Quote:
Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule
You keep saying this Saden, and that is great. Honest. But you have yet to ever answer the questions on the deficit and debt in any way that remotely brings down the debt. If we can get government reduced and fiscally sound, then lets do that first, and then we can shift the priorities to universal healthcare.
Suppose we stridently reduce our military, lets say to 50% of current outlays, would you also be willing to forego new UHC expenses, and freeze other social expenditures for 2-4 years to try to atleast hold the line against the debt? And by freeze, I mean just that no cola adjustments, no automatic increases, a hard freeze. No government agency's discretionary budget could receive a penny more in real dollars for up to 4 years, so if the Dept Of Education's budget this year is 46.2 billion dollars, then the budget for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 would be 46.2 billion dollars. Perhaps add an emergency clause requiring a supermajority approval could be added, but it would have to be a per case basis, not an omnibus gargantuan bill. So if the Dept of Ed had an emergency need for a 1 year raise in cost they could apply for that but at the end of the year the next years budget would be staked at the 46.2billion dollars.)
I would. And, I have stated before that I would be willing to reduce the standing Army (not AF/Navy) to 1/3(or less) of it's current size, and enforce 2yr mandatory service (and ya know I just realized if we mandated 2yrs of service, think of all the 18-20yr olds who currently don't have healthcare who would then have 2 years access to military hospitals! further we could extend the 2yrs access to 4yrs access at military healthcare locations, and have our countries youth covered from 18-22yrs old. Is that a Win Win or what!)
Maybe we could include hospitals as an option for mandatory service requirements. Schneed''s discussions seems to have said we need to increase the medical labor pool, so perhaps you could choose to serve the country in hospitals, I am sure many would then go further in the health care field.
If we could reduce the military, and reduce the debt (not the deficit) than we could seriously look at ways to bring about UHC.
But please stop saying you would accept a raise in taxes, as if your taxes somehow will cover our 11.6Trillion dollar debt.
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If you want to play armchair budgeteer that's cool but don't act like the heath care isn't as much of an issue as the budget deficit and national debt. In my view we have a bigger problem at hand than the national debt. Further more I'm not even convinced your comprehend what discretionary spending is. I mean, if we bring our troops home as you suggested we would save all of that 799 billion. The issue of course is you don't think that's practical nor do you think universal health care to be practical. What Obama is doing is no different than what Ronald Reagan did and we turned quite alright. With respect to universal health care Obama is trying to save money in as many places as he and we'll see what comes of it. It's simply too early to declare failure on the whole matter.
As for future generations, if they can manage to bring down their budget deficit or don't create one of their own they'll be alright. in 20 years the GDP is expected to double and so is government revenue. That is to say your concerns are without merit and even more so due to your antipathy towards government funded social services.
p.s. If people really are concerned about the wellbeing of future generations they aught to support reduction of our greenhouse output.