Reform Entitlements For Those 'Moochers,' The Rich, Part Two
As to Medicare financing, besides the 2.9% contribution to Medicare from employees and employers (each pays 1.45%), recipients (largely elderly) have deductibles, co-pays, or premiums to meet for many services, but the program is funded, in part, from general revenues, which conservatives generally say provides truth to their claim that Medicare is an entitlement program. A big problem for Medicare is that the aging of the population will add millions of recipients to the program, as the percentage of those paying into the program to finance it will drop. Further, increasing health care costs have been a problem for decades, and those costs tend to rise above the general rate of inflation. When I was a kid in the 1960s there were frequent arguments on just how to control rising medical costs. Just from things I've read fairly recently, medical costs have slowed in the last couple of years, but whether this is a long term trend, or just a temporary blip, no one can truly say. A number of people believe part of the high cost of health care in America is due to unnecessary tests and procedures to run up profits, with less health benefit to Americans to show for those high costs, compared to a number of countries which have lower costs, but the same or better life expectancy rates. In my opinion too, there's an awful tendency in this country to dismiss information about how other countries do things. As soon as someone says, "In country XYZ, they do this," almost immediately we hear, "We don't want to be like XYZ." If XYZ finds a cure for cancer, will we want to remain isolated from that cure? Ignorance can come by many routes, one of which is shutting out knowledge.
I could go on and on about Medicare, but, like it, not like it, the laws of arithmetic have very much come into play, and some plan will have to be developed soon to deal with this valuable program. Conservatives have "generally" touted proposals to "privatize" Medicare, with recipients having to choose between competing insurance plans and with Uncle Sam contributing a certain amount toward the purchase of insurance. Medicare is a complicated subject and I can only touch on it here, but I may do a separate series in the future.
A couple of years ago, President Obama proposed eliminating subsidies to the oil and gas industry. Such subsides come to somewhere between 4 and 5 billion or so a year, depending upon whose figures you check, and seemingly another 5 or more billion, if you include breaks also offered outside of the oil/gas industry. Some Republicans screamed "foul," claiming there were no such breaks for the industry, but the howls from oil executives and oil lobbyists suggest a lot of expended energy (no pun intended) for something that doesn't exist. Lots of businesses get subsidies, whether you call them tax breaks or direct payments, that's what they are, subsidies. Whether these subsidies are fair or unfair is a matter of discussion, but Republicans have made such an issue of "survival of the fittest" and "free markets," that support for these subsidies must certainly give others the right to call Republican advocates "socialists," a term they absolutely love to throw around about others. It seems to me I recall opposition from some Republicans to government help for developing alternative energy companies, like for wind and solar, and these they definitely called "subsides." And aid to the auto industry was cause for much consternation among many a Republican, including one Mitt Romney, famous for his comment about the auto companies, "Let them go broke." The President made it clear that oil company profits were astronomical when he proposed elimination of their subsidies, and that was part of his case about doing away with them.
As most of you probably already know, the complex U.S. tax system would keep Einstein awake at nights trying to figure it out, if he were still kicking and dared to take on the challenge. Folks, let me tell you something, this code would not be nearly so complex if it weren't for businesses and wealthy people turning the screws on people in both parties in Congress (and on occupants of the White House of both parties, too), either directly or through their lobbyists. It's hardly been a secret that the wealthiest Americans have done VERY well in income growth for decades, as incomes for middle and lower income Americans have grown little or actually declined. President Reagan cut taxes substantially for the wealthy. When President Clinton raised taxes on wealthy Americans, if you think the recent near miss by an asteroid was scary, we were assured this was THE END, no near miss. Of course, not only did that not happen, the country actually entered a period of growth and declining unemployment. In the latter part of 2012, the Congressional Research Service* found that giving tax cuts to wealthy Americans has little or no effect on economic growth, but that such tax cuts likely contribute to the expanding income gap between the wealthy and the rest of Americans. Some Republicans tried to squelch ... I mean, to have the report tone down its findings, which indeed happened, although Democrats made the original findings available.**
The Republican pressure is hardly surprising. For more than thirty years Republicans have embraced a philosophy of tax cuts of all kinds, tilted towards the rich, sometimes glaringly so, claiming such cuts would stimulate growth and provide prosperity for a broad segment of American society. In case you haven't noticed, it hasn't worked. Folks, all of the charts, diagrams, and statistical analysis are not always easily followed, but the main thing is, the conclusion by the Congressional Research Service is not difficult to understand. Increasing wealth has been going to the top earners for decades, often at accelerated rates, aided by tax cuts. The more money that goes to the top, the less money the rest of us have. In the end, this isn't rocket science. There has been a tremendous transfer of wealth from many Americans to a small segment of American society who already have more than enough to sustain them many times over. Now, I'm not so narrow as to say there haven't been changes in technology and such that have helped the wealthy gain even more income, but the tax cuts have been "piling on," and it's about time a penalty flag is thrown and enforced. So Republicans are on the hook for a philosophy some of them have taken as a religion, but it's a philosophy that doesn't work, except to the detriment of many Americans, and thus, to the country. No wonder they wanted the findings of the Congressional Research Service toned down.
Next, the final part.
* The Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress which performs research and analysis of various policy measures or proposals for Congress.
** The report is pretty "dry" reading, but the entire report can be viewed here: http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/Updated%20CRS%20Report%2012%3A13%3A12.pdf
WORD HISTORY:
Dolt-This word goes back to Indo European "dhwul/dhwel," which had the notion "to obscure, to dim," and seems to have also been applied to things that caused something to be obscured or dimmed, such as "swirling smoke or dust." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "dulaz," which used the "obscured, dimmed" notion in another manner; that being, "foolish;" that is, "unclear, dimmed thoughts." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "dol," which meant "stupid, foolish, silly." This then became "dul(l)," before finally settling on "dull."^ The verb form of "dull" had "dolte/dulte" as the participle form, which later became modern "dulled." The verb back then meant "to make or become stupid or foolish," besides the "become blunt or lose brightness" meaning that eventually prevailed as the main meaning in modern English. This then produced an adjective "dold," meaning "stupid, foolish, silly." By the mid 1500s "dolt" had been derived as a noun from the adjective with the meaning "stupid person." The change of the ending "d" in "dold" to the noun "t" in "dolt," is not uncommon in the Germanic languages, most obvious in many, but not all, standard German words derived from Old High German, such as "toll" ("crazy, wild," but also the figurative "super, fantastic"), compared to English "dull" (the old meaning was "stupid, foolish"), or standard German "Deutschland" (Germany), compared to some German dialects "Teutschland." American English has "learned" as the proper past tense of "learn," as in "I learned the lesson," but British English has "learnt."
^ For the "Word History" of "dull," see Part One of this article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/03/reform-entitlements-for-those-moochers.html
I could go on and on about Medicare, but, like it, not like it, the laws of arithmetic have very much come into play, and some plan will have to be developed soon to deal with this valuable program. Conservatives have "generally" touted proposals to "privatize" Medicare, with recipients having to choose between competing insurance plans and with Uncle Sam contributing a certain amount toward the purchase of insurance. Medicare is a complicated subject and I can only touch on it here, but I may do a separate series in the future.
A couple of years ago, President Obama proposed eliminating subsidies to the oil and gas industry. Such subsides come to somewhere between 4 and 5 billion or so a year, depending upon whose figures you check, and seemingly another 5 or more billion, if you include breaks also offered outside of the oil/gas industry. Some Republicans screamed "foul," claiming there were no such breaks for the industry, but the howls from oil executives and oil lobbyists suggest a lot of expended energy (no pun intended) for something that doesn't exist. Lots of businesses get subsidies, whether you call them tax breaks or direct payments, that's what they are, subsidies. Whether these subsidies are fair or unfair is a matter of discussion, but Republicans have made such an issue of "survival of the fittest" and "free markets," that support for these subsidies must certainly give others the right to call Republican advocates "socialists," a term they absolutely love to throw around about others. It seems to me I recall opposition from some Republicans to government help for developing alternative energy companies, like for wind and solar, and these they definitely called "subsides." And aid to the auto industry was cause for much consternation among many a Republican, including one Mitt Romney, famous for his comment about the auto companies, "Let them go broke." The President made it clear that oil company profits were astronomical when he proposed elimination of their subsidies, and that was part of his case about doing away with them.
As most of you probably already know, the complex U.S. tax system would keep Einstein awake at nights trying to figure it out, if he were still kicking and dared to take on the challenge. Folks, let me tell you something, this code would not be nearly so complex if it weren't for businesses and wealthy people turning the screws on people in both parties in Congress (and on occupants of the White House of both parties, too), either directly or through their lobbyists. It's hardly been a secret that the wealthiest Americans have done VERY well in income growth for decades, as incomes for middle and lower income Americans have grown little or actually declined. President Reagan cut taxes substantially for the wealthy. When President Clinton raised taxes on wealthy Americans, if you think the recent near miss by an asteroid was scary, we were assured this was THE END, no near miss. Of course, not only did that not happen, the country actually entered a period of growth and declining unemployment. In the latter part of 2012, the Congressional Research Service* found that giving tax cuts to wealthy Americans has little or no effect on economic growth, but that such tax cuts likely contribute to the expanding income gap between the wealthy and the rest of Americans. Some Republicans tried to squelch ... I mean, to have the report tone down its findings, which indeed happened, although Democrats made the original findings available.**
The Republican pressure is hardly surprising. For more than thirty years Republicans have embraced a philosophy of tax cuts of all kinds, tilted towards the rich, sometimes glaringly so, claiming such cuts would stimulate growth and provide prosperity for a broad segment of American society. In case you haven't noticed, it hasn't worked. Folks, all of the charts, diagrams, and statistical analysis are not always easily followed, but the main thing is, the conclusion by the Congressional Research Service is not difficult to understand. Increasing wealth has been going to the top earners for decades, often at accelerated rates, aided by tax cuts. The more money that goes to the top, the less money the rest of us have. In the end, this isn't rocket science. There has been a tremendous transfer of wealth from many Americans to a small segment of American society who already have more than enough to sustain them many times over. Now, I'm not so narrow as to say there haven't been changes in technology and such that have helped the wealthy gain even more income, but the tax cuts have been "piling on," and it's about time a penalty flag is thrown and enforced. So Republicans are on the hook for a philosophy some of them have taken as a religion, but it's a philosophy that doesn't work, except to the detriment of many Americans, and thus, to the country. No wonder they wanted the findings of the Congressional Research Service toned down.
Next, the final part.
* The Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress which performs research and analysis of various policy measures or proposals for Congress.
** The report is pretty "dry" reading, but the entire report can be viewed here: http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/Updated%20CRS%20Report%2012%3A13%3A12.pdf
WORD HISTORY:
Dolt-This word goes back to Indo European "dhwul/dhwel," which had the notion "to obscure, to dim," and seems to have also been applied to things that caused something to be obscured or dimmed, such as "swirling smoke or dust." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "dulaz," which used the "obscured, dimmed" notion in another manner; that being, "foolish;" that is, "unclear, dimmed thoughts." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "dol," which meant "stupid, foolish, silly." This then became "dul(l)," before finally settling on "dull."^ The verb form of "dull" had "dolte/dulte" as the participle form, which later became modern "dulled." The verb back then meant "to make or become stupid or foolish," besides the "become blunt or lose brightness" meaning that eventually prevailed as the main meaning in modern English. This then produced an adjective "dold," meaning "stupid, foolish, silly." By the mid 1500s "dolt" had been derived as a noun from the adjective with the meaning "stupid person." The change of the ending "d" in "dold" to the noun "t" in "dolt," is not uncommon in the Germanic languages, most obvious in many, but not all, standard German words derived from Old High German, such as "toll" ("crazy, wild," but also the figurative "super, fantastic"), compared to English "dull" (the old meaning was "stupid, foolish"), or standard German "Deutschland" (Germany), compared to some German dialects "Teutschland." American English has "learned" as the proper past tense of "learn," as in "I learned the lesson," but British English has "learnt."
^ For the "Word History" of "dull," see Part One of this article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/03/reform-entitlements-for-those-moochers.html
Labels: Congressional Research Service, English, etymology, Germanic languages, health care costs, income disparity, Medicaid, oil companies, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, the wealthy, transfer of wealth
posted by Randy at 10:43 AM
2 Comments:
Interesting posts. Danke....
To the Repugs it's onkly socialism when Democrats propose something, not they themselves do it. They laid out the essence of what is now called Obamacare, but when he proposed it, they were against it. Were for tax cuts, until Obama put it in stimulus plan, then against it. That's a GREAT word history.
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