THere is something WRONG with the empathy, or lack, of right wingers.

Should have heard Montel Williams tonight. 40% of people have more than one CHRONIC illness. And illnesses ACTUALY do progress to life threatening, if not attended to. FACT.

People can call an ambulance, but unless they are having an ACUTE episode, they are turned away. And, as soon as you leave, they start RUINING your life from debt, and COLLECTING of same.

And why the hell is a right winger suggesting a FEDERAL MANDATE?

 

In case you're interested, here are some of the state laws already passed or in process. I don't believe any of them are as inclusive and far-reaching as the Marcora law though.

Rhode Island - http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText17/HouseText17/H6001.htm
California - http://www.co-oplaw.org/statebystate/california/
Massachusetts - http://www.workercooplaw.org/massachusetts
Colorado - https://www.thenews.coop/32671/sector/retail/overview-worker-cooperative-law-colorado/
N.Carolina - http://www.co-oplaw.org/statebystate/northcarolina/
Texas - http://www.co-oplaw.org/statebystate/texas/
New York - https://www.lawserver.com/law/state...ork_laws_cooperative_corporations_article_5-a

I'd say it might be reasonable to establish a new bracket beginning at $100,000 and another at $250,000 and another at maybe $500,000, and a final 90% bracket for income over $750,000. But of course that's just a suggestion.

Regarding those who are building businesses and continue to invest in their businesses, those are business expenses and can be deducted from gross income and of course would not be taxed.

I was referring to the enormous increase in productivity and corporate elite incomes over the last 30 years at the same time real median wages have been flat. Those workers made that productivity and wealth of the top 1% possible, yet greediness kept it from being shared fairly with those workers. Most of the new income went to the top.

It was a time when there were few regulations on businesses and so it shows what happens under such conditions. The economy shaped the society and its culture.

I heartily disagree.

I'm open to discussion and other opinions on this one.

No, that's bogus reasoning. But to say why I might think "leftists oppose this", I would need sufficient detail regarding what is being proposed.

Yes, it is now, more and more.

Kennedy and every other congressman and president has been and is pro-capitalism. But both sides have a role in this issue. Illegals flooded the country and took jobs even though there are laws against it, and W. did nothing to stop it. So both sides have a role in it. And the only reason I know of to allow immigrants whose skills we don't need, is to drive wages down. Capitalism needs that to keep profits growing.

I don't believe that. I never wanted that. And I think that's just another right wing concocted attack to get more constituents from among the gullible.

So Republicans have been helpless to stop what you see as "forcing taxpayers to support their...... (what?..."constitutes"?)? We never hear serious proposals for legislation to stop it from them. Why?

I need more details and more specifics. Do you mean instead of a gas tax to raise revenue, why can't it be done with a payroll tax? Or do you mean why can't they establish a payroll tax on everyone regardless of income (it exists). You must mean the former.

Oh cut it out. What was a reasonable conversation is turning into a rightie rant now. Sorry but that's how it strikes me. "Leftists" DO NOT "purchase votes". Bernie was a self-proclaimed independent and socialist and he did quite well and could have won, so it isn't a matter of "purchasing votes" because he didn't.

 

There hasn't been a libertarian experiment.

 

Typical right wing idiocrat. Can't give credit to Trump for something Obama did, can't point to anything Trump has done save for more trade with China, and his taking of 39 more trade marks from the Chinese (makes one wonder if some of them are being used to smuggle the drugs into the US), and still whine as if you think you are rational.

 

The law only requires they be stabilized, not treated, or cured.
In any event, you are going to pay for it plus the funeral.

 

There you go again, complaining that trump do something about something Obama already dealt with. It is laughable.

 

I've got three chronic illnesses, gout, shingles, and arthritis, if I'm careful, with the meds none of them are going to prove fatal. Irritating as hell time to time but not fatal there is no real cure for any of them. All you can do is mask the symptoms to keep the pain at manageable levels. Most chronic illnesses are like that. That's what makes them chronic in the first place. I'm also a Vietnam Era veteran. So when it gets to be too much I trundle down to the VA and get something a little more potent than Naproxen Sodium, or Aspirin, however, I take only as needed because addicted to opiates or whatever is not how I wish to spend my life. I do not need you or anyone else trying to solve my problems for me least of all the federal government.

 

If you have an ejection fraction less than Dick Cheney, I don’t see how you could do that.

I have been looking for a tiny house for less than $30,000, with no HOA fees or 55 community crap.

The county I live in now, slim pickings:

http://www.realtor.com/realestatean...d-mobile-home/price-na-30000/pnd-hide/fc-hide

http://www.realtor.com/realestatean...d-mobile-home/price-na-30000/pnd-hide/fc-hide

If you know anything about zoning laws you know if I had the money to buy a $10,000 lot, I would not be able to put a gypsy wagon on it, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with right-wingers alone. My problem is “liberals,” like the black Democrat that told me he didn’t want a poor ****** living next door to him back in the 80’s when I was upset I could not build less than 800 square feet, that is DEMOCRATS (see every zoning board they occupy).

http://trekkertrailers.com/category/custom-gypsy-wagons-more/

I don’t want to pay a “liberals” mortgage, by paying rent. Get your “liberal” Democrats, and blacks who hate poor ******s, to change their zoning laws, so I can go tiny in the Sunshine State.


Give me some empathy.

 

Trundle down to the VA? SO, you gotz your healthcare FOR LIFE, and chide others that have no recourse.

 

Sure, they don't advocate shooting their political opponents. But many leftists, from celebuturds to university professors to Democratic Party members, have, in fact, cheered the shooter. As I said, there are many unhinged leftists out there who can't deal.

Leftists created the shooter. Just as they own the freaks breaking **** in their antifa marches. Just as they own leftist professors encouraging more violence.

 

It's a once or twice a year occurrence. I generally avoid it like the plague. It is slow. I was never at my Dotors office when I had insurance with a reasonable co pay. I was seldom there longer than an hour. maybe an hour and a half if I had xrays or something else taken at the time, with the VA I am there at least two hours and half a day is common. By the way I spent two years and seven months in the army all the trips I've taken to the VA in the last 45 years when totaled would be two months and probably a lot less.

 

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out.

This is the problem with a huge central government authority trying to regulate our economy. The U.S. is far too diverse to be controlled and regulated from DC.

I Have a relative who has a great job in San Francisco, yet he pays almost $4K a month to rent a one bedroom apartment. He has less disposable income than a school teacher friend living in another part of the state. A one-size fits all tax regulation does not work and is not fair across the expanse of the U.S.

I know, big government types will fix this with rent control. There's always a fix, where liberals/progressives/socialists, Chamber of Commerce Republicans and other big government types will interfere with the free market to make it "better."

Our government has amassed $20 trillion in debt. It is not efficient, it is corrupt. And it demands more and more of our earnings in order to function as an unwieldily behemoth.

Why leftists believe they are entitled, through government redistribution, to the income of free people has also amazed me.

I agree, and this mostly happened under Obama during the past eight years. But both Team Red and Team Blue are to blame. And you are aware this has been caused by corrupt politicians, your big government, making it so?

It was also a time when most Americans lived an agrarian lifestyle on farms, thus it is not applicable to what is happening today.

Agreed, Bush was the epitome of a Chamber of Commerce Republican.

But Team Blue and leftists are really pushing the concept of open borders, more immigration of the unskilled. Why? Why do you believe they are doing this? Here's why:

But by the 2000s, the foreign-born citizen population had become overwhelmingly non-white, mostly of Latin American and Asian and Pacific Islander descent. And substantially more of today’s immigrant voters are Democratic and liberal than we see among the native-born population.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ect-the-2016-election/?utm_term=.a09a7dd6d395

You might not want to believe it, but it is fact. In fact, it's a well known political consequence of the changes to the 1965 immigration law.

Here is another study showing most immigrants will vote Democrat:

A 2012 study of 2,900 foreign-born, naturalized immigrants cited in the report showed that about 62 percent identified themselves as Democrats, while 25 percent identified as Republicans.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/s...crats-and-more-losses-for-gop/article/2547220

Big business repubs are in bed with leftists when it comes to cheap labor. But now we have a Trump who is sounding pretty much like Bernie when it comes to trade protectionism, eliminating NAFTA and building manufacturing. But leftists are opposing him on this, why?

Everyone in California, rich or poor, will pay the same 12 cent increase per gallon:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article147437054.html

Why do you believe I'm being unreasonable? The left wing's most loyal base are poor people; why do you think this is? When a poor person hears Bernie talk about taking away money from rich people and giving his voters free college, free medical care etc, what would call this?

 

What about Samolia?

 

t
I find the shooting on the humorist side. A congressman whose career is marked by his opposition to gun control is shot, and nearly killed by a gun.

Of course you have been indoctrinated to hate the Antifa, however that puts you in a bad light. You see, for the past 30 years or so the Antifa has been doing to white supremacists what the police can't. Don't forget most police forces are full of prejudicial officers. Every time a skinhead gang, the KKK, bikers or other such conservative race haters show up, there is always the Antifa to drive them out.

The latest has been the pro-Trump-free-speech-for-white-supremacists clown parades on the west coast. Tough ol' white supremacists looked rather cowardly hiding behind the police, once they realized that they were outnumbered 4-1.

Considering that Antifa is short for anti-fascist, that must mean that those who oppose the Antifa are fascist. And you conservatives think that you are so smart that we can't see through you.

 

Do you know why immigrants tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic? Two primary reasons. The foremost is the Republican Party, and those who vote for it, tend to have a mean spirited opinion of immigrants and minorities. The second is that a large portion of immigrants, especially those from Asia, India, and the Middle East, tend to be well educated and employed in scientific and technological industries. This crowd, regardless of race or ethnicity, overwhelmingly leans liberal. After all, liberalism is a natural outgrowth of the scientific worldview.

Being a liberal and a scientist, makes me an empiricist. When looking around the country, a clear pattern emerges. In those states that most embrace liberal ideas, their economies significantly out perform those states that most embrace Republican economic ideology. In terms of economic growth, over the past few years, nine out of the top ten have been in Democratic dominated states while nine out of ten states at the bottom have been dominated by Republicans.

Likewise, in the rest if the world, those counties with the highest standard of living have strong, socially involved countries. In those countries with the lowest standard of living, they tend to have weak governments that do little do nothing for their people. There is a reason the standard of living is so much better in Scandinavian countries.

As far as I can see, the end game for Republican economic ideology is for the accumulation of wealth to the few while everyone else descends deeper and deeper into poverty. At least the Democrats want to put, in place, systems to help those who don't make it to the top.

 

You dont. Because automation is KILLING labor in every way. And there is simply no way to get around this. It is not really possible much in this day and age for someone to contribute to society without higher education. MANY people cannot afford that education.

Its a catch 22.

 

$4K/month? ... for a one-bedroom apartment?! Special considerations need to be made but they must be made intelligently to work. The problem in your cited case is unreasonably high rents and property values. Taxing people less isn't an intelligent solution as the problem will remain and even with saving $500 or more per month on taxes won't make that $4000 price tag affordable. But the right would have a stoke if rent controls were suggested, or tax provisions aimed at reducing property values and rents.

In this case, we can see where this would go with "free markets". The price charged is always what the market will bear. In this case landlords can get people to pay thousands for rent. There is no reason to believe rents would go down if all restraints were lifted from rents and property pricing.

Just think: you own 5 acres on the outskirts of town and you want to build a shopping center to increase the value of your land and sell it for a killing, but zoning won't allow it and neighbors don't want their property taxes to go up. In fact, they want their taxes to go down because they're already so high. So the neighbors all vote to lift all restraints and let the "free market" help them with their costs. What do you think would happen if the market were free? You'll probably say there are many factors and we can't predict. But if you do it wouldn't be true because we have lots of cases of developers getting the town to change zoning to let them build and make a killing because it WILL raise property values and the tax base, and the town likes that. So much for "free markets".

Sorry to tell you but much of that debt was created to benefit top corporations. We have had "entitlements", for example, forever. And in recent decades we have seen them cut, cut, cut. Yet the debt grew. And federal revenue is insufficient to pay it down. And tax rates for the top 5% have gone down, cutting tax revenue, and making budgets tighter. So the right takes advantage of the opportunity to blame it on the poor and working class when it's really a capitalist problem and a tax problem mostly created by Republicans starting with Reagan. And the solution in such dire economic times is to go back to the tax brackets we had when Reagan took office at least.

And it amazes me, though it shouldn't, when the right spins a Democratic push for higher taxes into the lie of "entitlements through government redistribution of income". We had higher taxes in the past and it wasn't a give-away. It made it possible for us to pay our way and avoid the damned debt you complain about! It allowed us to run the country. And we need to do it again. There is no precedent for the charge that it would be used to "give other people's money to lazy people" as the right like to assert. Yes, because of the constant cuts and the hard times, needy people do need help more than ever. I'm not a freeloading tightwad. I don't begrudge helping those who need it with my tax dollars. I live in a society with plenty of advantages over what I'd have in the wilderness of Alaska (for example) and those advantages need to be paid for. And with conditions as they are, more tax dollars are needed.... lots more.

"My big government"?? I don't believe the size of government had anything to do with it. And it didn't "mostly happen under Obama". All we need do is to look at the relatively smooth increase in a productivity graph. - http://bit.ly/2tgKHtg

Also - http://houseofdebt.org/wp-content/uploads/ch1_20140317_1.png

How is it not applicable? Capitalism was growing faster. People were coming to the cities to find better incomes. Opportunities existed for jobs. Employers took advantage of the supply of workers. And fewer regulations existed on what they did. What condition invalidates it as an example of the effects of deregulation and why?

Why didn't Bush stop it then? Probably because of its effects on wages. And that means BOTH parties wanted it, so we can stop blaming the left. I'm clearly a leftist and I've always said immigration should be managed to protect both the labor needs as well as workers' wages, with wages being primary. But I'll tell you what. Let the Republican eliminate entirely all their gerrymandering and election trickery and the Democrats will be less inclined to take actions that benefit Democrats. We can't have one side getting all the advantages.

But there's no indication of any study in that article to learn and expose any Democratic plan to use immigration to benefit democratic votes. Sure there's an implication but there's no real evidence other than circumstantial evidence. And as I said, end gerrymandering by Republicans and then get Democrats to talk about immigration.

Because he's a known, proven liar, and his actual actions have been to benefit himself first and rich corporatists second and workers not at all. Unlike Bernie his history is one of standing on the side of the rich and harming the working class. He's a walking example of class warfare and I'm shocked that you apparently didn't see this right away.

Sure. And many people who don't pay payroll taxes due to income from dividend checks, and people who don't have a job, buy gasoline. So a payroll tax approach won't work. The fairest way seems to me to be to charge a fuel tax to pay for transportation needs.

I agree with your first sentence in my quote where you said "The less a person pays in taxes, the more they'll spend in our consumer-oriented economy" if that person earns a median wage, more or less. But regarding votes by different socioeconomic classes, this is pretty interesting - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/g...class-religion-etc-relate-to-political-party/

Regarding Bernie, it's true that the rich have had a vastly greater and growing advantage in the past 30 years or more, and that all but the well-to-do minority end up with huge debt if they attend college and that is excluding people from getting the education they need to get better jobs paying better income so that they pay more in income taxes and contribute more to society. I would think you would strongly approve of this instead of repeating a tired and worn right wing bumper sticker. Regarding medical care, every developed country has a healthcare system that includes national healthcare "single-payer" funding and all cost less per capita than our by far, and many are actually improve health better than ours is. Bernie, via his "Sanders Institute" has published a detailed study of national healthcare as it would affect us. And it's cost is lower and many problems like fraud are eliminated or reduced. We need it.

So contrary to the partisan claim that he appeals to the poor who want to "take more" from others, the truth is that he appeals to most on many or most issues and offers real and promising alternatives.

 

Bleeding heart, emotional response, feelings have killed this country.

 

I appreciate your being so honest in your response.

One thing to point out, however; you have fallen victim to the usual leftist propaganda where you are taught to hate the other.

Everyone who disagrees with you is not a Nazi, yet this is how the fascists posing as antifa and other unhinged leftists have convinced normally mild Americans to become so hate filled, such as what you display. When the liberal/progressive/socialist narrative dictates it's OK to punch a Nazi, and everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi, we get leftists committee political shootings.

Try to meet new people and have new experiences; try to expand beyond your hate-filled echo chamber. It's a big world out there...

 

Comparing the two is absured...Republican Party policies, specifically their so-called "healthcare bill", will kill people. There is not Democratic Party policy to shoot at Republicans in a baseball practice.

Hannity is on 3 hours on the radio. I listen to him often just because I know that whatever he says will be repeated by his brainless audience in forums like this one.

The MSM is just Corporate Media. They simply report whatever sells. Here in Central Florida, progressive radio was killed years ago by a handful of billionaires. There is almost no Progressive Media (except basically for a handful of bloggers and smaller outlets). Only thing that exists are Progressive ideas, which stand on their own because they benefit the people.

Republicans consider that any media that simply repeats what they say, their position, and their lies; is an attack.

 

I point out that the group, that you have so ignorantly been hating on has been standing in opposition to groups who actively go out of their way to be malicious towards non-white people. Then you accuse me of hate? In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a loon what a lagoon."

Who called you a Nazi? Feeling guilty?

 

Here is how it works: one of the wingnut bloggers finds a tweet or a post by some idiot who nobody has ever heard of but claims to be progressive, cheering for the shooting, and Hannity and Rush and Breitbart... show it to their brainless audience sayiing "See? This is how the left thinks! They repeat this a couple of times, and their unquestioning audience will repeat it anywhere despite the fact that doing so only makes them look like fools.

That is what the intellectual discourse on the right has descended into.

 

I've noticed that. Whatever Hannity is talking about is repeated all over the internet by folks who act as if it was their original ideas, even though they are mostly repeating whatever they heard on the radio/television. Then they accuse me of being brainwashed when I point out how their silly notions don't square with reality.

 

Yep, SF is nuts. And there are other pockets of wealth in the state that are similar.

Re zoning issues; we have a republican form of government throughout the country, for the most part, where we elect representatives to government bodies, be they local city councils or congressmen. I'm familiar with how cities and counties zone their property; unfortunately, they usually zone to attract high sales tax businesses to help with the tax base.

I'm not a far right libertarian that advocates anarchy; I just believe that citizens should elect representatives who will honestly and correctly reflect their wishes. This is far easier to do on the local level, of course; I don't think anyone will disagree that government gets less representative the further it moves away for being local.

Most 'red' big cities don't have a local government that is oppressive with regulations and oversite, and tends to reflect a more free market atmosphere. And they're far more successful than many of the armpits represented by Team Blue.

One tragedy is American corporations moving profits out of the U.S.

But the top 20 percent of earners already pay 84 percent of all income tax:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384

Again, the issue is government waste and corruption. You can't tax yourself to prosperity, leftists have tried this all of the world to little effect.

A civil society should always take care of its less fortunate. And engage in public works and police protection etc.

But we simply disagree with how our personal earnings should be spent; I work hard for my pay and am disgusted that government takes over half of it in order to fund waste and corruption.

The size of government has everything to do with it.

You keep bringing up this golden age of the 95 percent tax bracket. Yet Fed. com, relative to the population of the U.S., was minuscule compared to today. Socialists seem to believe that more government, and government controlling the means of production, will work; history proves, again and again, otherwise.

Most Americans lived on farms and provided much of their food for themselves, for example. The food economy by itself is an excellent example of how much has changed since the early 1900s; it might as well have been a different country...

Because Bush was a Chamber of Commerce repub who wanted cheap labor. You do recall, however, when he was about to cooperate with Democrats and agree on a horrible immigration plan? The right stopped it cold.

Repubs gerrymand and dead Dems vote; both parties are corrupt imo. It's just some Repubs who recognize this and fight both statist repubs and the dems.

There's a HUGE implication. You are justifying this by claiming repub election trickery. You don't strike me as a Team Blue guy, which is why I thought we were having such a nice discussion.

This is why Democrats lost the white working class; they saw the obvious identity politics played by the Democrats and decided to get off that train.

Not a Trump fan by any means. But I think Dems are making a mistake by refusing to work with him. Don't see how they'll ever get back blue collar workers.

That Discovery link was interesting, but it seems a bit dated. It looks like the author of the 2012 article was using data from 1997?

My only issue with the U.S. government being the source of single-payer healthcare is how cumbersome and inefficient Fed. com is. While a smaller country who depends on the U.S. defense umbrella might be able to fund an adequate system, I'm convinced that the U.S. government will be unable to do so.

But compare our health care to how we provide health care for our pets.

It's a free market; I wanted to get my dog spayed, so I called around and found a great vet with a great Yelp review. What is wrong with going back to a system (like when there was a 95 percent tax bracket) where healthcare was administer by a free market? Health care as we know it, with insurance companies etc, didn't really come around until WWII.

Crazy? Sure, but no more crazy than giving our health care over to the same people who waste my earnings like this:

http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/08/congressman-publishes-10-worst-examples-of-government-waste/

Anyway, this has been interesting and I thank you for the debate. Start my work week tonight so I probably won't have time to get back to you. And I appreciate we were able to have a mostly civil discussion...

 

You are obviously filled with hate. Feeling guilty? You find political shooting humorous and antifa is simply a book club; you leftists crack me up. Seriously, escape your Mother Jones/Koz/DU echo chamber, you'l be a better person for it...