Quote Originally Posted by VanChilds View Post
I can get behind a lot of that. I am very concerned with the idea of cutting taxes with the national debt and a soon to be bankrupt social security and medicaire/medicaid. I don't pretend to be an economic expert but I don't understand how you lower taxes for anyone and dramatically increase spending to improve ones financial system. We obviously agree that our energy policy dictates a lot of our foreign policy. I just think you kind of get into a chicken before the egg scenario. I also see radical islam as something that is spreading out of the middle east. I am not so sure that simply removing ourselves from the region will totally alleviate the issue with islamic terrorists. I'm curious about your thoughts on health care?
Social security is the only government programme in profit. It has two trillion in the bank. It won't need an extra dollar in taxes until 2041 at the earliest and even then will only need a $20 a month increase by everybody. But everybody will be earning hundreds of dollars extra then anyway and SS will have gone up much less than other expenses. SS is the best, most effective social insurance programme in the world. Britian privatised its pensions in the 1980s, something that ended in disaster for British pension plan holders as the newly-deregulated pensions industry robbed them blind. Pension companies were eventually charged with "mis-selling" pensions and fined a pittance for robbing Britain's state system and pension plan holders of billions. If I ever walk into a bank with a stocking mask on and a sawn off shotgun, rob the bank and am arrested on the way out I hope to be charged with "mis-selling" the bank and given the opportunity to avoid prison by paying a fine of 1.something % of the amount I robbed.

Unsurprisingly britian is now looking into a US-style SS system, along with all other major economies that haven;t already copied it.

Can you imagine if Bush had got his way and privatised SS in 2005? SS payments would now be slashed, millions would be destitiute, there's be huge pressure to bail out the system with more trillions of money etc. etc. Keep the bankers out of it. Things are already heading towards a banana republic as they are.


I'll do healthcare tomorrow as I've got to speak to some fucking American bankers now.