Presidential Press Conference Non-Post
Jul 22nd, 2009 by Timothy Pancoast
Hi everyone, OPEN THREAD This is the post I am not going to do about the President’s Press Conference tonight. After my head exploded I am finding it hard to prepare a real post. Perhaps someone with more cranial fortitude will come along and do a full write up on the event. Till then go ahead and post your responses, or non-responses in the comments section For some reason it sounded like he could have just run this speech again and saved the energy. At least this time he didn’t fly to give it. I don’t care about carbon foot prints, but it may yet carbon credits may soon be another expense the taxpayer will have to buy for him. Why the rush, well Mr. Anderson The fact that you voted for a rushed bankruptcy reform bill which hurt sick people’s ability to clear medical debt is irrelevant. What bill have we rushed through which was over 300 pages that you would be proud of in the last 10 years? Newsweek’s Fineman panned it, and the National Review Online mocked the tonsil conspiracy. Thanks Tim for inviting me to play with your thread. DLA
The President sounded very good. He used the right language. It was like he watched the polling numbers on Fox News with dial guy, Frank Luntz.
The problem is that he means something different than most of us. When he says it won’t cost more. He means that it won’t add to the deficit more than the 630 million planned and that he supports tax increases on premiums and the rich to make up the money. He likes choice in medicine, but not for medical providers. He wants to force them all into the Mayo model.
He refuses to say if the public option will have to invest for future liability as private companies do or if it becomes another federal pay as you go liability like medicare. Medicare has lower costs because the future costs are not counted in. Private insurance has to plan for the future or go into receivership. The government plan can artificially appear low cost for years until the invisible hand catches up and spanks it. The invisible hand always wins. You either work with it or lose. That is why I like the Singapore model.
He refuses to say if the public option will have to invest for future liability as private companies do or if it becomes another federal pay as you go liability like medicare.
Unlike the private sector, government cannot sit on giant pots of money. If it does, it will have to be re-invested in the private sector, which would then become controlled by government money managers concerned about the performance of taxpayer investments. Nobody wants that.
What you call “pay as you go liability” is really an investment in the future of America. If you don’t think a future liability is a good bet for America, then you lack optimism.
The point is, David, that ALL other advanced nations have policies in place that provide adequate medical care to all their citizens and to the satisfaction of most. We, the wealthiest of them all, have not. Why?
To his credit, Obama is trying to step up and change our system for the better. Simultaneously he is addressing the Medicare runaway cost problem, ignored for years on both sides of the aisle. We’ve got to change!
As SOP here always, he is up against wealthy, greedy, and powerful special interests who will do/are doing whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
How long are we going to tolerate this shadow government?
Hey David, “Open Thread”, what a great idea. Wish I thought of that one. Unfortunatly I didn’t have that capacity last night.
Noman, a lot of governments sit on piles of money. They are called reserves or sometimes rainy day funds. When the piles of money get too big the government can do a novel little thing we like to call “cutting taxes.” That tends to slow the growth of these piles of money that our federal government is never really going to have until it pays of its debt. If enough taxes are cut it would cause us to start spending some of these non-existant, obscenely large piles of money that we already owe to private corporations and other countries.
I also find it amazing that you think no one wants government money managers controlling them, but it seems that you thing they don’t mind government health care managers controling them.
a lot of governments sit on piles of money. They are called reserves or sometimes rainy day funds.
True for states, not for the Federal government. The Federal government holds very little cash (relatively). Perhaps you are thinking of the pre-industrial days when reserves consisted of gold bars in a vault, and bank interest rates were set in London each year based on how well the crops were doing.
Tim’s macroeconomics = FAIL.
When the piles of money get too big the government can do a novel little thing we like to call “cutting taxes.”
The Federal government will not have an actual pile of money until the national debt is paid down. Tax cuts are sometimes good policy, sometimes bad policy depending on what else is going on in the economy. And depending on how they are implemented.
The federal government can and should. Every commission which I have seen has recommended it do just that. If you did a public option without setting the money aside in relatively safe investments such as high grade corporate bonds, agency bonds, municipals, equity paying preferred stock, standard mortgages, quality commercial paper, and a limited percentage of treasuries.
If you don’t do that, you will be ensuring that we bankrupt the nation or ration care. Eventually there will be no money and taxes would have to skyrocket or payouts be slashed. The pay as you go model has been a failure. The insurance model works.
Every commission which I have seen has recommended it do just that.
Commissions stocked with CEOs lining up at the trough.
setting the money aside in relatively safe investments such as…
What, our investments in auto companies and banks aren’t enough exposure for you?
“The Federal government will not have an actual pile of money until the national debt is paid down. Tax cuts are sometimes good policy, sometimes bad policy depending on what else is going on in the economy. And depending on how they are implemented.”
Noman, believe it or not I covered the fact that we have debt instead of piles of money in my post.
Also, just because our governement currently fails to keep a reserve does not mean that it shouldn’t, or that we wouldn’t be better off if they did. My macro-economics are far from perfect but they aren’t nearly as bad as you suggest. If we had a reserve instead of excessive national debt, at the very least we would have an extra $300,000,000,000 to work with in our budget, because we wouldn’t be spending it on interest payments. That is like a third of the bailout, just in interest, and it will only grow the longer debts remain outstanding.
It’s time to make peace, not war. Let us then drastically cut back on our DoD budget, and create equivalent/similar jobs in the healthcare, alternate energy, education, manufacturing, and environmental enterprises. This will then additionally drive job creation in all the small businesses that feed into these major industries.
If your goal is to make peace then please explain how the policies you proposed accomplish that, and provide the rational that countries with good health care, alternative energy, and education don’t need strong militaries. Your suggestions may very well drive job creation in the industry of healthcare and others, but it will do so by driving job losses in the military related sectors. My opinion is that on the jobs issue there would be little net change. Some jobs would be created while others would be given the boot and land in unemployment.
I am all for peace. Tell Al Qaeda, and all the two bit dictators around the world to join us. Tell China and Russia that they don’t need to increase their military. The problem is that the Europeans have sort of off loaded much of their national defense burden on us. We entered the treaties so we can’t complain. They did not hold a bomb to our heads.
Realistically, that is not an option today. We need to reform the domestic budget to gain efficiencies. There is a lot more to cut there and used more efficiently to advance today’s priorities.
I do agree with you that we need to encourage energy production for more jobs. That is common sense which is not necessarily universal.
It’s amazing to me how many ‘progressives’ are stuck in the 60′s.
Timothy: “If your goal is to make peace then please explain how the policies you proposed accomplish that, and provide the rational that countries with good health care, alternative energy, and education don’t need strong militaries.”
Progress can be made toward peace by following the Obama approach to foreign affairs: Respect and an extended hand. This does not imply that we support some of their egregious behaviors, but it extends an opportunity to talk, an approach that is anathema to the typical Republican mindset. To you too, Tennessee?
There are numerous countries that have good health care, are seeking alternative energy approaches, and place education at the highest priority. Do I need to list them? Take China, Japan, Australia, Germany, England, and Finland as just a few examples. I wish our country could be added to this list sometime soon.
These and all free world countries do not have large defense budgets on a per capita basis compared to us, and they depend on us to provide them security. To accept this role is costing us plenty, while doing little for our homeland security, as evidenced by our failures in recent wars; therefore, our defense policy needs major revision.
Our best defense is to have strong homeland security, regarding protection of our borders and significant inspection of incoming people and import shipments, and protection of our skies. For this, our strong suit in technology can serve us well.
The recent scrapping of F-22 fleet expansion is a small step in the right direction to begin to dismember this way overblown military-industrial complex that is costing us over two thirds of a trillion dollars with insufficient return on investment, massive waste, and greasing the skids to slide us into wars of choice!
To you, Tennessee, my opinion is a rant, your opinion is an opinion. That is part of our problem here!
Are you trying to draw Tennessee into this conversation? So far he has not participated in this thread, so all your references to him in response to my comments are a bit distracting. It makes it sound like someone is itching for a fight, instead of a peaceful converstation.
Perry, I will agree with you that we should boost up our national defence here at home. Especialy along the borders. When unarmed illegal imigrants can infiltrate our borders so easily, and armed drug trafficers are doing the same we have a problem. I do not think that our National Defence budget should be cut, but I am open to suggestions of shifting how and where it is spent.
A strong military and national defence program is key to this nations freedom. Weakening our military will be key to bringing this nation into bondage.
My mistake, sorry. I meant to reference you, not Tennessee.
On the military budget, Timothy, I am not surprised at your setting that at the highest priority. You apparently don’t understand how corrupting to our freedom the military-industrial complex is, and how wasteful it is. The overemphasis on the military, in my view, makes it practically mandatory to settle certain of our disputes by going to war. We need the exercise to assure that our military is up to snuff, it seems.
I favor a defensive posture, as I mentioned before, protecting our homeland at home, not attacking and fighting on the soil of other sovereign countries, as we have done too often post WWII, and continue to do under Obama!
I cannot prove it, but I believe that if we focused our military on homeland defense at home, the cost would be much less, and the benefit much more. We are all aware of the waste in Iraq, not to mention the 600 million dollar embassy we have constructed in Baghdad. And who ever thought that we had a right to install 15 military bases throughout that country.
Can you imagine our response were some nation to attempt to do something similar to us, because they did not like or trust our President? We are distrusted and not very well liked. I think I understand why. Do you?
If you mean me, then I must ask when I accused you of ranting? There are some that I may think just rant, but you have generally posted comments that exhibit signs of prior thought rather than just emotional, off the cuff venting.
“Can you imagine our response were some nation to attempt to do something similar to us, because they did not like or trust our President? We are distrusted and not very well liked. I think I understand why. Do you?”
Perry, the fact is I will not be supprised if another country does attempt something in the future. If we are distrusted and missliked that will only grow as we continue to rob the rest of the world with our excessive debts which we may not be able to pay back when due short of devaluing our dollar even further. If we keep on this track it is very likely that one nation or another will try to exact some form of compensation from us. Depending on what we do with our military, if some nation chooses to install 19 military bases in our country we won’t be able to do much about it.
600 million dollars is a big number, however it is very small compared to the numbers that have been thrown around in the name of a recovery effort that has shown little results. All they can say is that it would have been worse if we did nothing, yet we did do something and things still ended up worse than they had projected. They “bail-out” GM and Chrysler only to have the two go bankrupt, and allowing the government further extend its hold on them. Meanwhile Ford says “no thanks”, doesn’t go bankrupt and finaly posts a profit, and a pretty hefty one at that ($2 billion).
Waste and corruption are not a military thing, they are universal problems. To the extent that the military has waste we should fix that so the money put into it will be put to better effect. If waste is the criteria for cutting things then I don’t think you would be pleased with some of the programs that would be cut.
I can’t say that I am champion of the F-22 program. I think it could be a useful asset to the military, but as long as they chanel those funds into something productive to the physical defence of this country and its allies, I am fine with that. The technology needs to be constantly kept up to speed. Our ability to defend and attack on both a physical and a cyber front must be maintained at satisfactory levels. Where either is not equal to the current threat we increase our risk of being attacked.