CBO: Baucus Health Care Bill Slashes Deficit By $81B Over Next Decade
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care, Legislation, Money
Not only that it’s fully paid for.
That’s the latest report from the CBO and it’s encouraging to say the very least.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years but be offset by enough spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion.The net number of legal U.S. residents without health insurance would reduce by 29 million over 10 years, the CBO further concluded.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus hailed the CBO score as “very good news” that confirms Democratic claims that the bill can expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans and lower the deficit at the same time. He said a final committee vote would be scheduled once he consults with committee members. Baucus also said he trusted the accuracy of the score since the CBO has had the legislation for several days and that the next step after a committee vote is to merge the bill with the version passed this summer by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
We’re getting close to reform folks…it’s going to happen…
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 and is filed under Health Care, Legislation, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Wrong….Its not fully paid for but thats the beauty of the democrats plan.
The Bacchus bill DOES NOT contain a public option.
Last week Harry Reid said that any bill sent to the president for signing will have a public option.
CUT AND PASTED!!!!!!! The following……
Senate Democrats desperate to find a way to pass a health care bill that includes a federal insurance plan may have come up with a way to do it without putting moderate members who oppose it in political jeopardy.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.
The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.
“It’s brilliant,” said a top Senate Republican aide. “It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option.”
Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he’s considering it.
“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. “We have different options — that is one.”
Let us also remember that the CBO is working with existing numbers. These numbers do not include the 12 million Illegals they will legalize in the next year or two that will then be needing the government to PAY for their health care.
This is more government lies, deception and double talk and Im not even going to bother to pretend to patronize anyone at this site with an obligatory “Republicans do it too.”. Because Im sure even that will get me called hitler jr.
October 7th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Hmmm, let me see. 8.1 billion (the annual rate of decrease) is what percent of 1.4 trillion? Hmm.
That’s 8,100,000,000 divided by 1,400,000,000,000, or 8.1 divided by 1400, which is 0.0058 or about 0.6%.
So, presuming that more subsidized Americans are NOT added to the rolls over the next decade, spending will decrease by a little bit more than half of one percent. I think the CBO went on to project that it will take the US about 47 minutes longer to go bankrupt at that rate. Yahoo!
October 7th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I’m with Kranky, I call shennanigans. Mark up the price of your new-in-stock sofa bed recliner by 300%, then “slash” the price! What a bargain! Its the oldest trick in the book. This is local furniture-store stuff.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Hard to argue with the projections at the CBO because they are nonpartisan.
BUT, I must say that if they recognize that the co-op plan will do little to promote competition, I am wondering why even leave it in there. I am one of those public-option advocates.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
And we will have a public option too!
October 8th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Whatever we get now we’ll get the rest later. Don’t forget: Republicans started by screaming that Medicare was socialized medicine and now they vow eternal allegiance to Medicare.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:35 am
No one seems to get the reality that we are broke. As soon as the world decides to unload the dollar or creates a new world currency standard we are screwed. Spending more money now will only make the transition worse. You might like what the bill says it will accomplish, but it is a straw man. Once we can no longer print money through the federal reserve, our economy will collapse.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Yes we are broke and the ones trying to “fix it” in large part helped to cripple our economy ! The golden goose is about out of golden eggs !
October 8th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Which is nice, until you reach the CBO’s disclaimer, repeated in no fewer than 12 places: “CBO and JCT’s analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.” As Prof. Jacobson pithily sums it up, the problem for posts championing the “Baucus bill” is that there is no Baucus bill. There are some general concepts that the CBO has analyzed with all else held equal. All else, however, will not remain equal. I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can be credulous enough to believe that a huge new government spend-and-intervene program will be spending- and revenue-neutral.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:18 am
One thing we do know already is that it will spend a ton of federal money even if the gov’t finds ways to grab it back via taxes on the “wealthy” and lower medicare reimbursements to providers:
From New Atlantis. Apparently a conservative site, but I have no reason to think they have the figures wrong. That’s a lot of money to spend per poor family, even if you acknowledge that its a morally desirable enterprise, which not all folks do.
Welcome Derrick. You will find that saying such things makes the vast majority of folks here just RUSH to call you chicken little. I’ve been beating the drum over the gross overspending that started with the last Bush budget and the inevitable consequences. Here, that makes me no more than the turd in the free-spending punchbowl in the eyes of most of the regular posters. Justin, MIke Reynolds, GerryF and Nick Benjamin are just a few of the regulars who are sure everything will be just fine. Apparently, because well, it just has to be. What stout fellows.
So be sure to denominate your retirement assets in foreign currencies. No one will listen to us.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Whatever we get now we’ll get the rest later. Don’t forget: Republicans started by screaming that Medicare was socialized medicine and now they vow eternal allegiance to Medicare.
MR…..you are without a doubt extremely partisan but what is it that you dont understand about Medicare?
Its bankrupt. No ones claiming its not good for seniors. Or that it should be abolished. What the GOP screamed about in the beginning has come to pass…ITS inefficiently run Government health care…..ITS BANKRUPT……point proven. Their calls of socialized medicine were simply a catch word for inefficient and ultimately failed health care. Bankrupt is failed.. Obama wanting to cut 500 billion in WASTE…FRAUD…and ABUSE is evidence of a failed health care.
What is it you don’t understand about 11.7 trillion dollar debt and 1.7 trillion, 1.5 trillion and 980 billion deficits in Obama’s next three years as president???
So your wet dream is for the government to produce a single payer system.
Fine….Our health care costs in this country run about 3 tillion per year. If we cut that in half and the government pays for that 1.5 trillion out of pocket our deficits are now 3 trillion per year and we are screaming like a meteor to third world status in America.
Once your coveted single payer hits, there will be no competion and there will be less incentives for people to spend 12 years in medical school to make a 100k a year when a Truck driver for Yellow Freight makes 88k per year driving a Union Truck.
What incentive will the nurse have to make 12 bucks an hour to work midnights to 7 for 10 straight days when they can become teachers in some states and make 25 bucks an hour and work m-f…8-4 with summers off and 1 month vacation during the rest of the year?
If health care reform under the democrats is such a wonderful idea…why are they waiting to institute it in 2013…one year after the 2012 elections?
October 8th, 2009 at 9:44 am
kranky kritter Says:
That’s one of the things CBO’s analysis holds equal. What do these proposals do to the tax base and revenues over time? We’re talking about transforming a major sector of the economy, one that reaches into every other sector of the economy via people’s engagement with it. What does this do to employment, for instance, and thus income taxes? Spending is only one side of the deficit equation.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Doomed:
I missed the part where I claimed to be for single payer. Actually I’m for a public option. Which makes the rest of your rambling screed irrelevant.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I understand MR.
The public option is the fast track to single payer. Everyone knows it and several dozen high profile figures have been caught on tape admitting it…..
October 8th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Simple questions: Will any public “option” be in the “reconciliation” bill or the “sidecar” bill? Will it require 51 or 60 votes? What about Reid’s “public option amendment” mentioned in comment above?
I’m beginning to think that the senators themselves don’t know for sure. For now, I’m sticking with Senator Gregg’s explanation. He stated any public “option” will be in the “sidecar” and will require 60 votes.
But why is Reid suggesting he can pass a “public option amendment” with just 51 votes?
Wouldn’t an amendment fall under the same rules?
October 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Fail. Logical fallacy.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
So Agnostick am I begging the question then when I post links of high government officials conceding that could be the plan?
My logical fallacy is a slippery slope to what? To where?
You must define the slippery slope I’ve taken that makes it a fallacy not simply post links to wiki and hope that Alinskizes my posts.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Simon Says:
How, though, is the present system “spending-neutral?” What doctor, clinic, or hospital is willing to say to a sick or injured person, “I’m sorry, but I can’t treat you–you don’t have enough money, and I can’t afford to give you a freebie.” I think it’s possible that if enough providers turned folks away, those without health insurance or a savings account to dip into, might do a better job of planning ahead… but who’s willing to suffer through that particular public relations nightmare?
I don’t know all the models and hypotheses used by the CBO to arrive at these numbers. Preventative care? Maybe–but last year, the New England Journal of Medicine said, “Although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not.”
About a month ago, on his HBO program, Bill Maher suggested that maybe the health care industry shouldn’t be profit-driven. As an example, he claimed that there were studies and statistics showing how prison populations went up after the state prisons were contracted out to corporations. After all, how can you make money off a prison if it has too many empty cells?
I don’t know yet if Maher’s claims are correct, but I think it’s a good question for the health care industry: If the point of health care is to make you “healthier,” and thereby reduce the need for health care products and services… how do for-profit HMOs and pharmas stay in the game if they cure people?
My gut feeling on this is that a non-profit or government provider is more likely to work towards curing a disease or condition… while a for-profit provider is more likely to work towards managing that disease, for the long-term. What, for example, would a cure for Type II Diabetes mean for manfacturers of insulin?
Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com
October 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Guys, of course the Public Option leads to Single Payer. If Doomed says it enough times, it’ll become true! ;)
Back to the bill at hand, I’m happy to see something moving through. Does it still have that stupid penalty for not having insurance on it? That’s really the only thing I have a major problem with.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Seriously though, I have a hard time figuring how it doesn’t. Either its a crappy deal and no one opts in, or its a good deal and more and more people opt in over time.
Shh. you’ll get tossed into the drain-circler’s buzzkill club with me. Many pro-form folks are deeply committed to the notion that preventative care is a win-win that’s good for your health _and_ saves money. Michael Reynolds for one is sure that the NEJM just must be wrong because he can name several cases where he believes it’s cost effective.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Correct. This is the most frightening thing about it. Once the government takes over a social institution, there is no turning back. A cycle of dependency ensues, and more and more people concede more and more power to the government to fix the problems that the government has then created.
This is precisely why we cannot allow the government to take control of health care in this country now.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
@Agnostik Elliminating the profits is the only way for a health care system in America to become affordable by the US Populace. I will agree with that and thats the point of a single payer system.
@Agnostik the current system is not spending Neutral. It is healthcare that is driven by profits because its been a benefit and not a RIGHT.
It is why the US government getting involved in the health care business via Medicare and Medicaide is so far out of their element. The government has to compete with the private sector for health coverages and loses everytime. That is why Medicare is bankrupt, Medicaide is bankrupt and Social Security is bankrupt. Its why the US postal system is bankrupt or very nearly so. Amtrak. Look at any federally run program that competes with the FREE MARKET system and it loses every time.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Jimmy:
Yeah, because we might end up like the French: getting the same health care for half as much money. Oh horrors!
What people like you consistently refuse to get is that we have a lousy system. Lousy, cruel, stupid, wasteful. The French, the Swiss, the Dutch, the Danes, they all manage to have universal coverage and all live as long as we do and all have better infant mortality rates and all of them spend half as much.
The degree of idiocy required to defend a system that covers only a portion of the people and yet bankrupts both the country and the citizenry is astounding. Our system sucks. Our system is lousy. Our system is quite frankly moronic. We are the only developed nation on earth that thinks when you lose your job you and your family should also lose health care.
And guys like you demand, insist that we keep it rather than improve it. It sucks: let’s keep it!
Ignorant jingoism.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Look at any federally run program that competes with the FREE MARKET system and it loses every time.
And so the plan is and always has been to remove competition from the mix.
Single payer.
The question becomes…what to do with all those millions of employees who will be phased out over the next 10-15 years.
As Obama said….I envision an end to health insurance companies…Hes on record, in front of a camera saying it….clearly and without excuses.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Look at any federally run program that competes with the FREE MARKET system and it loses every time.
Really? Name some.
I’ll start: US Marine Corps vs. Blackwater.
It’s a stupid thing to say, Doomed because of course there are almost no areas where the federal government competes directly with private industry. So you have no basis for your conclusion. And please don’t try Post Office vs. FedEx. The PO gets a letter anywhere for 40 cents. What does FedEx do for 40 cents?
October 8th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days.
Okay how about the marine corps vs blackwater. Cost to run the marine corps…staggering…cost to hire out blackwater…a few 100 million. Listening to anti Republicans discuss politics….priceless.
Lets look at General Motors vs Ford…….Bankrupt.
But lets try Amtrak vs any other railroad………bankrupt
Lets look at the post office…..Bankrupt
Lets look at the Medicaide vs Anybody…..bankrupt.
Lets look at wellfare vs. charities. Staggering spending with no end in site and no accountability.
Lets look at Medicare vs Blue cross, Blue shield……bankrupt.
Lets look at Social Security vs. 401k, annuities, roth IRA, teamsters retirement, Pepsi retirement, teachers retirement………Bankrupt.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I wrote:
I quoted one sentence from the NEJM–one. Grand total of 18 words, one comma, one period, and a pair of quotation marks.
Are you (and perhaps Michael, as well) sure that you read all 18 words? Maybe some folks are only reading 15 or 16 words?
–Ag
October 9th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Ag_
Not sure if I missed your point or you missed mine. I was being a bit sarcastic. My bad. I’m trying to highlight to everyone that:
•many folks think wish and hope that preventative care is a win-win proposition, that its BOTH a good idea for folks and a net saver of money for the system
•the people who know, who have studied it, who have done systematic comprehensive assessments of it? They say its a canard, that while preventative care is indisputably a good for patient health, it doesn;t save money and may even cost more
I put this kernel into fact-finder/mythbuster category. Myths like these are the basis for avoiding acknowledgement that healthcare reform requires making difficult choices. I don’t think that this is a conservative or liberal viewpoint. It’s a mattter of being realistic about what we know, and being financially responsible.
Does that help? I wish that preventative care by and large also saved money. It would be great news. But it seems asa though the people who believe that it does have only anecdotes for ammunition. The people that say it don’t have expertise and data.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Here’s where I lean towards agreeing with Mike and away from Jimmi, although perhaps not with Mike’s zeal. And that’s a whole lengthy chautauqua that I’ll spare folks from. Here’s the short version. The free market hypothesis loves to blame the government for why healthcare doesn’t work, saying that the current system is so far away from a free market that it’s ludicrous to call it a market failure.
But I find that an almost faith-based argument. Free marketeers have yet to come up with any sort of good answer for oligopoly, the mature market dominated by a few major players that performs for all intents and purposes just like the slow, expensive, craooy-performing gov’t systems we don’t like.
The only answer they have is that the market needs to be made more free, and then they go right to the free marketeers bible for a bunch of canned cant about regulations being bad and needing small nimble competition etc etc.
Complex evolved systems don’t go backwards whether they are gov’t systems or not. Entropy and inertia are not solved by the free market. Perhaps in theory, but never in fact. The system we have now is effed up. I don’t think the conservatives have a very good answer that is composed of specific and realistic ideas. They just have cant, and complaints.
Jimmi, I’m as frightened of a big gov’t solution as you. But I’m at least as frightened of an unreformed or more free market system that would undeniably seek to leave me, high, dry, and on my own as I get older and inevitably become one of the people who needs to consume more services. I’ve already done most of my time as person who was a net profit center. By and large, the folks my age who don’t have this fear are those who have done very well and accumulated a bulletproof nest egg.
The free market hypothesis thrives on competition, and on winners and losers. Folks like Mike who ask whether winners and losers is an appropriate model for healthcare have my sympathy.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:23 am
kranky-I think I agree with everything you said here.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Right, because I took your side this time! Friendly LOL.
Seriously though, my own study of the insights of economics and free market ideas makes me sure that they provide insight into the world’s workings. And I have no doubts whatsoever that many of the conservative-envisioned negative side effects of a healthcare system with more government involvement will come to pass. None.
The current system has not been, so far, that crappy for me personally even though I realize it has many flaws, namely the cracks that others have fallen through. But I can see the trends and where they point. Going on as we have been going seems to me to represent more risk, both personally and systemically.
And make no mistake, the economics of this, being math, will be as ruthless as math always is. We can choose the nature of what the bottom line will be, but there will be a bottom line based on whatever choices we make, and a price tag associated with it. Over the long-term, we can’t get anymore than we are willing to pay for.
There is no circumventing the basic conundrum of a limited supply of healthcare and resources to pay for it on one hand, and an infinite demand for it. The kinder, more generous, and expansive we make out bottom line, the more adversely it will affect human enterprise in all other domains. And by enterprise, I do not mean just start-up businesses, I also mean things like education, public safety, and federal gov’t solvency, just to name a few.
October 9th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Our businesses always need regulation or they will rape, pillage and plunder the public in the name of profits.
I believe strong regulation is needed to keep the markets people oriented rather then free market oriented.
It is precisely this problem though that makes it so hard for the free markets to do their jobs in the health care industry. When red tape and regulation protects one or two health care providers per state then those providers are given most favored status and can pretty much charge what they want.
Putting a public option into this mix with a highly regulated health care system will pillage the private insurance companies who are hopelessly buried under debt of red tape. Inflexible and unable to compete they will have to cut jobs, shed expenses to compete at the cost of performance. As their performance struggles more turn to the government whom has no regulations and no desire to make money.
The public option is single payer in 10-15 years. Even Obama has admitted such on camera in interviews. Remember he is an Alinsky Radical…..their tactic is to convince you they are moderate while being a radical……I have stopped falling for their facade.
October 9th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Actually I was giving you more credit than that. It was this statement that I really appreciated. (Unless I misread your intent on sympathy)
Folks like Mike who ask whether winners and losers is an appropriate model for healthcare have my sympathy.
My guess is that the numbers can be debated up or down from either side. Whether it is the role of government or not leads to a more IMO honest debate to start from. If you think government should not be involved, you’re just fishing for a reason to be against something you would never be for. If you think government should be involved, then sit down at the table and make your cases for an approach.
I think alot of people wouldn’t vote for health care if Jesus came back and drew up the plan. It’s fine to take that opinion but be honest about the why of the disagreement.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Okay, for some frick-frackety reason, it seems like I’m getting a lot of posts dumped into the “moderation bin” lately.
My point was this:
Some do, some don’t–as with most everything else, the Truth lies somewhere in the middle. Not black, not white… but grey.
Also, kranky, I agree wholeheartedly with your concerns about the so-called, dubiously-named “free market.” I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: I don’t see how corporate, profit-driven health care and big pharma can stay in the game by actually curing people, making them healthier, making them better–to do so would effectively shrink their customer base. How can you increase profits with a shrinking customer base?!?
Right now, the government is neck-deep in a massive rollout of flu vaccines, trying to actually prevent people from getting sick, or for certain individuals, even dying from a potentially-fatal virus.
And what’s “Big Pharma” been up to lately?
Oh, nothing but the most important stuff. Critical, valuable, life-saving medicine. You know… stuff like this.
Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com
October 9th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Barring a meteor hit, will our nation’s population get bigger every year?
Will everybody still get sick hundreds of times during their life?
Do we all die at some point?
Because the answer to all three of those questions will always be yes, insurance companies will always be in business. End of story.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Ag, I would not interpret the quote you cite as suggesting the answer is somewhere in the middle, unless by middle you mean all parts except the extremes.
When an academic journal uses language like “the vast majority,” they’re weighing in strongly towards one side.
The healthier we get, the higher we raise the bar. We take for granted hosts and hosts of medications that previous generations would regard as utter miracles. The healthcare industry doesn’t seem close to curing death. And every additional year of life is bought at a higher price than the last. Even if healthcare could totally cure every ill, they’d be extremely busy doing so, along with focusing even more on providing extra years of life to failing bodies.
It’s IMO extremely unrealistic to expect that medicine can make us immortal. But there seems to be virtually infinite potential for profit in extending the human lifespan. Doctors are mechanics for the human body. As long as there are people, we’ll break down and need doctors to try to fix us. I just can’t see any possible way for the customer base to shrink as you seem to forecast.
October 10th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Doomed, you ain’t exactly intintellectual honesty are you?
GM went bankrupt as a private firm and was saved by the government.
The USMC costs a lot less than Blackwater per soldier. Ordinary Marines never get 6-figure salaries. Heck you have to be a General-Officer, or a Bird Colonel with two decades experience to get Blackwater money in the USMC.
Amtrak is not comparable to any other railroad. It carries people. The rest carry freight, primarily low-value, heavy, commodities. In fact the only real example you could point to is Conrail. CR was a 1976 consolidation of many bankrupt Northeastern Railroads, and turned a profit in 1987.
The Post Office was doing fine before the economic crisis. Do you send you Christmas cards buy FedEx?
Medicaid is government funded, but at least in Michigan it’s run by private companies.
Welfare vs. generic charities. Doomed, which Charities? Which Welfare program? If you wanna impress us here at Donklephant generic talking points ain’t gonna work.
Medicare is not bankrupt yet. Neither is Blue Cross. But if you look at the actual numbers Medicare is doing much better than Blue Cross. It’s costs grow slower, it’s users like it more, etc.
401ks have taken a beating lately. They’re tied to the stock market, and that’s been in a funk. Almost everybody with an actual 401k has lost money over the past few years. Usually five or six figures worth. Most of the rest broke even, despite continuing to contribute thousands each year. Social Security is doing much better than 401ks. It will run out of money if the Feds don’t tweak it a bit, but that’s peanuts compared to the beating my parents have taken. To rescue most 401ks we’d have to go back in time and convince Greenspan to regulate the mortgage-backed securities that caused this mess.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:01 am
House Democrats are floating the idea of a windfall-profits tax on the private health insurance industry as a way to finance their healthcare overhaul, and to drum up support among members of a divided caucus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the windfall profits tax idea “very preliminary,” saying she’s asked House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to look at how much the tax could raise.
Cut and pasted…..To prove for the umpteenth time that the Democrats dont want insurance companies in America. They hate corporations. They hate Corporate welfare. They can do a better Job keeping the Poor……..POOR!!
NB….. You can pretend the US government does not compete with the free market if you want. The comparison for GM was after the bankruptcy in which the company is closing plant after plant. Closing down entire lines of vehicles (see saturn). The Marine corp was a joke…
No ones ever compared the military to mercenaries except of course now you are doing it and actually being sincere in believing your winning a point on the debate stage.
Im here to bring the other side of the debate. Something sorely lacking around here. Keep on debating Marines vs. Blackwater. It was actually funny stuff.
October 10th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
After staring at Baucus’s silly grin for a couple of days does anyone else have this growing urge to slap the smile off of his face? :-)
October 11th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Dude look at my name.
I’m from Detroit. I can tell that not only would Saturn be dead without government intervention, so would all of GM. That would take down a half-dozen parts suppliers non-Detroiters have never heard of, which would in turn destroy companies like Toyota that depend on their parts.
That’s why pro-market Republican approved the initial loan to GM.
Somebody isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, is he?
You did it on October 8th at 8:55 PM.
And I’, still waiting for you to defend the rest of your list. Unless you’re going to claim mtrak was all my idea.
Note to you:
If you think offering a detailed argument, waiting for each point of that argument to be individually refuted, and then claiming you were misinterpreted on one of those points is “bringing the other side of the debate” you’re sadly mistaken.
That’s so weird it’s not even a logical fallacy. It’s kinda like “disproving a minor point,” but you aren’t disproving one of my minor points you’re disproving your own. Which adds a strawman element. But
To bring “the other side of the debate” one must debate. Which you are not doing.
October 11th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Please don’t feed the trolls… :)
October 12th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Good Lord, if I read the Alinskyite meme re Obama one more time I’m gonna laugh myself into a coma. Seriously. Where’s the Bill Ayers shadow cabinet thread?