Remember the news that New York's governor proposed 26 billion dollars in spending cuts (Paterson Proposes Billion in Cuts - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog)? Well, the special interests (mainly unions) are running a huge media blitz trying to get the voters to contact the governor to tell him not to cut (insert program here). In radio or television commercials they make it sound like the governor's cuts are going to result in grandma not being able to get the necessary nurse or nurse's aide care she needs or schools not able to get enough textbooks, etc. In other words, they try to play on people's emotions. It's the political version of the NIMBY Syndrome (NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard).

New York State has some of the highest taxes in the country, we're running a budget deficit, and these people are playing the "cut-someone-else's-program" game.

I think the governor should cut across the board and tell the special interest groups to shove it up their backside.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Chan, people are idiots. They will vote for whatever benefits them directly, and are uninterested in aggregate spending, or fiscal responsibility. The Democrats have been winning elections since FDR with the platform of, "we'll pay for it". Your state is ****ed.

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"Bring me that horizon".

By the way, the governor proposing all these spending cuts these groups are fighting is a Democrat.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Chan wrote:I was born and raised there and the outrageous cost of living is why I never will again. The last time I visited, years ago, the property taxes on Long Island were so high that they equalled a monthly mortgage payment so people were just moving out of their homes and letting the mortgage companies have them because they couldn't afford to pay both.

I don't know if it is still going on, but for awhile welfare mothers' families in NYC were being housed in hotels at state expense because there wasn't enough public housing. It was a RIDICULOUS,completely wasteful use of tax money. There is no way to sustain all the give-away programs indefinitely and it is extremely short-sighted, not to mention idiotic to even try.

And I have often wondered why unions push for such programs when their member/workers will be the ones paying for them.

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Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

Because Long Island is rich people town.

If we had universal health care, then people would pay much less money, because they wouldn't be paying for health insurance AND the taxes to support the universal health care. They're just paying the taxes for the universal health care which would be a lot less than they pay to insurance companies.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And the law should apply differently to people based on their income. Gotcha, when do we implement Locke's poor laws?


Woah, your premise is flawed here.

I don't pay for universal health care NOW, so implementing universal health care does not save me any money by eliminating my health insurance burden, it merely REPLACES that burden with higher taxes greater than the amount I was paying in health insurance costs and income tax combined.

How? Heart surgery is expensive, period, so how exactly does government control lower prices? If they control fees and salaries, then they'll need an incentive program to encourage undergraduates in the sciences to go to med school, like say, a student loan repayment program.....paid for by tax dollars. You then either get a massive incurrence of debt on the government's part, as they now owe all or part of loans owed to top tier med schools, or you get poorly educated doctors from bad, but inexpensive medical schools. Thus, your program can ONLY rename the expense from "insurance payment" to "taxes", or it can significantly diminish the quality of care in this country, which would in fact justify a drop in price (quality/price ratio and such).

Universal health care is unworkable, as our friends in Canada and the EU have and are showing us.

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"Bring me that horizon".

Yes, laws that affect people economically should certainly be based on their income.

No, you would pay a lot less than the health insurance.
It would not be anywhere as big a cost as you think it is.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Forgot. Based entirely on speculation.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why? Why can't the law be blind to the citizen's lifestyle, as is intended in our system of justice? Notice how Lady Justice wears a blindfold? You apparently like the idea of laws applying differently to different people, so tell me, should we implement Locke's poor laws?


That is not possible. Either a) Costs will remain the same given the fact that a good doctor is a market COMMODITY regardless of who pays for it, and thus, the cost will at best stay the same, or b) Quality will decrease proportionately to cost, which leaves us worse off than we are today by WEAKENING our medical field.

Moreover, who says we NEED Universal Health care in the first place? It is estimated that there are 47 million uninsured people living in the United States RIGHT NOW. Of that 7 million are illegal aliens, who would not benefit from universal health care anyway, BECAUSE THEY'RE ILLEGAL ALIENS. So we're down to 40 million people. Of that remaining 40 million, 9 million are on Medicaid, so now we're down to 31 million people. Of those 31 million people, 20 million post an average income TWICE the national poverty line (which is substantially less "poor" than other countries), and can therefore afford their ow insurance but CHOOSE not to.

So you want to increase the tax burden, or lower quality, we don't know which, for the benefit of 11 million people, some of whom are also covered by MEDICARE via our SS system. What is 11/300? 0.036. THREE PERCENT of the population would benefit from Universal Health care, THREE. You want to overhaul the entire country's medical insurance system, raise taxes, lower quality, and embrace a FAILED model of health care so that THREE PERCENT of the population (not all of which are sick or will become sick/injured) can be covered. Can I buy pot from you? You can't ACTUALLY buy into this crap.

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"Bring me that horizon".

Based on economics and years of living in a market economy. The military gives millions of dollars away in signing bonuses for OCS candidates with specialized degrees (doctors, lawyers, etc), so do other government agencies, any ministry of health you wish to create would require similar recruitment.

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"Bring me that horizon".