More political blather
Sep. 21st, 2004 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sethrak I like most of Kerry's deficit cutting ideas. (Page 76) One mild head-scratcher - freeze the federal travel budget? Is that really that significant a chunk of our national budget?
Line-item veto for the president.... Hmmmmm...... I'm of two minds on this one. Could be great - in the right hands. In the wrong hands is what scares me.
Resetting taxes for those making over $200,000 per year to CLinton-era levels, not bad. Claiming to make the middle-class tax cuts "permanent"..... Heh. Ain't no such thing as a "permanent" tax cut - or raise. Next admin to come along who thinks they have a better way to handle the budget can and will change that. Heck, Kerry might find it necessary to change those planned cuts a year or two after he enacts them. Life's like that.
A desire to cut down on unfair credit card and mortgage lending practices that hurt middle class familes sounds good - but I want details.
Increasing minimum wage to $7 - excellent idea. :D
Increasing the research budgets for NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy - fabulous ideas, but where do they plan to get the money? Previous savings in cutting tax breaks to the wealthy are already earmarked for allowing middle class tax cuts. I want to see where the additional funds are going to come from - and don't tell me "Why, from the expanded economy that the middle class tax cuts will create!" You can't assume that the economy will grow that much. Too many other factors could prevent that from happening.
Making broadband universally acessible - che. Not really something the federal government needs to be spending money on or fretting over. Internet acess for everyone, at say, public libraries - that I can get behind. But there's a lot of people who can't even afford *computers*, so their Internet access speed is a moot point. The segment claims that having broadband access in poor and rural areas will increase the number of techonology jobs in small towns and improve our economy. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but again - how many of the people living in those areas even have computers?
The overall education plan sounds good. I have two quibbles. One, he mentions increasing overall teacher pay and increasing pay for those teachers with special skills. But, no mention of where the money comes from. Two, he mentions offering hundreds of thousands of young people the opportunity to pay for college by serving our nation for two years. How, exactly? Serving in the National Guard or military? That already exists, if an applicant qualifies. Serving in state or local government? And while they are serving our country, how are they earning their livings? Is this service to take up all their time, or just part of it, like Guard service does?
Raising the child-care tax credit - good idea, but it's a tradeoff. It means less money going into the federal government's tax accounts, and therefor needs to be offset by a spending cut somewhere. No cut is mentioned, even vaguely.
Support for faith-based programs - granted, I am a Catholic, and I know that religious groups of all faiths do good work with the poor and underpriviliged. But this sounds awfully like a Bush concept, the only change being a promise to have such support done in a way that honors the Constitution and civil rights laws. I'm not entirely sure that can be done. All we can do is to promise support to any program that helps the poor.
I *adore* the idea of expanding health care coverage to more Americans. Not just because I'm one of the millions of uninsured Americans, but because it's a social jsutice issue. However, I am unsure Kerry's plan is workable.
Qoute: "Under the Kerry-Edwards plan, the federal government will pay the full costs for the 20 million children in the Mediaid program. In return, we will ask states to expand coverage to children in families with higher incomes than are currently eligible, as well as low income adults. This plan will expand coverage to millions of people and provide much needed relief for states that are struggling under persistent growing budgetary pressures." (page 106)
If feasible, this *would* ease the pressure on state budgets. It *would* expand coverage to a lot of people who are uninsured now.
But *how* is the federal government going to get the money to pay for it all?
No mention of that is made.
Also, the plan claims five billion dollars in enrollment bonuses will be given to states to encourage them to find uninsured children and keep them covered.
Where is *that* little chunk of change going to come from?
I *love* the concepts, I just want to know where the funding comes from. No,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davner, not from the military - I think. In the chapter in security there's talk of increasing the size of the armed forces and giving them more modern equipment - almost made me think I was reading the Bush/Cheney window by mistake. Again, no real explanation of where the money for *that* would come from.
Next page: a 25% tax credit for low and middle income people between the ages of 55 and 64, intended to help pay the cost of their insurance premiums.
Again, cool idea. But it means less tax money, which means somewhere expenditures must be cut, or taxes on another group need to be raised. *Where*, I ask?
Streamlining the billing and claim filing process, in order to cut down on health care costs across the board - great idea, again. I know a lot of people would love to see their hassles in settling claims with their health insurance providers reduced or eliminated, if possible. But again, vauge in how, aside from "We must use modern methods!"
There's more on healthcare, but my eyes are starting to glaze over in a manner that reminds me of AP Macro Economics in high school.
Leaving off on page 145. I'll get back to it later.
Line-item veto for the president.... Hmmmmm...... I'm of two minds on this one. Could be great - in the right hands. In the wrong hands is what scares me.
Resetting taxes for those making over $200,000 per year to CLinton-era levels, not bad. Claiming to make the middle-class tax cuts "permanent"..... Heh. Ain't no such thing as a "permanent" tax cut - or raise. Next admin to come along who thinks they have a better way to handle the budget can and will change that. Heck, Kerry might find it necessary to change those planned cuts a year or two after he enacts them. Life's like that.
A desire to cut down on unfair credit card and mortgage lending practices that hurt middle class familes sounds good - but I want details.
Increasing minimum wage to $7 - excellent idea. :D
Increasing the research budgets for NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy - fabulous ideas, but where do they plan to get the money? Previous savings in cutting tax breaks to the wealthy are already earmarked for allowing middle class tax cuts. I want to see where the additional funds are going to come from - and don't tell me "Why, from the expanded economy that the middle class tax cuts will create!" You can't assume that the economy will grow that much. Too many other factors could prevent that from happening.
Making broadband universally acessible - che. Not really something the federal government needs to be spending money on or fretting over. Internet acess for everyone, at say, public libraries - that I can get behind. But there's a lot of people who can't even afford *computers*, so their Internet access speed is a moot point. The segment claims that having broadband access in poor and rural areas will increase the number of techonology jobs in small towns and improve our economy. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but again - how many of the people living in those areas even have computers?
The overall education plan sounds good. I have two quibbles. One, he mentions increasing overall teacher pay and increasing pay for those teachers with special skills. But, no mention of where the money comes from. Two, he mentions offering hundreds of thousands of young people the opportunity to pay for college by serving our nation for two years. How, exactly? Serving in the National Guard or military? That already exists, if an applicant qualifies. Serving in state or local government? And while they are serving our country, how are they earning their livings? Is this service to take up all their time, or just part of it, like Guard service does?
Raising the child-care tax credit - good idea, but it's a tradeoff. It means less money going into the federal government's tax accounts, and therefor needs to be offset by a spending cut somewhere. No cut is mentioned, even vaguely.
Support for faith-based programs - granted, I am a Catholic, and I know that religious groups of all faiths do good work with the poor and underpriviliged. But this sounds awfully like a Bush concept, the only change being a promise to have such support done in a way that honors the Constitution and civil rights laws. I'm not entirely sure that can be done. All we can do is to promise support to any program that helps the poor.
I *adore* the idea of expanding health care coverage to more Americans. Not just because I'm one of the millions of uninsured Americans, but because it's a social jsutice issue. However, I am unsure Kerry's plan is workable.
Qoute: "Under the Kerry-Edwards plan, the federal government will pay the full costs for the 20 million children in the Mediaid program. In return, we will ask states to expand coverage to children in families with higher incomes than are currently eligible, as well as low income adults. This plan will expand coverage to millions of people and provide much needed relief for states that are struggling under persistent growing budgetary pressures." (page 106)
If feasible, this *would* ease the pressure on state budgets. It *would* expand coverage to a lot of people who are uninsured now.
But *how* is the federal government going to get the money to pay for it all?
No mention of that is made.
Also, the plan claims five billion dollars in enrollment bonuses will be given to states to encourage them to find uninsured children and keep them covered.
Where is *that* little chunk of change going to come from?
I *love* the concepts, I just want to know where the funding comes from. No,
davner, not from the military - I think. In the chapter in security there's talk of increasing the size of the armed forces and giving them more modern equipment - almost made me think I was reading the Bush/Cheney window by mistake. Again, no real explanation of where the money for *that* would come from.Next page: a 25% tax credit for low and middle income people between the ages of 55 and 64, intended to help pay the cost of their insurance premiums.
Again, cool idea. But it means less tax money, which means somewhere expenditures must be cut, or taxes on another group need to be raised. *Where*, I ask?
Streamlining the billing and claim filing process, in order to cut down on health care costs across the board - great idea, again. I know a lot of people would love to see their hassles in settling claims with their health insurance providers reduced or eliminated, if possible. But again, vauge in how, aside from "We must use modern methods!"
There's more on healthcare, but my eyes are starting to glaze over in a manner that reminds me of AP Macro Economics in high school.
Leaving off on page 145. I'll get back to it later.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 08:34 pm (UTC)I will admit right now, I haven't read the doc, so feel free to correct me anywhere I may get off base.
Oh, I ah, got off topic on #2 so feel free to ignore it. I just worked too long on it to just delete it. ^^;;
#1: Raising the minimum wage. Sounds wonderful, bad idea. Raising the minimum wage will kill job growth, since a lot of the job growth, as unfortunate as it may be, is at a rate under 7 an hour. So, the lower wage jobs will make more money, those that are created, but since more is being paid out for each person employed. Also, companies will be paying more for some of the people on the rolls, so prices will go up. Particularly in low wage, low profit margin industries. Think grocery stores and retail stores. Grocery stores in particular have a razor thin profit margin, raise the prices they have to pay for labor and food prices *will* go up too.
#2: Health Insurance for all! Again, sounds wunnerful. But you don't have to go far to see what happens when that goes too far. Let me just state right now that I don't have any problem at all with helping to pay for the health care of the unfortunates that don't have the money to do so, I do have a problem with the move toward socialized health care. Look at Europe. Most of those countries have socialized health care. What happens? Taxes go up, people have fewer children, meaning that the each generation is smaller than the previous one. Which means taxes go up again. And the cycle repeats.
I think I got off topic... Anyhow, there's another problem that's not being adressed. Frivolous malpractice suits. Out here, malpractice insurance costs have gotten so high that most of the towns around here don't even *have* a practicing doctor. The only hospital in the county is the one in our city, and in most cases it's the only place they can go to find an OB/GYN. Most of the ones in the surrounding area have gone out of the business. That is a *bad* thing, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 10:44 am (UTC)I haven't gotten to anything which covers combatting frivolous malpratice sutis as yet. I still need to finish reading the document, and right now I'm having too much fun being a quiz junkie to think rationally and focus on a serious read. I also need to read Bush's plan. I'll get to it this weekend and blather some more.
I have a feeling Bush's plan will be just as delightfully vague on where funding for various initiatives will come from while keeping his current tax cuts in place. For example, that challenge he gave NASA to increase human presence in the solar system at large and expand on its overall explorations. I am a huge fan of space exploration. I just want to know where the money's coming from.