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WHEN are we going to CUT medicare?

No, it is not a logical fallacy. You made a direct statement about there being far more retirees than individuals working to support them. Followed by a statement:



So, I'm not misrepresenting your position, also, the focus of my argument in the preceding paragraph wasn't the statement about liberals and retirees, it was the re-iteration of a direct question to you. What aspects of medicare would you like to cut? Why?

This is completely reasonable question to be asking considering the title of this thread is: "WHEN are we going to CUT medicare?". When followed by the OP however:



I guess you weren't looking to get into a substantive debate on medicare and how we could reduce it, but instead to get validation for a common notion that medicare is costly and may possible lead us to financial issues in the future.

In answering the OP directly, I would say, yes I deny that Medicare will bankrupt this country. My reasoning for this, is, before becoming bankrupt, I can only assume that we would probably cut these entitlements dramatically to stave off financial ruin. However, I have no proof of this, nor do I have a crystal ball to see what happens in the future. I would prefer, rather than debating about what will happen outside of our control in the future. To debate about what we can do to fix what is wrong now, so that it does not cause these problems in the future. With that said, let's continue.



I apologize for offending you with my caricature. However, everything you have said points to that. At least in the short term. If we were to cut SS, and medicare tomorrow. There will be a lot of dead elderly citizens. This is not hypothesis or conjecture. These people do not have retirement savings, and do not have a capacity to re-enter the workforce, some of them at least. Now, if we implemented a system where we are going to eliminate SS for everyone who is currently under the age of 30. Giving those individuals 35 years to save money for their end of life, I could get behind that. Still, there are people that live their entire life barely scraping by. What do we do with them at their end-of-life? You spoke to the generosity of people toward their family and neighbors, are you expecting a relative, or a relative stranger (neighbor) to come to the rescue for the remaining years of these individuals lives? What if these neighbors and immediate family members have also scraped by all their life, such as is the situation in many low income communities, then who takes care of them? Nobody?

I believe in the power of average people to make a life for themselves, a life which includes being able to save for their retirement. I myself at 23 years old have already been contributing to my 401k for over a year, significantly, and have absolutely no faith in getting SS at my end of life. But, I also recognize that not everyone has the same level of financial stability as myself. There will be some people who simply cannot survive and prepare for retirement (low income families, the working poor). Once again, what do we do with those people?

This conversation so far has remained restricted to people who have a capacity to fend for themselves. What do you feel about providing medicare to the children of these low income families? Their parents cannot afford to pay for their health care when they get sick, chicken pox, or broken bones. Nor can they afford to pay for private health insurance. I know, b/c I came from a low income family. I either didn't go to the hospital, or I went to the ER, since it is illegal for them to refuse treatment. Then, we simply didn't pay the bill. My parents had 0 income it was not as if they could do anything about it. This sort of behavior by low income patients makes the cost of competent peoples health care rise. Since, someone has to pay for this care in the end. Beyond children, who can probably remain resilient to most of the illnesses they incur without serious medical care. What do you feel about the disabled, who not only take up a portion of medicare, but also of SS. These people do not have a capacity to fend for themselves, often have weak immune systems, and will often times never contribute to society. What do you propose we do with them?



Please see above on what I feel about individuals. How can you have classic bottom-up grassroot development, when all of the wealth is held by those at the top. I believe the statistic is something like 35% of Americas wealth is held by the top 1% of its population, or something along those lines. Would you be happier if the bottom 99% of the population spend more to support these programs?



You're for an equal cut to what? To medicare? Such as everyone get's capped at X amount of dollars per year, or something like that?

I would love to say where I would make the cuts, but, I do not have the budgetary knowledge to see where the waste is clearly. I would definitely look to our largest portions of the budget first. Medicare, Social Security, and Defense Spending. Once I got a more granular look at these individual budgets, I could make an educated choice on what to cut, where to cut it, and why I feel it should be cut. Maybe it should be our responsibility as citizens to review our federal budget in detail and know where we're spending our money. That way we can make more educated appeals to our representatives about where to cut, instead of off the cuff remarks about what should be cut, because of what we're read in the news, or heard from others.



If we were to cut the military budget in half it would go along way, but considering it is only barely the largest portion of our budget. I agree that ONLY cutting defense is not the answer. But, knowing that the US military budget is nearly 15 times larger than the military budget of ANY other country, shows there has to be some areas where we can save money there. Half of our military budget is still 9 times larger than the next largest military budget. I don't think this would be a sacrifice to our physical safety. Where does it state that entitlements are not the role of the federal government? At the time that this country was founded there was no need for entitlements. There was so much opportunity, and so little health, nobody thought anything about entitlements at that point. The life expectancy in those days was more than 30 years less than it is today. The last thing they were thinking about was Social Security for the elderly.



(This quote had to be shortened because I exceeded the 13000 character limit)



This is absurd to extrapolate to this degree. Our entitlement programs are about a right to live. Not a right to live comfortably. If you want to live comfortably you need to work hard and earn it, just as it should be. No one has ever, or will ever suggest that it is the right of all Americans that they be provided with all basic necessities free of charge regardless of individual affluence. There will never be a need to extend entitlements to ALL citizens. Most citizens earn a living and are happy to do so. There are a minority of citizens who do not, possibly cannot, or are not particularly successful at doing so. These are the citizens that require entitlements. If it were up to me I wouldn't call them entitlement programs at all. They should more likely be called Charity programs. Since, in reality, it's really what they are. I don't know where government has stated that it is a right that all citizens be provided with these things. Though I wouldn't put it past politicians to make those types of bold claims to sell their products.

I believe that people in times of hardship deserve a helping hand to keep on their feet. I also believe this should be a limited hand. I am a proponent of limited charity. However, I do not have a solution to what to do with the people that even after receiving their limited charity, still cannot get on their feet. Should we just let them die? Maybe that is the solution, I am not able to answer that question right now. It would probably help with the worlds overpopulation issues. Maybe, if we take away the entitlements, the people using them will pick themselves up out of the gutters by their bootstraps and get back to doing productive, value-added work, to survive. However, with an unemployment rate of what it is today, for the average uneducated person getting into the work force, this probably isn't a likely possibility. Maybe instead of subsidizing all of these other programs we only subsidize people to get a college/trade school education. There are relevant statistics that college educated individuals can earn a decent living wage. But, what do we do with those that cannot make it through college, or are too far along in their life to learn a new trade?

I have to ask, before I respond:

How do you multi-quote the post? I've tried clicking on that multi-quote button at the bottom-right hand corner of the post, but nothing happens.
 
Yeah, that doesn't work. Just enclose the areas you want to quote with [-QUOTE] and [-/QUOTE]. When you click reply with quote you will notice those tags at the beginning and end. So, just enclose the areas you want to separate in different sets of [-QUOTE] and [-/QUOTE] tags. Make sure to delete the "-" I added to show the tags, I had to do this to avoid quoting out the word "and". Hope this helps!
 
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I have to ask, before I respond:

How do you multi-quote the post? I've tried clicking on that multi-quote button at the bottom-right hand corner of the post, but nothing happens.

You have to use that button to check off all the posts you want to respond to and then click on the "reply to thread button." It should bring up all the quoted posts together.
 
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Ah, that button is for quoting multiple posts, not breaking up a single post into multiple quotes. That makes sense.
 
What do you say about every country with some form of universal health care having lower overall costs than we do, while simultaneously having better outcomes?

That is a massive simplification of their systems. It is a huge debate! There are some good things we can learn from the Europeans and from the Japanese, but there's more we must avoid. If you really want to get into greater detail, let's save it for another thread. This thread is about medicare. Ultimately, I believe in a consumer-driven health care system, NOT a centrally planned institution. The fact is that many of these systems in Europe and Japan are already making cuts to their system. Their systems are in worse condition than ours, mainly because their demographic disparities are far different than our own. In Germany, they pay a general practice doctor $50,000! There are little incentives for improvment and competition in those countries.

You might believe that Cuba has a superior system than our own, and we're one of the worst. Then how come the United States comes in first for many things? Cardio disease treatments, cancer treatments, drugs, medical devices, etc.?

The libertarian idea of the perfect free market is a fantasy.

Who said anything about perfect? The free market (or capitalism) is the best system, so far discovered.

The free market is great, but it requires a few things: choice, competition, and an informed customer base. Health care has issues with all three.

How do you get choice and competition when there's a government monopoly over the entire system? Informed customer base? That is probably true. It takes an informed customer to buy a good car, but then again it doesn't require that you be a mechanic as well.

We don't get to choose if, when, or how we get sick, and when sick we don't always have a choice whether to get treated or not. (literally life and death!)

But you CAN decide to purchase a high-deductible, low-cost, catastrophic insurance plan that will cover you in case of a serious incident. It might put you in debt up to 5,000. But that's better than facing the mountain of debt you normally see from a healhcare crisis. You might argue that the poor people might not be able to afford it. But in my own personal experience of living in many inner-cities, "poor" people often have a house, a car or two, television with cable access, a computer with Internet connection, etc. The real reason people face mountains of healthcare debt was because they were not proactive in the beginning. It is not the fault of greedy insurance companies or greedy doctors. It's the fact that they were not responsible enough to purchase one of these plans to ensure they were covered in an emergency. Other than that, they offer payment plans for emergency room visits (I've gone to the emergency room twice without insurance, private charity paid the hospital expense, while I paid out-of-pocket, over time, for the doctor's bill). A doctor's visit can cost about two months worth of cable. Ultimately, some Americans decide to sacrifice health care for entertainment. A large number (I can't remember the exact statistic) of those 45,000 uninsured made something like $70,000 or more a year.

Competition is tricky. There are only so many doctors you can go to, and especially with emergency care your options end up being whichever one is closest to you.

As I argued with another poster, perhaps the governmental permit requirements for building hospitals has something to do with the limited availability of healthcare. As I said earlier, in some states with these ridiculous laws, there are more veterinarian hospitals in a square mile then there are human hospitals. Perhaps the occupational circumstances involving managed care and tort reflect the growing discontent with the medical profession. That might be a reason why we're faced with a shortage of doctors (though not shorter than Canada!).

Customers are just average folks, you can't expect them to make reasonably informed health care decisions when their doctor had to go to so many years of medical school, residency, etc, to learn all this. Who would ever have the necessary information to tell their doctor that they're wrong? And how many people really want the cheap option when it comes to their own health anyway?

I think that is a condescending statement and one that leaves an impression that you think human beings are inherently stupid. For the last question, what is your solution? To provide EVERYONE with cadillac insurance, paid for by the taxpayer? I think that if there was a consumer-driven health care market, patients WOULD be discussing things like prices and costs with their doctor. Now, everything is managed, and doctors don't even know how much a procedure or treatment may cost. And, as I've pointed out with the areas of dental, vision, and veterinarian care, a consumer-driven market allows competition to thrive. Competition is the ONLY way you're going to get lower costs with higher quality.

Ask yourself why we have government-funded police forces and fire departments. Why the free market can't handle such a task properly. You'll find many of those same factors present in health care.

I would ask that you provide one, single example of a program or policy that was done better by government. Even private mercenaries are better at fighting the war in Afghanistan! I strongly believe, despite the lack of competence, that the government should serve to protect our liberties and to protect the environment. I'm a libertarian, NOT an anarchist.


Avoid the federal straw man. Universal health care systems aren't always run at a federal level.

Are you serious? I'll just let this statement stand on its own. People can see the inherent contradiction.
 
We aren't making apples to apples comparisons.

With the exception of veterinarian care, yes we are. Dental and vision health are just as important as cardio and pulmonary health.

Vet care is out because if something is too expensive, we let the animal die. Will we do that with people? If yes, than we can make a valid comparison. I suspect for the vast majority of people, the answer is no.

Some people are unwilling to let their animals die. And when they have to find a decent doctor to keep the animal alive, they often find vets providing better care to their patients, at lower costs. Second, there are many instances where the plug is pulled simply because it costs too much money to keep the person alive (or because they stipulate in their will that they would not to live in such a condition). The cases where people die because the costs run too high happens in both market-driven systems and in UHC systems.

Also, many people who have health insurance also carry dental and vision.

I'm the only one I know who carries it. According to the NYT, roughly 100 million people go without dental insurance, as opposed to 45,000 for general healthcare. According to anothe reliable source, only half of Americans have vision insurance.

However, lets look at dental. If you lose your teeth, you can get dentures. They aren't cheap, but again, its not the same as losing your life.

In many cases, untreated gum and tooth disease can spread to the rest of your body and kill you. There are also diseases of the eye that can cause fatality. Of course, it is not as prevalent as health care, but it is roughly just as important to take care of your teeth and eyes as it is to take care of any other part of your body.

Vision is also a different market when you look at it. For simple procedures, such as glasses, than yes, we have something resembling a free market. We have plenty of competition and it drives prices down. However, I, like many people, have vision insurance as well. If you look at laser correction, than often it is for things that we could use glasses for, this means there is an alternative solution that is cheaper and that introduces competition again. Other areas of medicine often do not have this. For example, there is no cheaper alternative to joint replacement procedures and usually those types of procedures are taken when other methods have failed.

Are you kidding?! What about the lowering costs, and higher quality of laser correction surgery? As I've argued before, the ONLY way to lower costs while simultaneously raising quality is to keep the competition. There is NO competition in a UHC system.

Either way, the downside of capitalism is when there is no money, we have to let there be a failure. Are we prepared to do that with life itself? Personally, I believe people are more important than money.

That is true. People are more important than money. But failure doesn't automatically mean death. The majority of Americans can provide for themselves, and charity can provide for those who can't.
 
I don't know why you say it's sugar-coated. It's relating the facts.

Everyone with an ounce of sense knows that the way around the Medicare endgame and the healthcare crisis is a higher deductible. So why don't we have one? Because the medical community lobbies against it. Follow the money!

Again, construct a large barrier to separate businesses from government, and then businesses have no reason to lobby the government.

The article was sugar-coated, as I've clearly elaborated above. Please see above to understand why I think it is sugar-coated.
 
PART 1

No, it is not a logical fallacy. You made a direct statement about there being far more retirees than individuals working to support them. Followed by a statement:

And when did I ever call the retirees worthless?

So, I'm not misrepresenting your position, also, the focus of my argument in the preceding paragraph wasn't the statement about liberals and retirees, it was the re-iteration of a direct question to you. What aspects of medicare would you like to cut? Why?

This is completely reasonable question to be asking considering the title of this thread is: "WHEN are we going to CUT medicare?". When followed by the OP however:

YES, you did misrepresent my position. It would be like calling you a Stalin-lover if you said you support HR 3962, or saying you just want Americans to die if you believe we should reduce the military. For me, the caricature you've painted is: "What can I do to lower my taxes so I don't have to pay for these old, worthless retirees." That is absolute nonsense! It's the common theme among certain individuals to paint those who are vocal regarding these unfunded liabilities as diabolical haters that want to throw old people out in the street. As I've said before, I would make a gradual, across-the-board cut of medicare and other entitlement programs at the federal level. What aspects would you like to cut?

I guess you weren't looking to get into a substantive debate on medicare and how we could reduce it, but instead to get validation for a common notion that medicare is costly and may possible lead us to financial issues in the future.

And why is costly liabilities and bankruptcy not getting into a substantive debate on medicare and how we could reduce it? I'm saying, there needs to be serious cuts, across the board, and the reason is obvious. Even the most sugar-coated article by the AARP, posted by Maggie, illustrates that not even the special interest lobby group intent on keeping the system can hide its ultimate fate. You, on the other hand, would like to reach out for solidarity and admit there is waste and there should be cuts. You just need to look at the facts before you can make a substantive argument. So? Look at the facts, and get back to me!

In answering the OP directly, I would say, yes I deny that Medicare will bankrupt this country. My reasoning for this, is, before becoming bankrupt, I can only assume that we would probably cut these entitlements dramatically to stave off financial ruin. However, I have no proof of this, nor do I have a crystal ball to see what happens in the future.

You need to reread the OP, and then read the contradiction you've made here. I asked if anyone denies that Medicare will bankrupt this country if we do not make drastic cuts. You respond that you deny it will, only because we'll eventually make drastic cuts. You obviously do not deny that medicare will bankrupt the country if we do not make drastic cuts. You're probably just torn on where you think the cuts should be made.

I would prefer, rather than debating about what will happen outside of our control in the future. To debate about what we can do to fix what is wrong now, so that it does not cause these problems in the future. With that said, let's continue.

We're are already debating the necessary steps to prevent the problems stated above.

I apologize for offending you with my caricature. However, everything you have said points to that. At least in the short term. If we were to cut SS, and medicare tomorrow. There will be a lot of dead elderly citizens. This is not hypothesis or conjecture. These people do not have retirement savings, and do not have a capacity to re-enter the workforce, some of them at least. Now, if we implemented a system where we are going to eliminate SS for everyone who is currently under the age of 30. Giving those individuals 35 years to save money for their end of life, I could get behind that.

You make a lot of grand assumptions and false generalizations, based on no evidence (at least, none cited). Your plan to eliminate SS for everyone under the age of 30 neglects a very crucial component of the overall problem. There is NO SUCH THING as a social security trust fund, in this country. The lockbox has been smashed and raided by every presidential administration since LBJ. Currently, we pay retirees on Social Security with money that is taken directly from the worker's paycheck. So, with that said, what do you think of the taxes that are necessary to maintain the SS of retirees? Are you willing to continue to tax people under thirty for a service they will NEVER recieve in their lifetime? We already spend six dollars on every senior for every one dollar we spend on a child, despite the fact that the elderly make up one of the wealthiest brackets of society. And you want to heighten the generational theft by taxing young people for a service they won't receive. It looks like that might already be happening. But you're ok with it?

Still, there are people that live their entire life barely scraping by. What do we do with them at their end-of-life? You spoke to the generosity of people toward their family and neighbors, are you expecting a relative, or a relative stranger (neighbor) to come to the rescue for the remaining years of these individuals lives? What if these neighbors and immediate family members have also scraped by all their life, such as is the situation in many low income communities, then who takes care of them? Nobody?

Once you understand that you can't save everybody and it would be impossible, and detrimental to attempt to do so, then you're ready for Economics 102. As I've said before, the large majority of Americans can take care of themselves, and private charity can provide for those who can't.

I believe in the power of average people to make a life for themselves, a life which includes eing able to save for their retirement. I myself at 23 years old have already been contributing to my 401k for over a year, significantly, and have absolutely no faith in getting SS at my end of life. But, I also recognize that not everyone has the same level of financial stability as myself. There will be some people who simply cannot survive and prepare for retirement (low income families, the working poor). Once again, what do we do with those people?

What do you wish to do with them? Every entitlement program is an utter failure, including the sacred cow of medicare. You can't solve everyone's dilemma, or save every life. So, why is it ok to pick-pocket other Americans in order to attempt to equalize society? Milton Friedman once said there are four ways to spend money. You can spend your money on yourself, and when you do you make sure you get the best for your buck. You can spend your money on other people, and when you do you're careful about costs but you still care about quality. You can spend other's people money on yourself, and you'll have a nice lunch. Finally, you can spend other people's money on other people, often neglecting the costs or the quality. The most efficient fiscal policy is to allow citizens to keep their earnings and to spend their own money.

This conversation so far has remained restricted to people who have a capacity to fend for themselves. What do you feel about providing medicare to the children of these low income families? Their parents cannot afford to pay for their health care when they get sick, chicken pox, or broken bones. Nor can they afford to pay for private health insurance. I know, b/c I came from a low income family. I either didn't go to the hospital, or I went to the ER, since it is illegal for them to refuse treatment. Then, we simply didn't pay the bill. My parents had 0 income it was not as if they could do anything about it. This sort of behavior by low income patients makes the cost of competent peoples health care rise. Since, someone has to pay for this care in the end. Beyond children, who can probably remain resilient to most of the illnesses they incur without serious medical care. What do you feel about the disabled, who not only take up a portion of medicare, but also of SS. These people do not have a capacity to fend for themselves, often have weak immune systems, and will often times never contribute to society. What do you propose we do with them?

I don't propose to do anything with them. I propose to cut the theft and waste of government-managed entitlements. I'm not completely against some sort of basic safety net that the misfortunate can use in tough times.
 
PART 2

Please see above on what I feel about individuals. How can you have classic bottom-up grassroot development, when all of the wealth is held by those at the top. I believe the statistic is something like 35% of Americas wealth is held by the top 1% of its population, or something along those lines. Would you be happier if the bottom 99% of the population spend more to support these programs?

This is nonsense. Wealth and profit simply means success. You want to take from one, very productive, minority and give their earnings to another minority, without hesitation. It is theft to steal a loaf of bread if you’re hungry, or to steal from rich to give to the poor. It is theft whether it is by government or by Robin Hood. “Grassroots development” is simply empowering the individual to make the choices for himself. Grassroots development is the antithesis of centralized planning. Grassroots is decentralized, privatized, simplified, and locally organized. The elites and the common people will always be separate. To artificially equalize society in order to eliminate this gap will often materialize with the most hellish society, IMHO.

I would love to say where I would make the cuts, but, I do not have the budgetary knowledge to see where the waste is clearly. I would definitely look to our largest portions of the budget first. Medicare, Social Security, and Defense Spending. Once I got a more granular look at these individual budgets, I could make an educated choice on what to cut, where to cut it, and why I feel it should be cut. Maybe it should be our responsibility as citizens to review our federal budget in detail and know where we're spending our money. That way we can make more educated appeals to our representatives about where to cut, instead of off the cuff remarks about what should be cut, because of what we're read in the news, or heard from others.

It’s not like the budget predictions are classified information.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/22/3/168.pdf?ck=nck

AEI - The Official Future of Medicare

It’s also not that mysterious to define the waste in the defense spending. Just look around. Do we really need our troops in every corner of the globe? I titled this thread “When are we going to CUT Medicare” and then the OP asked if anyone denied that Medicare will bankrupt us if we don’t make drastic cuts. As I predicted, not a single respondent actually denies the future of Medicare, but I’m sure many do think the statistics are exaggerating. So, everyone agrees. Now the only question is, when? Not where.

If we were to cut the military budget in half it would go along way, but considering it is only barely the largest portion of our budget. I agree that ONLY cutting defense is not the answer. But, knowing that the US military budget is nearly 15 times larger than the military budget of ANY other country, shows there has to be some areas where we can save money there. Half of our military budget is still 9 times larger than the next largest military budget. I don't think this would be a sacrifice to our physical safety. Where does it state that entitlements are not the role of the federal government? At the time that this country was founded there was no need for entitlements. There was so much opportunity, and so little health, nobody thought anything about entitlements at that point. The life expectancy in those days was more than 30 years less than it is today. The last thing they were thinking about was Social Security for the elderly.

For the defense discussion, I think we mostly agree. For the role of the federal government in issuing entitlements, I believe we can look at the constitution. The constitution is a body of literature that restricts the role of government to a very limited role. It does not entitle Americans to anything, except the rights to life, liberty, and property. The Bill of Rights explicitly limits what the Feds can do.

This is absurd to extrapolate to this degree. Our entitlement programs are about a right to live. Not a right to live comfortably. If you want to live comfortably you need to work hard and earn it, just as it should be. No one has ever, or will ever suggest that it is the right of all Americans that they be provided with all basic necessities free of charge regardless of individual affluence.

So, I guess (like me) you’re against many of the provisions found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is very common to call healthcare access a “right.” But if it is a natural “right” than that means EVERYONE is entitled to it, not just those who make less than $250,000 annually. You wouldn’t limit the rights of the wealthy to speak (or maybe you would), just like you shouldn’t limit any of the natural rights of the wealthy. And much of what I’ve already stated is not an absurd prediction, but reality in Europe. They believe daycare services, 3 months paid vacation, 6 hour work weeks, jobs, healthcare, etc. are all “rights” and they enact laws to ensure no one infringes upon these “rights.”

There will never be a need to extend entitlements to ALL citizens. Most citizens earn a living and are happy to do so. There are a minority of citizens who do not, possibly cannot, or are not particularly successful at doing so. These are the citizens that require entitlements. If it were up to me I wouldn't call them entitlement programs at all. They should more likely be called Charity programs. Since, in reality, it's really what they are. I don't know where government has stated that it is a right that all citizens be provided with these things. Though I wouldn't put it past politicians to make those types of bold claims to sell their products.

You must be joking. Charity is voluntary contributions from individuals (again, more akin to grassroots activity) to those who need it most. Entitlements are government handouts, generated by legal theft, to anyone politicians deem appropriate.

…Maybe instead of subsidizing all of these other programs we only subsidize people to get a college/trade school education. There are relevant statistics that college educated individuals can earn a decent living wage. But, what do we do with those that cannot make it through college, or are too far along in their life to learn a new trade?

The majority of 18 year olds in this country are not ready for college-bound material. People hate it when you say that, but 50-60 years ago, it was taken for granted. By artificially raising supply of a commodity (and higher education IS a commodity), and thereby artificially boosting demand, you also are artificially boosting costs. Hence, our enormously expensive, yet not-so-efficient state school system. In state schools, the average rate of graduation is 50%, while it takes roughly six years for the average state school student to complete his or her degree, versus something like 97% graduation rate and a 4 ½ year average timeframe in private schools. With the new overhaul in the Pell Grant, the taxpayer will not foot the entire bill. The overhaul will also make it more likely for students to extend their loan payments and/or have their loans completely forgiven by a certain given number of years. The best way to educate society is to have students pay for their own education. Students investing in their own education works out better than a society investing it for them, and then expecting them to complete a degree of some sort (even a useless degree). And we don’t have to be cramming the B.A. down their throats as if it is their only option (and I’m not saying you are, but it is a common misconception that everyone needs a B.A.)
 
Yes you do.. and it is easy to separate businessmen from politicians.. change your campaign financing laws. Ban political commericals on TV, ban direct and indirect campaign funding from corporations and many other small things.

So, instead of going at the root of the problem (eliminating subsidies, tariffs, guaranteed loans, favorable regulatory standards, taxes, wage laws, legalizing cottage industries, etc), you'd rather limit free speech?



And you missed the freaking point. I never said anything about JUST cutting military spending.. I said you can cut medicaid and all that WHEN you also cut military spending.. and that will never ever happen will it now?

You're probably forgetting that I'm a libertarian. What if I said ok? Let's cut military spending. Are you NOW ready to cut medicare?
 
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I apologize for not addressing these last couple arguments, I just recently returned from a vacation and am trying to get caught up at work, and with school. I know this is probably out of the minds of those involved by now, but, I will try to address these recent statements if I find some time.
 
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