace some with a machine. Hey, if you think replacing people with machines 'helps them' I guess I know who is the 'dumb one' here, eh? Also, can you please explain how creating a dependent class is 'helping the poor'? Do you know what helps the poor? Jobs that pay well, you know, those jobs that are heading over to cheaper places. Yep, that sure helps the poor out too. Do you even have a clue how to actually help the poor? Give them a way out of their situation. Handing them free stuff, for nothing, doesn't help them get out of their situation. You do understand that, right?

I think they run the full spectrum of ignorant, stupid, insane, poorly-educated, selfish, evil, corrupt, and monstrous. I don't think all Republicans fall under the monstrous category.

The same is true for democrats, but here you are... only trying to make republicans look bad and just ignoring the same can be applied to your precious democrats too.

They're not my opposition, I'm a 3rd party observer in all this. The major reason I'm so interested in it is because the Republicans are so crazy that it's hilarious. The politics of the rest of the English-speaking world aren't nearly as interesting, because they are relatively sane and normal and have validly different and interesting viewpoints on complex issues. Yes, there are occasional outliers such as crazy minor parties (eg BNP), and the occasional crank in one of the major parties (eg Tony Abbott). But US politics are just off-the-charts-crazy compared to the rest of the English-speaking world, and the Republicans are the source of that, so it's AMAZING to watch.

A third party observer, which just happens to say things like:

"However, once I've reached the view that one side is a combination of stupid/insane, why would I want to go out of my way to read anything they had to say?"

Please, you're about as impartial as a wolf in a chicken coop. Besides, have you tried watching our congress in action? It is as boring as watching paint dry. Now the British, have had flat out fist fights in their parliament. The only way our politics becomes exciting is by journalist writing sensationalist crap, to try to make it more exciting than it actually is. Than again, you did seriously say:

"It is well-documented that insurance costs have gone down across the board as a result of the Affordable Care Act, by more than predicted in fact."

Even though they are actually going up. Maybe not as much as our republican friends are saying (I don't make excuses for republican sensationalism, like you do for democrats sensationalism), but that is not true at all. Even the liberal Huffington Post says they are going up. So you might want to stop believing in our own legends yourself. Just a thought...

To pick an example issue: Publicly fund... cut due to length

And how many western countries are currently being buried under massive debts? Here is the national debt of your own country right here. Now your debt doesn't equal as much as ours does, but let me help you out here. How long can you personally last, if you spent more than you took in? The answer is pretty obvious, you can't and you'll be declaring bankruptcy sooner or later. How long do you suppose the west can keep borrowing money until that system becomes unsustainable? Here is the reality you are going to have to face someday... you can't keep borrowing and thinking this is a seriously sustainable model that will never cause any problems, so what are you going to do... when the borrowing no longer is sustainable? This is a problem most countries are facing and well... utopia can be awfully expensive, huh?

BTW my dad is considered 100% disabled too and receives money from the government too, so I know how the US works on disability too.

My country of New Zealand is somewhat unusual on this issue insofar as we were the first Wes... cut due to length

Why do people pretend that things that are paid by taxpayers are 'free'? Roads are not free, here in the states, they are paid for by a gas tax (I'm sure you guys have a gas tax or something in place to pay for roads too). Police are not free. They are paid for by taxes (here in the states, most local funds come from sales and property taxes). Social Security is not free either. It is something I have paid into for over a decade, though my social security taxes. The first legend you need to rid yourself of. Nothing is free, including 'free' healthcare. Your healthcare is paid for by taxes and/or though borrowing by your government. Now, what is total taxes that is paid into by the average tax payer in NZ vs in the USA? How much of the government spending is paid into healthcare?

So having had 75 years of universal health care, my country must be now totally well aware of just how terrible it is, right?

Can you quote me where I said it was 'terrible'? You're repeating a legend... healthcare is not 'free', it is paid for by taxes and through borrowing. Now, how much does your government spend every year on healthcare for its citizens? If your government is taxing you and using those taxes to pay for something... how is what they are giving you free?

Let me try and convey to you just how much peo... cut due to length

Do you just go on and on, ranting and raving, about nothing at all? It is a system that has been in place (by your own admission) 75 years. It has become a fixture that your society claims it can't live without because nobody remembers being without it. When there is no living memory of how things where before, who would want to change it? Besides, your argument isn't very good and here is why... you're saying, "Oh yeah, nobody says it is a good thing!" that is little more than an appeal to popularity. I wasn't aware that the popularity or unpopularity of an idea was proof the idea was false. Even Aristotle would of called that a logical fallacy. Do you actually have anything, beyond a logical fallacy, to refute a word I said or to deal with the facts presented? Anything at all?

As a result of the fact that the entire rest of the Western world has universal health care, a lot of people in the rest of the Western world don't realize that the US doesn't. People just assume that since the US is a m... cut due to length

Appeal to popularity is still a logical fallacy today, just as it was in Aristotle's day. Do you have an actual argument buried in here or are you just ranting to rant? I really don't care what popular opinion says because most people are stupid and never think beyond their own selfish desires or think there might be a better way to do things than how they are currently doing it. Besides, you're repeating a legend about 'free healthcare'. It is not free, it is paid for by the taxes. Why do people pretend that things you pay for, though your taxes, are 'free'?

But what we here find beyond shocking, and to in fact ... cut due to length.

Wow, do you need to wipe the foam from around your lips, as you posted the above paragraph? I really don't care what the popularity opinion is because if you haven't figured this out yet... appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy. Now do you have an actual argument in here somewhere or do you care just to rant and rave for paragraph after paragraph without actually bothering to understand what the other side says? You know why the Daily Show has become popular? Because stupid people like to be entertained by soundbites vs actual argument. If this is an example of your 'arguments', posting a bunch of ranting logical fallacies... I can see why you like to listen to a proven liar, such as Jon Stewart. Let me ask you this... when was the last time you disagreed with anything he said or are you just coming to listen to somebody you agree with on about everything, attacking those who you disagree with on stuff (while lying about what they said, editing their interviews, or posting out of context soundbites). Yep, you're a true example of the Jon Stewart generation indeed... appeal to logical fallacies and pretend your fallacies are truth because they are popular. GK Chesterton said, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” Sorry, but your fallacies are still fallacies, despite them being fashionable. Can you present me something that isn't just a fallacy and a basic suspension of logical fact? Anything at all?

It does, of course, raise an interesting cultural question of what the factors are that cause US politics to be sooooo crazy compared to the rest of the English-speaking Western World. The policies of the Democrat part... cut due to length

Can you please wipe the foam from around your lips already? This is getting rather boring watching you repeat your same bald assertions and pretending they are fact. I mean, 'free healthcare'? If it is so 'free', why does your government pay for it?

[/tangent] Okay, that example went a little longer than expected. But the basic point is that compared to the politics of the rest of the English-speaking West, the Republicans are simply off the charts of insanity. People are interested in them because they appear to be crazy.

That or you are crazy. Can you give me anything that isn't just bald assertions, logical fallacies, and suspension of reality and fact? Anything at all? I really don't care what the rest of the English speaking west says because most people are stupid and seriously believe your nonsense, is the greatest stuff ever. I wasn't aware that the government paying for something 'makes it free'. Who told you that nonsense? The same source that told you healthcare cost are not rising?

Because the alternative is sooooo much worse, both for the US and for the rest of the world. The rest of the world gave Obama the Nobel peace prize for not being George Bush before he'd even done anything. There's a noticeable difference between your average corrupt and dishonest politician vs world-endangering-crazy-nutbars.

Yeah, your world endangering crazy nutbars are voted into ever higher offices and have tons of stupid people defending their stupidity (IE how most of the media keeps defending democrats from everything, no matter what they say or do). Sorry sweety, but your democrat buddies are the same thing and the fact you didn't actually answer a word I said, but decided to rant and rave for paragraph after paragraph, while repeating fallacies, poor arguments, and flat out wrong facts, is an indication of how seriously I should take you and how scared I should be that the majority of the world has your mentality.

I

think the Democrats should have done a lot more to address all the issues when they had the chance. That said, their congress passed more legislation than any congress in 50 years despite the Republicans constantly filibustering everything as much as possible, so I can't be too har.. cut due to length.

Yep, more of your legends being repeated as fact. How entertaining. So I see you didn't want to answer the question because it exposed your democrat buddies as being as corrupt as you complain about republicans as being. Do democrats receive lots and lots of money from rich people? Yes they do. Why would they want to cut themselves off from this source of funding? Do you care to answer the question now or do you just want to blame republicans for all the ills of the world while not noticing both parties are responsible?

The US Supreme court gave the Citizens United decision, striking down some of laws on political donations, in 2010. The Democrats quickly responded with the DISCLOSE act, twice trying to pass it and twice failing in the Senate with having only 59 of the 60 votes needed to bypass the united Republican filibuster. Increasingly they have tried for a constitutional amendment instead, to simply overrule the Citizens United decision entirely instead of having to patch up the pieces with a piecemeal less-strong anti-corruption framework, however a constitutional amendment requires a super-majority and the Republicans keep blocking it.

Isn't it interesting that these measures keep 'failing' and conveniently come up just 'short' of passing, while they were able to shove the ACA though congress, despite republican objections? Not a single republican voted for the ACA, so how did it manage to make it though, but bills limiting campaign contributions didn't? It almost sounds as if your believing in legends and just ignoring the facts inconvenient for your argument. If they managed to pass the ACA, despite republican objections and republican support... they could pass anything, yet they didn't. Why are you ignoring this key fact? Do you hope that by repeating your legends over and over again, they will become truth? Try using that head of yours for something beyond a hat rack... if they could push the ACA though, without republican support, they could have pushed anything they wanted though. Yet, they waited until they couldn't push anything though they wanted to try to do anything about campaign contributions and you keep making excuses for them doing this. Why or is the truth that you're not an 'impartial observer' as you keep trying to claim?

I've heard from numerous US politicians that they loathe the amou.. cut due to length

Sure, low level congressmen likely spend a lot of their time doing this, but do you really think that the higher ups (democrats or republican) do this? It's so funny to watch you defending democrats, no matter what they say or do, and just flat out ignoring reality. The average congressman is worth over 7 million dollars, with a total net worth (from all members of congress) of almost 5 billion dollars, in 2011. Now when we break this down into party, the average democrat, in congress, was worth a tad under 13.6 million, while the average republican was worth a tad under 7 million. The richest man in congress, in 2012 was a republican (Darrell Issa worth 464.1 million), but 7 out of 10 of the richest people in congress... where democrats in 2012. Yep, those republicans sure are the party of the rich... I hate to burst your bubble, but they both are parties of the rich. Democrat leaders of the house and senate are not poor men and woman, so why do you seriously believe they have any clue about the struggles of the poor?

So though I suspect most Republicans hate the current situation on a personal level in terms of what it requires of them day-to-day, they're prepared to let it continue happening because it gives them a strong political advantage. Whereas the Democrats as a party hate the corruption because it disadvantages them politically, in addition to not liking it personally.

Your fantasy world is quite entertaining, but the facts do not lie. They love to complain about 'corruption', but both parties play to the same thing because they like to play to their base. Haven't you noticed how hard it is to get registered to get on the ballet? Both parties have made it difficult to get on the ballet and they have no interest in changing that status quo because it benefits them both. Here is the reality... both republicans and democrats benefit form the corruption.

Organized a trillion-dollar stimulus package to salvage the world economy. Made significant historic improvements to the US's healthcare system. Regulated upon Wall St. Repealed Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell. And various other things.

I hate to break it to you, but the stimulus package was started by your evil friend, Bush (not counting the trillions added to the debt and the likelihood we just pushed the fall back instead of preventing it). You haven't shown any sort of 'improvements' beyond bald assertions and appeals to popularity. Wall Street has always been regulated and things keep falling apart so perhaps government regulation isn't always the answer, and don't ask don't tell was put into place one of your democrats buddies (just so you're aware). In all, what we got here is your piles of assertions and rants that really don't answer anything asked or said. Do you always rant and rave about things, while appealing to logical fallacies and other hacks for your arguments? Come back when you can logically deal with what was asked vs your piles of assertions, rants, and logical fallacies.

[Starlight]

Than can you explain why the liberal Huffington Post wrote this:

On average, the price of things goes up each year. This is called inflation. Due to new inventions and new drugs, the price of healthcare tends to go up each year by slightly more than inflation because there are an increasing number of conditions that healthcare professionals can provide treatment for. The Affordable Care Act didn't change either of those basic realities of year-on-year price increases. What it caused was a one-off drop in premiums across the board, as the larger pool of people getting insurance, especially younger people who are less at-risk of health problems, lowered the average per-person cost of healthcare among the insured population.

It just creates co dependency upon the government to provide for all of your needs.

This doesn't seem to be true in practice.

In my country, which went all-out pioneering the "welfare state" in the 20th century and had many of the highest welfare benefits in the Western world for decades, I don't personally observe it to have created dependency. So in the US, where you have far less welfare, the idea that a small increase would create dependency is laughable.

In my observation, the vast majority of people want a good life and are prepared to work for it and any assistance the government gives them is gratefully received and used productively by them. Only a tiny minority of individuals are not at all interested in self-betterment and will always do the absolute least they possibly can, and their attitude is unaffected by anything the government does or doesn't do.

I personally want to know what Obama is doing about the horrible unemployment and underemployment rate across the country.

It appears to have gradually fixed itself over the course of his presidency. When he took over at the end of Jan 2009, unemployment was in the process of spiking to extreme levels due to the 2008 financial crisis under Bush, and it has since returned to levels comparable to what it was before the crisis.

In general, however, I don't think it's fair to give blame/reward to politicians for unemployment: It's (by and large) not something the average politician ever does anything much to control. So it's unfair to blame Bush for causing the high unemployment and it's unfair to praise Obama for fixing it.

my issue with raising the min wage is that it puts more people out of work

Economists are very divided over whether that statement has any truth to it or not. There have been a lot of studies done on the question of whether raising the minimum wage actually causes any job losses or not, with some suggesting it does and others suggesting it doesn't. Overall, it looks like it probably doesn't.

In the US, those areas with the highest minimum wages tend to have the lowest unemployment. eg Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15/hr last year and its unemployment rate has now dropped below 4%.

I did grow up in a household that did live paycheck to paycheck

Okay, then you're in a good position to be able to understand how giving poor people more money helps the economy. People living in that situation are spending 100% of their income. If they receive a small increase in the amount of money they are receiving (eg via welfare or a minimum wage increase) they will spend 100% of that additional money (or close to it) in paying bills and in purchasing additional goods and services. That means local businesses get an increase in sales, and hence will make more money and may need to employ more staff as a result to handle the increase in business. Whereas if a non-poor person, like myself, got an additional $100 a week, it would just go straight into my savings account and I would not change my spending habits at all. In this way, extra money going to the poor (defined as people who are spending weekly as much as they earn) immediately gets spent in the economy and improves business and creates jobs, while any extra money going to the non-poor (defined as people whose weekly expenditure is not controlled by their income) doesn't particularly effect the economy.

So the effects of raising the minimum wage are complicated because: 1) All businesses will receive more income due to an immediate increase in sales of goods and services because poor people are suddenly spending more money (since they have more money). 2) Any businesses which already pay their employees above minimum wage may need to employ additional staff to cope with the increased sales. 3) Any businesses which pay their employees at the minimum wage will be selling more goods and so receiving a higher rate of income, however they will need to pay their staff more and they may or may not be able to afford the additional staff required now that business is booming, so they may have to either raise prices or lay off some staff.

So how the entire situation plays out depends on how many businesses pay at the minimum wage vs above the minimum wage, and at which business exactly those minimum wage earners tend to spend their additional money. But, on the whole, poor people getting their hands on more money immediately leads to an economic boom because of greater spending. Whereas the rich getting their hands on more money (eg through tax cuts), tends to have little or no effect, as it gets invested overseas or put into savings accounts rather than spent. Given you're quite concerned about unemployment: I suggest the government giving more money to poor people would be the quickest and most efficient solution - the poor people will immediately spend that money on local goods and services which will mean businesses need to employ more staff, which will solve your unemployment issues. (Unlike raising the minimum wage, simply giving money to poor people doesn't cause the job losses that offset the job gains that their additional expenditure creates.)

replaces them with machines

Over time due to technological improvement lots of jobs have been replaced with machines, but unemployment hasn't gradually risen toward 100% over time as this has happened. Machines replacing workers doesn't actually affect total employment, because there aren't a fixed number of jobs. If there were 10 people in the world doing jobs, and you replaced them with 10 machines to do their jobs, then those 10 people would go out and find 10 new tasks that were worth doing and work at those. The total productivity of the world would have doubled but human employment levels would have remained constant (after a brief fluctuation). Due to technology, modern human productivity has risen to be about 150 times what it was in the pre-industrial world, but we haven't all lost our jobs 150 times over, we've just got 150 times more stuff and employment levels have remained roughly the same.

Handing them free stuff, for nothing, doesn't help them get out of their situation.

It appears to actually work surprisingly well when tried, even better than most liberals would predict. If you think about it, then you realize that people who are poor through no particular fault of their own, and who are trying hard to get out of their situation, will typically make full and productive use of any money or resources they are given.

To pick an example issue: Publicly funded health care.

And how many western countries are currently being buried under massive debts?

In 2008 (prior to the financial crises) after 68 years of publicly funded healthcare, NZ's national debt was basically zero. So the healthcare isn't the problem.

How long do you suppose the west can keep borrowing money until that system becomes unsustainable?

I agree that governments should raise taxes on the rich in order to balance their books, and move to limit the amounts the banks are loaning in order to stop private individuals across the country amassing too much debt.

Now, what is total taxes that is paid into by the average tax payer in NZ vs in the USA? How much of the government spending is paid into healthcare?

This graphic has a nice breakdown of the NZ 2013 budget, and you can quickly see that close to 15% of government spending is going to each of:
* Superannuation (old-age pensions)
* Welfare programs
* Healthcare
* Education
(These numbers are a little hard to compare to the US, because you have both State and Federal spending on things)

The total cost of all that government provided healthcare works out at ~$2400US per person per year, which is 17% of the government's total spending, and not a particularly large tax burden. Our income tax rates are very similar to your federal tax rates (and no State taxes cos we don't have States). We have a comparatively high rate of sales tax however (15%), although since most goods are imported cheaply from China the price of goods still works out to be pretty low on average.

It has become a fixture that your society claims it can't live without because nobody remembers being without it.

Public healthcare is one of those things like roads, police, clean water, sewerage treatment etc... people here think it would be a terrible idea to live without them and consider them to be the basics of what separates a third-world country from a first-world one.

when was the last time you disagreed with anything [Jon Stewart] said

He doesn't tend to express opinions on his show much, so I'm struggling to think of examples of me agreeing or disagreeing with him. It's mostly just factual.

Isn't it interesting that these measures keep 'failing' and conveniently come up just 'short' of passing, while they were able to shove the ACA though congress, despite republican objections? Not a single republican voted for the ACA, so how did it manage to make it though, but bills limiting campaign contributions didn't?

The ACA squeaked through in a 4-month window in the last quarter of 2009 in which the Democrats had the 60 Senate seats they needed. They only had 59 Senate seats in 2010 when the Supreme court struck down the campaign finance laws and the Democrats had to rush to pass new ones, and their law failed 59-39 because they didn't have the required super-majority of 60 seats to overrule the Republican filibuster. (That's another aspect of US politics that has us foreigners reaching for the popcorn: Seriously in what sane country is the filibuster a thing?)

If they managed to pass the ACA, despite republican objections and republican support... they could pass anything, yet they didn't.

Geez, why did those lazy democrats not pass in 2009 a law that wouldn't be needed until a 2010 Supreme Court decision struck down an existing law and thereby made it necessary to pass a new law? Maybe because they're not psychic?

Sure, low level congressmen likely spend a lot of their time doing this, but do you really think that the higher ups (democrats or republican) do this? It's so funny to watch you defending democrats, no matter what they say or do, and just flat out ignoring reality. The average congressman is worth over 7 million dollars, with a total net worth (from all members of congress) of almost 5 billion dollars, in 2011. Now when we break this down into party, the average democrat, in congress, was worth a tad under 13.6 million, while the average republican was worth a tad under 7 million. The richest man in congress, in 2012 was a republican (Darrell Issa worth 464.1 million), but 7 out of 10 of the richest people in congress... where democrats in 2012.

Your numbers seem wrong. This puts both Democrat and Republican congressmen at a median of ~1 million, with Senate Republicans being richer than Democrats ($2.9 million median vs $1.7 million).

I don't overly mind politicians themselves being reasonably well-off people: I want highly educated and competent people to be in politics, and that normally corresponds to wealth at least somewhat.

Wall Street has always been regulated and things keep falling apart so perhaps government regulation isn't always the answer

The regulations placed upon Wall Street have changed over the years. After the crash of 1929, the government placed strong restrictions on Wall Street (Glass–Steagall Act etc), and that worked well for decades. But when the government under Bill Clinton (see, a Democrat did a bad thing!) removed those restrictions the product was a Wall-Street induced crash within a decade. Whereas other countries with strict banking regulation had no crash (although they were subsequently influenced by the world-wide recession that was the result of the US crash).

[lilpixieofterror]

On average, the price of things goes up each year. This is called inflation. Due to new inventions and new drugs, the price of healthcare tends to go up each year by slightly more than inflation because there are an increasing number of conditions that healthcare professionals can provide treatment for. The Affordable Care Act didn't change either of those basic realities of year-on-year price increases. What it caused was a one-off drop in premiums across the board, as the larger pool of people getting insurance, especially younger people who are less at-risk of health problems, lowered the average per-person cost of healthcare among the insured population.

Where is that goal post? It was here a minute ago? In case you forgot your original claim, let me repeat it for you:

"It is well-documented that insurance costs have gone down across the board as a result of the Affordable Care Act, by more than predicted in fact."

When the reality says it hasn't gone down, but up. You make up a new excuses instead of just admitting that your claim was factually wrong. Of course, I love how you pretend I'm too dumb to understand economics 101. I do know what inflation is and I even know how to look it up. The inflation rate, for 2014, was 0.8% according to the Bureau of Labor Statics. Last I checked 0.8% was low than 7.4%. Your excuses, while amusing, are just bald assertions you have seem to have made up to avoid admitting that you were wrong. Americans were told that the ACA was suppose to lower their premiums, but they have not gone down at all. They have continued to climb, so will you just admit already that the ACA defenders were wrong when they said premiums would end up going down?

This doesn't seem to be true in practice.

In my country, which went all-out pioneering the "welfare state" in the 20th century and had many of the highest welfare benefits in the Western world for decades, I don't personally observe it to have created dependency. So in the US, where you have far less welfare, the idea that a small increase would create dependency is laughable.
... cut for length...

For goodness sakes, can't you make a post that is under 3 million words? Anyway, if that was true... why do we have generations of people living on government welfare, for many many years? For your argument to hold true, we should see a slow drop in government welfare and we shouldn't see the same people using it year after year. Yet, we end up seeing them using it year after year and their situation doesn't seem to ever end up getting better. See, things like this make me wonder if you ever get out. The problem we run into government welfare vs local help is that in the case of government help; people are getting help from some faceless group that can be miles away. The government can't get to know everybody and thus abuses can take place (and in many cases, laws end up protecting these people). At a local level, you get to know those around you and both abuses are harder to do and you can give individualized help to those who need it. How do I know this? I've been around these groups since my childhood. My grandmother has been a major charity giver since before I was born and would often take us grand kids on her charity trips. I've been to homeless shelters, food banks, abused women's homes, etc since my childhood. I know precisely how things work out there because I have been out there and among the poorest among us. How much time have you spent among the poorest among us?

It appears to have gradually fixed itself over the course of his presidency. When he took over at the end of Jan 2009, unemployment was in the process of spiking to extreme levels due to the 2008 financial crisis under Bush, and it has since returned to levels comparable to what it was before the crisis.

The labor participation rate has fallen 3% since Obama has taken office. You do know that the BLS does also release that number too, right? In reality, that number is the lowest it has been since before my generation was born. Since there's less total people looking for work, the unemployment rate will fall as a result. Of course, this also doesn't tell us anything about those who are underemployed though. Have these numbers improved since Obama has taken office or not?

In general, however, I don't think it's fair to give blame/reward to politicians for unemployment: It's (by and large) not something the average politician ever does anything much to control. So it's unfair to blame Bush for causing the high unemployment and it's unfair to praise Obama for fixing it.

Yet, policies do have some effect on these numbers. Those who want to praise Obama for the lower unemployment rates need to address the falling labor participation rate too. You can't discuss unemployment without having to discuss the labor participation rate as well as underemployment. Have these things become better as Obama has been in office or not?

Economists are very divided over whether that statement has any truth to it or not. There have been a lot of studies done on the question of whether raising the minimum wage actually causes any job losses or not, with some suggesting it does and others suggesting it doesn't. Overall, it looks like it probably doesn't.

In other words, you choose to believe the people that agree with you and just ignore those who don't. How amusing, but it looks like you were dead wrong when you attempted to accuse myself and others of 'not caring for the poor' because of the min wage debate. In reality, people work min wage jobs for many reasons. Not all of them are because they are poor. I worked one as a teenager before I joined the military so I'd have some actual cash, but I wasn't trying to support a family on it as I was just trying to get spending money. In fact, most of my co workers were teenagers, mothers with husbands that also had a job (they were often trying to earn a little extra cash and/or get out of the house), students at local colleges, or retired people that just wanted something to do beyond sitting around their house all day. I know only of a hand full of people that were really trying to support a family on these low paying jobs. It seems you spend a lot of time trying to think of ways to 'help the poor', but it appears you don't actually know much about the poor. The BLS will also tell you that most of the min wage workers are under 25 years old and less than 10% of the total US work force actually works min wage. This tells me most of them are likely teenagers or college students that are just looking for some cash in their pockets and not actually poor people trying to support themselves and a family.

In the US, those areas with the highest minimum wages tend to have the lowest unemployment. eg Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15/hr last year and its unemployment rate has now dropped below 4%.

And what is their labor participation rate? How many people have left the city? How many jobs have left the city? How many people are working outside the city? Likewise, the 15 dollars per hour hasn't taken full effect yet and will not take full effect for a further 4 years (Yes I know about this and yes I have read the news reports, again it is possible for people who dare to disagree with you to be informed on current events too). See, you make the same mistakes that Obama supporters make. You only look at one part of the picture, ignore the rest of it, and pretend as though that is the full picture. BTW according to the BLS, Seattle's unemployment rate is 8.9%, while the nation wide average is 5.6%, so where did you dig up that number from? Mine come from the BLS.

Okay, then you're in a good position to be able to understand how giving poor people more money helps the economy. People living in that situation are spending 100% of their income. If they receive a small increase in the amount of money they are receiving (eg via welfare or a minimum wage increase) they will spend 100% of that additional money (or close to it) in paying bills and in purchasing additional goods and services. That means local businesses get an increase in sales, and hence will make more money and may need to employ more staff as a result to handle the increase in business. Whereas if a non-poor person, like myself, got an additional $100 a week, it would just go straight into my savings account and I would not change my spending habits at all... cut for length...

So this is the part where you pretend that those who disagree with you are stupid and incapable of understand things, eh? Why are you so arrogant as to assume that those who dare to disagree with the great StarLight, are idiots that don't understand the world? Sorry sweety, but you seem to be badly uninformed on reality and how things actually work. See, here in the states, few people actually make min wage and those who do are not on min wage trying to support a family, but are on min wage for other reasons. So you are left with, "But they are spending welfare on local business!" argument. Too bad that welfare comes from taxes, which are taken from these same people and business and they are just getting some of their money back, eh? Well, so much for that argument because you do understand welfare isn't free and comes from other people paying taxes, right? Since these local business were taxed and are just getting back some of the money they already spent on their taxes... how is this actually helping them again? Yet again, if you want to help the poor, but robbing from the rich and giving to the poor doesn't help them. They need good and stable paying jobs, so they too can earn their own way without needing government 'assistance'. After all, if this welfare truly worked as you claimed, they wouldn't need it for years and years (and in some cases, decades).

So the effects of raising the minimum wage are complicated because: 1) All businesses will receive more income due to an immediate increase in sales of goods and services because poor people are suddenly spending more money (since they have more money). 2) Any businesses which already pay their employees above minimum wage may need to employ additional staff to cope with the increased sales. 3) Any businesses which pay their employees at the minimum wage will be selling more goods and so receiving a higher rate of income, however they will need to pay their staff more and they may or may not be able to afford the additional staff required now that business is booming, so they may have to either raise prices or lay off some staff.

So you understand the problem here. Raises in min wage cause raises across the board, which leads to rising prices, which actually doesn't help the poor in any measurable way. What they need is decent paying jobs.

So how the entire situation plays out depends on how many businesses pay at the minimum wage vs above the minimum wage, and at which business exactly those minimum wage earners tend to spend their additional money. But, on the whole, poor people getting their hands on more money immediately leads to an economic boom because of greater spending. Whereas the rich getting their hands on more money (eg through tax cuts), tends to have little or no effect, as it gets invested overseas or put into savings accounts rather than spent. Given you're quite concerned about unemployment: I suggest the government giving more money to poor people would be the quickest and most efficient solution - the poor people will immediately spend that money on local goods and services which will mean businesses need to employ more staff, which will solve your unemployment issues. (Unlike raising the minimum wage, simply giving money to poor people doesn't cause the job losses that offset the job gains that their additional expenditure creates.)

As I pointed out to you above, few of the poor are actually on min wage because most min wage workers are under the age of 25 and likely students. What the poor actually need is decent paying jobs because any raise in the unskilled jobs many of them are working now (or in some cases, they have no job and need a job) will just lead to increases in prices across the board and they end up where they are on (in some cases) worse off than they were before.

Over time due to technological improvement lots of jobs have been replaced with machines, but unemployment hasn't gradually risen toward 100% over time as this has happened. Machines replacing workers doesn't actually affect total employment, because there aren't a fixed number of jobs. If there were 10 people in the world doing jobs, and you replaced them with 10 machines to do their jobs, then those 10 people would go out and find 10 new tasks that were worth doing and work at those. The total productivity of the world would have doubled but human employment levels would have remained constant (after a brief fluctuation). Due to technology, modern human productivity has risen to be about 150 times what it was in the pre-industrial world, but we haven't all lost our jobs 150 times over, we've just got 150 times more stuff and employment levels have remained roughly the same.

I like how you keep pretending that I'm a total moron that doesn't understand this stuff, do you always pretend that anybody who doesn't bow down and agree with you is a total moron that is incapable of basic thought. Just so you are aware, I work on machines and technology, so I know that automation often brings about jobs in other sectors as it takes something to create, maintain, and program these machines. Thing is... these are higher skilled jobs. Running a check out is easier than programing a computer, so in order for this former cashier to get one of those jobs involved in these automated machines. They need further job skills and training. If they are as poor as you seem to think they all are, how do you plan on helping them get this further job training that they would require to get one of these higher skilled jobs? Remember, I work on machines so I know it isn't that simple. Changing oil is way different than chasing down electrical problems (if you've ever spent a few hours chasing down a bad connection, you'll know what I mean).

It appears to actually work surprisingly well when tried, even better than most liberals would predict. If you think about it, then you realize that people who are poor through no particular fault of their own, and who are trying hard to get out of their situation, will typically make full and productive use of any money or resources they are given.

You're own link says that long range giving to them doesn't help them out of poverty, in the long run. Besides, people are poor for a wide range of reasons. Some are poor due to a bad situation that just happened to them and some are poor because of their own fault (IE drugs or bad money management), so what do you do about them? Handing money to a drug abuser is just asking for trouble and handing money to a poor money manager isn't a great idea either. I prefer giving them resources such as food or clothing myself. That is what my grandmother would do, give people stuff to help them out (and I can assure you that she gives away a lot of stuff).

In 2008 (prior to the financial crises) after 68 years of publicly funded healthcare, NZ's national debt was basically zero. So the healthcare isn't the problem.

Do you have a source on that because I've noticed that most countries have carried a nation debt for decades (if not centuries)? I also notice that my question hasn't been answered, what do you do when you run out of other people's money to give out and can no longer borrow money to give out? Also, what is 'providing for the general welfare' actually mean? Are you entitled to health care, food, and housing? How far do we really want to take this? What needs should the government provide and not provide?

I agree that governments should raise taxes on the rich in order to balance their books, and move to limit the amounts the banks are loaning in order to stop private individuals across the country amassing too much debt.

And what do you do if the rich decide to pack their bags and move elsewhere or send their money to tax havens that you can't reach it at? Again, the same question comes about... what do you do when you run out of other people's money, to give away?

This graphic has a nice breakdown of the NZ 2013 budget, and you can quickly see that close to 15% of government spending is going to each of:
* Superannuation (old-age pensions)
* Welfare programs
* Healthcare
* Education
(These numbers are a little hard to compare to the US, because you have both State and Federal spending on things)

The total cost of all that government provided healthcare works out at ~$2400US per person per year, which is 17% of the government's total spending, and not a particularly large tax burden. Our income tax rates are very similar to your federal tax rates (and no State taxes cos we don't have States). We have a comparatively high rate of sales tax however (15%), although since most goods are imported cheaply from China the price of goods still works out to be pretty low on average.

That is because the US started off as a collection of 13 independent countries that decided to band together and form the modern US. Anyway, I noticed your budget has difference. Mainly your defense budget is far smaller. I know lots of people like to go after the US for such a large military budget, but the reality is that US military strength is kind of what allows many western countries to spend less on total defense and more on these social welfare programs. Let us suppose that the US decided to pull down our military strength and let others defend for themselves. Would other countries be able to provide for their welfare states and their own defense? I find this is the major reason the US budget runs so higher, we seem to want to provide for the defense of others and provide a welfare state. As you can clearly see (based on the US debt), it doesn't work that way and if the US begins to default on this debt... I bet it will lead to an affect across the west. Could New Zealand afford both a large defense budget and a large welfare state?

Public healthcare is one of those things like roads, police, clean water, sewerage treatment etc... people here think it would be a terrible idea to live without them and consider them to be the basics of what separates a third-world country from a first-world one.

And again, what is the difference between paying for it though your taxes and paying for it though premiums and deductibles?

He doesn't tend to express opinions on his show much, so I'm struggling to think of examples of me agreeing or disagreeing with him. It's mostly just factual.

That should tell you something right there. A good political commentator should tell you things you agree and disagree with.

The ACA squeaked through in a 4-month window in the last quarter of 2009 in which the Democrats had the 60 Senate seats they needed. They only had 59 Senate seats in 2010 when the Supreme court struck down the campaign finance laws and the Democrats had to rush to pass new ones, and their law failed 59-39 because they didn't have the required super-majority of 60 seats to overrule the Republican filibuster. (That's another aspect of US politics that has us foreigners reaching for the popcorn: Seriously in what sane country is the filibuster a thing?)

Last I checked, unless somebody changed up their party from Democrat to Republican, a congress last 2 years. Anyway, that still doesn't refute a word that was said because our democrat buddies seem to have spent their time wasting on something nobody really wanted (IE the ACA), they could of passed all sorts of things. Also, do you even read your links? Here is what your own link says:

"In a press statement, United States Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue criticized the House Democratic majority for passing legislation that would violate the principles of fairness and equality, as prescribed by the Constitution. Further, he argued that the bill's passage resulted from backroom deals with special interest groups and unions who "mask the movement of political money". Donohue argued that Congress should focus on the restoring the economy versus protecting their own jobs and called on the Senate to oppose future passage of the legislation."

BTW... what sane government has fist fights in their Parliament? The British and South Korean's seem to, while our congress seems to mostly bore people to death (if you're ever up for a good nap, try watching C-SPAN). I hate bursting your bubble, but every country has its insane moments. I'm sure New Zealand has some insane political moments too.

Geez, why did those lazy democrats not pass in 2009 a law that wouldn't be needed until a 2010 Supreme Court decision struck down an existing law and thereby made it necessary to pass a new law? Maybe because they're not psychic?

Geez, why would those democrats be making backroom deals with special interest groups and unions, to try to shut other people up (did you even read your own link)?

Your numbers seem wrong. This puts both Democrat and Republican congressmen at a median of ~1 million, with Senate Republicans being richer than Democrats ($2.9 million median vs $1.7 million).

My numbers are based on 2012 numbers sweety, not 2014 and they are based on all of congress... not just the senate (which I've noticed representatives are richer than senators). Nice try, but do keep trying. Too bad that even your own link says that 7 of the 10 richest congressmen are still democrats. So much for the claim that the Republicans are the party of the rich, eh?

I don't overly mind politicians themselves being reasonably well-off people: I want highly educated and competent people to be in politics, and that normally corresponds to wealth at least somewhat.

Me neither, but you're the one making a big deal about the Republicans being the 'party of the rich'. If they are the party of the rich... why are so many democrat leaders rich themselves?

The regulations placed upon Wall Street have changed over the years. After the crash of 1929, the government placed strong restrictions on Wall Street (Glass–Steagall Act etc), and that worked well for decades. But when the government under Bill Clinton (see, a Democrat did a bad thing!) removed those restrictions the product was a Wall-Street induced crash within a decade. Whereas other countries with strict banking regulation had no crash (although they were subsequently influenced by the world-wide recession that was the result of the US crash).

If it worked so well for decades, why did we have several depressions between 1929 and 1990?

[Starlight]

Americans were told that the ACA was suppose to lower their premiums, but they have not gone down at all.

New York apparently got a one-off 50% reduction in rates according to the New York Times. Montana got a calculated 6% reduction on average according to the State's auditor. In California, an insurance company pointed out that their plans provide far more benefits but that customers might see rates up to 29% lower nonetheless.

Again, a one-off reduction doesn't change the fact that prices generally go up over time. Many Republicans were predicting doom and insisting rates would spike by 50%, 100% or 200%, and this clearly has not happened.

For goodness sakes, can't you make a post that is under 3 million words?

Cute. If I don't answer each and every part of your posts you whinge about that. If I do, you whinge that my answer is too long. I think you just like complaining.

why do we have generations of people living on government welfare, for many many years?

The social status of parents has a massive influence on their children. Children are far more likely to grow up to be well-educated and wealthy if their parents are well-educated and wealthy. So we get generation after generation of poor people and generation after generation of rich people.

I think it's very important for the government to intervene and break that cycle and make sure people from poor families are getting the education and resources they need to succeed in life.

For your argument to hold true, we should see a slow drop in government welfare and we shouldn't see the same people using it year after year.

No. I never said that nor implied it would happen.

There are basically three possible outcomes of welfare:

1) Complete success: The person receives the help temporarily and is able to use the leg-up in order to become a productive and successful contributor to society who no longer needs welfare.

2) Partial success: The person receives the help and is helped by it. They get to eat / have healthcare / have a roof over their head (whatever the welfare is providing). However due to them being too old to work, or physically disabled, or mentally retarded, or unable to find much work, or having almost no employable skills etc, they never manage to become a particularly productive member of society, and continue to receive welfare long-term.

3) Partial success / partial failure: The person receives the help and is helped by it. They get to eat / have healthcare / have a roof over their head (whatever the welfare is providing). However, receiving the welfare stimulates within their psychology a negative attitude towards working and leads them to instead decide that they can live a comfortable life simply receiving welfare rather than ever working, and therefore they decide not to get a job and instead just receive welfare long-term because they like it. This is the attitude of “dependency” and “entitlement” and “dole queens” that so terrifies conservatives.

It's worth noting that state (3) is making a claim about the psychology of the individual and making claims about what they “would have” been like had they not received welfare (well, presumably they would have died and/or suffered pretty severe hardship had they not received welfare, but imagining that they had somehow survived okay without welfare), and both those claims are very very difficult to prove. You'd need very good knowledge of any particular person to draw any conclusions about how they “would have” been different psychologically if certain events had not happened in their lives.

Yet, we end up seeing them using it year after year and their situation doesn't seem to ever end up getting better.

Hardly surprising. Only a miracle worker could expect to fix the lives of everyone with problems in less than a year.

The problem we run into government welfare vs local help is that in the case of government help; people are getting help from some faceless group that can be miles away. The government can't get to know everybody and thus abuses can take place (and in many cases, laws end up protecting these people). At a local level, you get to know those around you and both abuses are harder to do and you can give individualized help to those who need it.

That sounds great for poor people who live in an area where there's lots of competent motivated individuals willing and able to do charity work to help. Not so great if you need help and you live in an area without such charities! Leaving it totally to charity is simply leaving it up to chance. That's why we need government programs to make sure everyone who is in need is getting assistence. They can make sure set standards of care are being reached for everyone.

Your contrast between 'local' help and a group 'miles' away is totally bogus: Nothing at all stops the government funding your local charity to do its work in your area. That regularly happens here. Nothing stops the government employing a local social worker who is tasked with personally and regularly visiting the people in your local area who are on welfare and checking how things are going.

The labor participation rate has fallen 3% since Obama has taken office. You do know that the BLS does also release that number too, right?

You do know that the 'labor participation rate' is a completely irrelevant statistic which basically says “the baby boomers are retiring”?

Yet, policies do have some effect on these numbers.

Most modern-day politicians take a hands-off approach to the free-market economy. So praising or blaming them for anything the economy does is like praising or blaming football fans for their team's victory.

Out of interest, what do you think Obama should have done / should do to fix unemployment?

BTW according to the BLS, Seattle's unemployment rate is 8.9%, while the nation wide average is 5.6%, so where did you dig up that number from? Mine come from the BLS.

!?!
Graph here based on BLS data, or raw BLS table here.

Too bad that welfare comes from taxes, which are taken from these same people and business and they are just getting some of their money back, eh?

You make them sound quite ungrateful about the idea that they get to help needy people through their taxes and get more customers for their business.

Yet again, if you want to help the poor, but robbing from the rich and giving to the poor doesn't help them.

Um, yeah it does. It helps them by exactly the amount they are given.

Raises in min wage cause raises across the board, which leads to rising prices

No.

What they need is decent paying jobs.

Again: What policies should Obama have persued to make that happen?

You're own link says that long range giving to them doesn't help them out of poverty, in the long run. Besides, people are poor for a wide range of reasons.

True, the causes of poverty can be complicated. However the link says that giving them money significantly improved their quality of life. I like the idea of making people's lives better.

Some are poor due to a bad situation that just happened to them and some are poor because of their own fault (IE drugs or bad money management), so what do you do about them? Handing money to a drug abuser is just asking for trouble and handing money to a poor money manager isn't a great idea either. I prefer giving them resources such as food or clothing myself.

Well actually I find the fact that the US gives poor people food stamps rather than money to be rather comical and demeaning. I understand there is a black market for foodstamps anyway, so those that really want to can still get cash and then get drugs. I am totally in favour of social workers helping people to work out budgets and helping poor money managers to learn the skills needed for saving.

Do you have a source on that because I've noticed that most countries have carried a nation debt for decades (if not centuries)?

There's a chart of NZ's debt over time here. It was on track to reach zero by now. That didn't happen because the US managed to tank the global economy in 2008, plus NZ voted in a right-wing government who thought running up the national debt so it could give tax-cuts to the rich was a great idea, plus we had a series of earthquakes damage or destroy most of the buildings in our second-largest city in 2010/11 and had to pay money to rebuild it.

I also notice that my question hasn't been answered, what do you do when you run out of other people's money to give out and can no longer borrow money to give out?

That's a fundamentally misguided question. Due to technological innovations, the world is now much more productive than it has ever been, so there is much more total goods and resources in existence now than there ever was before. Total private wealth has skyrocketed. Meanwhile most Western governments have gradually reduced their rates of taxation over the last 60 years, and sold off a lot of their assets, leaving the governments very poor and struggling to make ends meet and the private populace (in total) very rich.

So when politicians say the government “can't afford” to do something, what they mean is that they can't afford to do it without raising taxes. The scope for raising taxes on the wealthy is pretty much unlimited. Consider in 1952, the top US federal income tax rate was 90%, whereas now it's 40%. More concerning to me is the fact that the rich have been able to get the politicians to write loopholes into tax law that can be exploited to pay a much lower effective tax rate than the average person: They're actually paying rates around 23% in the US on declared earnings (quite aside from whatever they're funneling through tax havens). The trouble is that there's no serious political will to crack down on tax havens or make the rich pay the actual 40% rates, never mind any will to raise their rates back up to the ~80% level that would be appropriate.

Also, what is 'providing for the general welfare' actually mean? Are you entitled to health care, food, and housing? How far do we really want to take this? What needs should the government provide and not provide?

To your list I would add education, clean drinking water, sewerage treatment, police and fire services, a justice system, electricity, internet access, and transport. The government doesn't need to provide all those things itself for 'free' out of taxes, but it needs to ensure all its citizens have access to all those things. It's to everyone's benefit that everyone has those things. We can see in third-world countries what happens when people don't have all the essentials of life.

And what do you do if the rich decide to pack their bags and move elsewhere or send their money to tax havens that you can't reach it at?

Depends if the politicians have the political will to do anything about it or not. I doubt you seriously think that the US government is so powerless and weak that it couldn't extract money from a rich person if it really really wanted.

Again, the same question comes about... what do you do when you run out of other people's money, to give away?

That is still not a thing.

But in cases where countries do have an extremely high national debt that they want to get rid of, they have the options of (1) defaulting, (2) printing money to pay it, (3) raising taxes or doing a one-off levy to pay it, (4) cutting spending to pay it.

I'm in favour of #3, Greece has been forced to go with #4 but is complaining, Germany between the wars went with #2, and Argentina has recently tried out #1.

Anyway, I noticed your budget has difference. Mainly your defense budget is far smaller.

Yes. NZ has a very minimal army. We have no enemies, and given our geographical location any invader would have to invade Australia to get to us, and since their population is six times that of ours, if they were able to get to us through Australia then no amount of funding of our own army would help.

I know lots of people like to go after the US for such a large military budget, but the reality is that US military strength is kind of what allows many western countries to spend less on total defense and more on these social welfare programs.

To some extent I agree – NZ can spend less due to both Australia and the US spending more than us. (A similar situation applies with pharmacutical research.) I don't think you're right to generalize it to Europe though: I don't know that the UK spends less money than it would due to the US. Possibly it spends more than it otherwise would because the US drags it into wars?

But that doesn't mean that the US military spending isn't excessive. The US could spend quite a lot less money and I'd still feel perfectly safe.

And again, what is the difference between paying for it though your taxes and paying for it though premiums and deductibles?

As long as everyone can get healthcare when they are sick, it doesn't overly matter how exactly it is funded, and nearly every Western country uses a slightly different method for exactly how healthcare funding works.

It works out a lot cheaper, of course, if it's government run compared to if you do it through private industry. (Because you don't have to pay for all the middle-men in the insurance companies to exist - bear in mind that in the US you guys are funding the existence of all your health insurance companies and they don't actually need to exist at all. And you guys are also paying all the profit margins that exist in your for-profit system. So Americans end up paying twice to three times as much on average as what the rest of the Western world pays for healthcare.) Plus if you do it through the government, then individuals don't need to go through the time and hassle of finding which insurance plan is 'best' for your family and paying premiums etc, it just all happens automagically and the healthcare is there when you need it.

A good political commentator should tell you things you agree and disagree with.

Sometimes I just want facts, other times I want commentry. So I listen to multiple sources and get both.

Last I checked, unless somebody changed up their party from Democrat to Republican, a congress last 2 years.

Actually one of the Republican members changed their party to Democrat. Also two of the Democrat representatives died (at different times), so elections were held to get new members. One of those two new members was a Republican.
Wikipedia details the party numbers and the reasons.

Also, do you even read your links? Here is what your own link says:
[quote from US Chamber of Commerce]

Er, the US Chamber of Commerce is a lobbying group that alternatives between lying and idiocy. Why would you even read their opinion on anything?

So much for the claim that the Republicans are the party of the rich, eh?

Their policies favor the rich.