Rekna

Bush just put out a few adds recently attacking Kerry. The question I have is this, was Bush the first to start running negative adds against the other canidate? We all know we are going to have to put up with these adds for a while now....sigh.



One thing I found interesting is one of the adds said Kerry is going to raise taxes by $900 billion. Kerry has never said this at all, when the Bush team was asked about it they said they made that number up from what they expected his proposals to cost. Basically they completly lied, isn't this known as libel? And can't they get into a lot of trouble for this?

Conclamo Ludus

This campaign was negative before either started running ads. Its going to be a new low this time around. Neither man will be the "big" man this time. And its only just begun.

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Boo

Personally I don't know how much taxes will go up if Kerry is elected. I do suspect that they will have to go up considerably to pay down the deficet, pay for education, infrastructure and welfare programs, no to mention the ongoing war efforts. I do expect tax increases no matter the party elected.

I personally don't care for dirty politics. It helps if they at least get the facts straight.

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seretogis

Kerry wants to [essentially] raise taxes by $400 billion by repealing Bush's tax cut. Plus, he wants to somehow magically implement a $900 billion national healthcare system -- where is that money going to come from? Taxes, taxes, taxes.

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Paq

IIRC, kerry wants to repeal tax cuts made to people who make over $200,000 a year and make cuts to people in middle classes.

namely, we do need more tax money to pay for a certain war a certain president decided to jump into. not saying it's unjustified, just saying that it costs money...

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Kadath

Or, you know, something else. I'm sure if you use your imagination you can imagine where that money could come from. Cuts in other programs, perhaps. And it's not "plus $900 billion", you've already admitted he would get $400 billion from the repeal of the tax cuts, which he'd very likely use for the health care.

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Rekna

How much does Bush's proposed manned mars trip cost? Why aren't people screaming about taxes taxes taxes here?

seretogis

It's been a very long time since I've heard of a Democrat cutting the funding of any program, so I wouldn't hold my breath there Kadath. It would be the fiscally responsible thing to do, but I guarantee that it will not happen.

Uhh, ok. So, instead of wanting to raise taxes by $1.3 trillion, he only wants to raise taxes by about $900 billion? Either way, neither candidate are planning on doing anything about the deficit. They both want to spend spend spend as long as they themselves are not footing the bill.

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hammer4all

I got this in my email from MoveOn PAC.

maximusveritas

As the incumbent, Bush should be focusing on the positive things he's done for the country. Its too bad he hasn't done anything positive.
So instead, he's going to try to win the election by exploiting 9-11 and attacking Kerry. Isn't politics fun?

Rekna

He chocked on a pretzel and made me laugh

irateplatypus

who can tell who made the first attack? who can point out the first drop of rain in a thunderstorm?

folks, this is going to be cut-throat politics at its worst. i mean, it is only mid-march... 8 months to go. i'd love to defend the republicans... but can't say that they are much better in this area.

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Rekna

I just wish they would focus on their policy instead of eachother.

PoteMatic

How can you gurantee anything?

Anybody that goes into office after bysh wether it be this year or in another 4 years will have a lot of changes to make well at least i hope they will...

seretogis

You caught me. I can't.

Major change is not something that is "safe" to a politician's career, so you probably won't see it happen anytime soon -- certainly not in the next term. You can expect an expanding government and slow deterioration of the rights of US citizens.

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Conclamo Ludus

MoveOn that hosted the Hitler/Bush ads is calling out negative ad campaigns. Honestly. Of course those ads were never paid for by a candidate, granted, thats about as negative a picture you could paint of someone. Ah well, Moving On...

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tehblaed

Kadath

Assuming Kerry will follow the party line may be the smart bet, but it isn't anything but an assumption. Also, it's not as if the Republicans have been the party of fiscal responsibility, something they did used to be. How much is the debt supposed to grow?

Ah, we agree.

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Superbelt

And it's disingenuous for Bush to just say Kerry is raising our taxes. He is removing irresponsible tax breaks on a very small percentage of the population who should have never received them. A large portion of which was stolen from funding that the middle class paid into SS.

The 900 billion for national health care. Not quite that number . And he isn't really even seriously proposing implementing it right now. Plus most of the money needed in taxation to support it would be the money we are paying in premiums and doctor payments right now, so there will be a negligible effect, if any in taxation, for a national health care system. Hell it will most likely end up being cheaper for us. Health care administration alone, as I have said before, accounts for 4% of this nations GDP. Government agencies operate much more cheaper than that. Individuals will be saving money under national health care.

MoveOn hosted it unknowingly. Along with several thousand other 30 second spots. An individual, misguided person, posted it. It never won anything and when it was brought to the attention of the MoveOn organizers it was removed.

mml

As far as who drew "First Mud" ,it was the Democrats, including Kerry. They all started negative, anti-Bush ads during the Primaries. Bush started with positive ads, but got caught on the 9-11 issue and his numbers fell faster than before. So, he wisely went negative and my guess is that his numbers will level off.

The 900 billion is a bogus number. It refers to Kerry's healthcare plan which is scheduled to cost 900 billion over a ten year period. His funding mechanism is, frankly, a bit fuzzy, but is relies on repealing future tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans as well as cutting government waste. It is a much more in depth plan, but I don't have all the figures. The Bush campaign decided to just assume that he would add 900 billion and claim it to be his intention. Very spurious arguement, but I guess they are feeling the heat.

0ne thing most people are missing about what Kerry is saying about taxes, is that the bulk of what he wants to repeal has not yet gone into effect. (Each year the Bush tax cuts change and in some cases get larger and in others smaller, unless congress makes them permanent) The result is not that your taxes will go higher, it is that you will not necessarily get the tax cut that Bush is pushing for.

You know, you don't have to like Kerry, you don't have to approve of what he has done or stands for, but don't just take a commercial at face value and make your judgements without research. The same can be said for the things the Kerry campaign and DNC will say about Bush. We can agree to disagree about economics, social issues, foreign policy etc. but we should all try to use actual fact to make our decision.

(If my facts are wrong, let me know.)

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seretogis

Something that bothers me about a national healthcare plan is the fact that most people get healthcare through their employer. Now, what happens when there is a national plan and we're all paying higher taxes to pay for it, and our employers drop health benefits? We pay more, and get less, while further lining the pocket of the management of the company.

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Rekna

or our employeers pay for the national plan, or since the employeers aren't playing for a private plan anymore everyone gets raises. Or fatcats get richer and the good employees leave because of lack of benifits.

onetime2

Do you honestly believe that Kerry's programs will only be funded by keeping Bush's tax cuts from becoming permanent and by cutting government waste?

The problems I have with this theory is that the Bush tax cuts are not yet permanent, so if they do not become permanent that money will be earmarked to other already in the works projects and then we will need to add more money to the till for Kerry's initiatives.

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Kadath

Actually, less and less people are getting health insurance through their employers. Employers are decreasing coverage, forcing employees to pay portions of the premium, or simply dropping it all together. With a national health care plan, at least people would have something to fall back on.

So...what you're saying is if Bush decides to repeal his own tax cuts, the health insurance would be more expensive? That's an interesting point.

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mml

No, I do not think that. In fact, I stated the fact that his numbers are a bit fuzzy and that I did not have all the figures. I will try to get some better numbers (if anyone has them please post them) but I am a bit busy today.

So basically, if we make the Bush tax cuts permanent we will only sink deeper and deeper into defecit spending. The idea is to repeal the tax cuts in order to help afford the program. Will that happen - who know's?

What many of us like is that Kerry is stating that he wants to see a program by which most if not all Americans can get health insurance(not a new one, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Clinton all thought this idea had merit). His concept will obviously require more money than we currently have coming into the system. The long term effect is that people, across the economic spectrum, will have an increased amount of money to spend, as they are not hindered by paying outrageous sums for health care and/or health insurance. We are a consumption economy and this will allow the people who actually drive the everyday economy to have better/some health care and more money to help drive the economy. Yes this is way over simplified.


edited cause I screwed up.

onetime2

Health care costs are not significantly weighing down the economic growth of our country. Alleviating the supposed health care pressure across the spectrum will in no possible way generate enough economic growth to offset the costs.

There are three possible ways to fund such a program:

1. Continued economic growth for the life of the program resulting in more tax revenue into government coffers.

2. Less spending on other government programs.

3. Increased taxes.

#'s 1 and 2 are both impossible to guarantee and, by historical standards, unlikely to occur.

That leaves #3.

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Sparhawk

Kind of like tax cuts

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onetime2

How many people in the US currently pay a significant amount towards healthcare costs versus the number who pay taxes?

As it stands, the vast majority of employees are provided with healthcare from their employees. They are responsible primarily for copayments.

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Sparhawk

When you consider that the bottom 40% of wage earners pay virtually 0 in income taxes, I'd say there's a fairly equal number of folks who this applies to.

As it stands, employees' premiums have gone up an average of 750 bucks over the last three years, not just their copay's, in what amounts to a "hidden tax". Not to mention the growing and worrying trend by chains such as Walmart to cut health benefits to their non-union workers.

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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

onetime2

I'm not talking about growing trends here. I am talking about instant real contributions to a wage earner's disposable income.

How long will it take for a national healthcare system to save the consumer money? Tax cuts are instant, the "savings" you're looking at will take years to come to fruition, if ever.

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Kadath

I suppose 61% could be considered a "vast" majority, if you're bad at math. And that number is from 2002. 25.7% were covered by government health insurance(generally Medicaid and Medicare). 2003 just might have seen a continuation of the trend from 2001-2002. Numbers are from here.


Also, assuming that everyone between the ages of 16 and 65 in the US pays taxes, 65% of the US population pays taxes.
Edit: That link will be dead from approx. 5:00 to 6:00 PM EST today (monday 3/15) according to the US Census website.

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smooth

I don't think this is true. According to my work experience, most of the people I know (they are service workers), and my text books, most of the labor force is being worked at under capacity (I may be using an econ term incorrectly, my apologies, but I'm a criminologist, not an economist).

A few people are promoted or hired as managers, but most service workers (in fact, only organized labor and small (family) businesses are an exception to this) only work as part-time workers. Now I don't know what events occurred first, I have my belief, but some workers need to work part-time since they have multiple jobs. The result is that corporations have multiple workers who perform the same job, they can deal with unreliable workers, they have high turnover rates, and very few full-time or well-paid employees. I have seen both ends of this spectrum: people only given 4-6 hours per week to intentionally only giving 36 hours so the worker doesn't qualify for company coverage.

None of those workers receive health care unless it's out of the kindness of the CEO's heart--AFAIK, CEO's can't really abide by their heart, however, because they are responsible for generating profit for their shareholders.

As to the cost of implementing a national health care plan:

Reasonable people can differ on this. I don't share your value of the dollar. I value the quality of my life in terms of health rather than money. I pay more for quality food, and I adhere to what I believe to be an extremely healhty diet. I pay more for quality merchandise, and I try to find locally produced goods or at least spend my money at locally owned stores. I'm willing to pay more for guaranteed health care. In fact, given that our medical care is top-notch, I'd be willing to pay as least as much as Candadians or Europeans. I've heard that our medical care ought to be the envy of the world--I just can't afford to buy any of it.

Paq

just an update, i went to the emergency room on xmas eve with flu/bronchitis mix. loads of fun. I received 1 litre of fluids, 1 motrin, 1 small vial of antibiotics, 2 xrays and 4 hrs of observation

i have 20/80 coverage wtih $200 deductible. I ended up owing $470 for one visit AFTER insurance paid almost $1000....and that was AFTER the insurance got a $500 discount that i would not have been able to get.

So really, with insurance, i still owe $470, without insurance, my bill would be almost $2000....

let's just say i'm glad i picked up 3rd party insurance a few months ago...

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fuzyfuzer

no wonder USto has left this is just turning into a bush bash eventually this is just going to be demicrats fighting within their party

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Kadath

That was very coherent and useful.

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