I actually wouldn't be that opposed to that mandate.
But then again I also think that before someone gets a gun license they should be forced to shoot a living animal and then watch it die and then bury it so they fully know well the consequences of using of gun.
You are correct in that there are different rules for military personnel than there are for civilians. However, both are citizens (or nationals) of this country. As such, unless military personnel are in a combat status and Congress authorizes such, both members of our Armed Forces and civilians alike are subject to pay taxes. In short, both are subject to the "rules" Congress establishes. And that brings me back to my argument at-hand.
Congress established a "rule" on how to deal with ensuring our nation's citizens have and/or acquire health insurance. Only a small segment of the population would be subject to the tax penalty - those who can afford to purchase health insurance but refuse to acquire it (or don't obtain a waiver). In the grand scheme of things, one's military status is of little consequence. The fact remains that at one time in our nation's history, Congress required of a certain segment of the population to purchase something they might not have ordinarily purchased for themselves. Granted, in the case of the Militia Act, the cause could easily be justified - in defense of the nation - but those draftees were still required to pay for materials out of pocket because their government told them to.
You are correct in that there are different rules for military personnel than there are for civilians. However, both are citizens (or nationals) of this country. As such, unless military personnel are in a combat status and Congress authorizes such, both members of our Armed Forces and civilians alike are subject to pay taxes. In short, both are subject to the "rules" Congress establishes. And that brings me back to my argument at-hand.
Congress established a "rule" on how to deal with ensuring our nation's citizens have and/or acquire health insurance. Only a small segment of the population would be subject to the tax penalty - those who can afford to purchase health insurance but refuse to acquire it (or don't obtain a waiver). In the grand scheme of things, one's military status is of little consequence. The fact remains that at one time in our nation's history, Congress required of a certain segment of the population to purchase something they might not have ordinarily purchased for themselves. Granted, in the case of the Militia Act, the cause could easily be justified - in defense of the nation - but those draftees were still required to pay for materials out of pocket because their government told them to.
I will be subject to the tax penalty because I have reasonable health insurance. I'm covered, but not enough by this administration's standards. So, I either have to pay an extra $300 a month for the Cadillac plan they require or pay the penalty.
But even that is academic. The very fact that some are required to purchase a plan is a violation of the Constitution and no where in the Constitution is there a provision that rights must be recognized unless only a few suffer the loss of their rights.
So why did the Republicans propose this?
So why did the Republicans propose this?
Republicans are not void of bad policy. Unconstitutional is unconstitutional.
I agree with ksu here. But had to ask...why the heck does it always come down to republicans vs democrats? Does it really matter? Shouldn't violations of the Constitution be what matters?
Clearly we should have avoided all this nonsense and just had the public option. That was, after all, what everyone actually wanted in the first place, would not force anyone to buy anything they didn't want to, and would have actually achieved universal coverage, which the current law does not.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Health Care | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team
That was 2008. What are you saying now Barry?
If we read 'Commerce among the several States' to mean 'all gainful economic activity among the several States,' then the clauses by which Congress is empowered to regulate commerce with 'foreign Nations' and the 'Indian Tribes' become either largely redundant or nonsensical. Even more seriously, if the Commerce Clause grants Congress power to regulate all economic activities, then some of Congress' other economic powers become surplus.
...the defect of power in the existing Confederacy to regulate the commerce between its several members, is in the number of those which have been clearly pointed out by experience... it may be added that without this supplemental provision, the great and essential power of regulating foreign commerce would have been incomplete and ineffectual. A very material object of this power was the relief of the States which import and export through other States, from the improper contributions levied on them by the latter. Were these at liberty to regulate the trade between State and State, it must be foreseen that ways would be found out to load the articles of import and export.
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.
If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once.
auto insurance is at the state level - whose powers are numerous and undefined. as opposed to the federal level - whose powers are few and defined.
there is a bit of a difference.
I'm not a consitutional scholar, but we have hundred years of history along with the orginal intent. We can't erase any of it. The door for mandating something was opened long before auto insurance became mandatory.
Sure, we can't erase it, but we CAN learn from it. If we all do our best to understand why certain policies failed/succeeded or lack of policies failed/succeeded, we can create a better future for our country. Misinterpretation of historical facts has arguably been the biggest detriment we've experienced over the past 100 or so years. For example, being taught in school that FDR's New Deal policies helped get us out of the Great Depression is completely false. Government lacks the power to improve the economy except for temporary periods by printing money and "creating" jobs (jobs that private citizens have to account for through taxes, otherwise it's just inflation). In their effort to help, they only make matters worse by decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar, making goods and services more expensive over time. Only through deregulation and staying out of the economy can the government help improve its condition.
However, deregulation is a different matter. We have often gotten into trouble by deregulating. And while I won't go into your historical revisionism, I wouldn't argue FDR got us out as much as war did.
While I know this is off topic, how did the war get out us out the Great Depression? And if it did, why don't we constantly fake wars and blow stuff up so we can receive the benefits of war without the death that goes along with it? I urge you to look up the Broken Window fallacy by Frederic Bastiat, which explains the logical fallacy in thinking that war or disasters can actually help an economy.
Back on topic, it would really help for all of us to understand how exactly health care got so expensive in the first place. I've written on this before, but don't have the time to write about it now. I'll come back later with some more information.
Back on topic, it would really help for all of us to understand how exactly health care got so expensive in the first place. I've written on this before, but don't have the time to write about it now. I'll come back later with some more information.
We don't do wars the way we do them back then. Wars today we borrow and say that don't have to sacrifice for them. Back then, we asked peopel to give, put people to work making planes and other war neccessities. Soldiers had left the homefront, getting a government check. This effectively put money at the bottom so it could trickle up, and all doing so with us aiding to government to limit the cost of the wwar itself.
Christopher J. Tassava
For the United States, World War II and the Great Depression constituted the most important economic event of the twentieth century. The war's effects were varied and far-reaching. The war decisively ended the depression itself. The federal government emerged from the war as a potent economic actor, able to regulate economic activity and to partially control the economy through spending and consumption. American industry was revitalized by the war, and many sectors were by 1945 either sharply oriented to defense production (for example, aerospace and electronics) or completely dependent on it (atomic energy). The organized labor movement, strengthened by the war beyond even its depression-era height, became a major counterbalance to both the government and private industry. The war's rapid scientific and technological changes continued and intensified trends begun during the Great Depression and created a permanent expectation of continued innovation on the part of many scientists, engineers, government officials and citizens. Similarly, the substantial increases in personal income and frequently, if not always, in quality of life during the war led many Americans to foresee permanent improvements to their material circumstances, even as others feared a postwar return of the depression. Finally, the war's global scale severely damaged every major economy in the world except for the United States, which thus enjoyed unprecedented economic and political power after 1945.
The American Economy during World War II | Economic History Services
World War II brought an end to the Depression everywhere. Industries had been ignited for the production of arms and resources to equip fighting forces.
"The man behind the man behind the gun" helped win World War II. People on the home front built weapons, produced food and supplies, and bought war bonds. Many historians believe that war production was the key to Allied victory. The Allies not only mobilized more men and women in their armed forces, but also outproduced the Axis in weapons and machinery.
Scientific inventions and discoveries also helped shorten the war. The United States organized its scientific resources in the Office of Scientific Research and Development. That government agency invented or improved such commodities as radar, rocket launchers, jet engines, amphibious assault boats, long-range navigational aids, devices for detecting submarines, and more.
World War II
This is the way it was taught to me when i was in school so many years ago. Today, we have a lot of people revising history to fit political angendas, sadly.
Henry Hazlitt via Frédéric Bastiat said:A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sun. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.
Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.
The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.
I'm not sure we'll agree on that.
The major cause of it becoming expensive was technological advances.
Vijay Boyapati said:The most important economic consequence of the existence of the employer-provided health insurance is that consumers are much less likely to discriminate on cost. Beyond the deductible, the employer pays the cost of medical procedures through an insurance company. As anyone who has gone on a business trip knows, if the company is paying, then the employee is likely to purchase a more expensive ticket and accommodation. Where an economy ticket may have sufficed for a personal budget, a business-class ticket becomes far more attractive.
Not only are consumers less likely to discriminate on cost, but providers of healthcare services have greater incentive to provide medical treatments that are only marginally more effective at much higher cost. This is the opposite of how the price mechanism works in a free market, where consumers (who are paying out of their own pocket) search for the cheapest prices and providers work hard to provide services that are equally efficacious but less costly.
Milton Friedman via Vijay Boyapati said:It is clear that licensure is the key to the medical profession's ability to restrict the number of physicians who practice medicine. It is also the key to its ability to restrict technological and organizational changes in the way medicine is conducted.
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