Pine Barrens Mafia Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Once again, capitalism works, communism does not. 154121[/snapback] See how simple it really is? There's a reason Euro governments are trying to shed their outmoded socialist programs....they've been crippled in the global economy. The reason we kick the snot out of them in the market is because we have less government as opposed to their more intrusive federal systems.
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Pet theory I have not yet researched but no body cares about that here : NY and other large states in terms of population get consistently screwed in terms of the money they pay in federal taxes and the federal spending returned. The states are divided into creditor and debtor states. That is states that get back more than what they pay and those that get less. Wouldn't NY and California and other more populous states be in better shape and their local and state taxes lower if more of their federal tax dollars come back to their own state? If that were so, shouldn't republican and democratic congressman from those states band together and use their votes to insure a more balanced distribution of revenue among the states? Why are so many of our own congressman voting to give our money to Wyoming?
RuntheDamnBall Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Bingo!! Right on Joe6Pack... NYS- ya got no one to blame but yourselves...ya vote these Democratic clowns in and just like CA and you're stuck in financial chaos !! And then ya voted in that longtime NYS resident...Hillary Clinton... what a joke... 153429[/snapback] Because Hillary Clinton personally bankrupts the state government and raises Western New York taxes? You are a damned fool. Last time I checked 2 of the 3 people heading up state government are Republicans (Pataki and Bruno). The problem is that all the so-called moralizing voices of reason would rather hold onto their right to complain than run for office and actually do something about it.
grabowr30045 Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 The problem is the gov't is already too big. It's the polices of the law makers in the NE and in the NW that cause the financial crisis not the distribution of tax dollars. These locations use socialism as their economic model thus the problems these states have. Every time I go to Buffalo, I don't know of how many people I know that mooch off the system by dragging on ss benefits (like losing part of a finger) or not wanting to work because they get more in welfare benefits than they would get working. It's amazing, I have lived in Atlanta for 7+ years and I have never seen people use food stamps. I go up to Buffalo and that's the norm. What does that tell you?
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Interesting question. The short answer is no (my justification for that is: sanitoriums and such went out of style quite some time ago. The need to quarantine tubercular patients, for example, pretty much dispappeared with the advent of antibiotics - though the public health aspects of tuberculosis care didn't change much beyond that: there was still the need to track patients and trace and, if possible, interrupt courses of infection. It's just that quarantine became a less useful public health tool.) The long answer, I'll have to think about some...the interrelation between public health and modern privacy regs is an interesting one... Really, the justification was the state budget: cutting public health expenditures is always very easy, since the benefits are often not visible. How do you explain to someone that an epidemiology lab reduces their health care costs? How do you distinguish to them their not being sick as a result of public health as opposed to not being sick as a result of the random chance of not catching anything? Hell, $5M spent on AIDS-related public health programs in 1982 would have cut the infection rate and death toll in half and saved us billions in health care costs over the next 30 years...but Reagan slashed federal public health services' budgets by 50% in '80-81, and the best individual health care in the world (the San Francisco gay community was wealthy, educated, and very health conscious, averaging something like four doctor's visits a year) didn't do a damned thing to stop that disaster. Public health is ALWAYS a tough sell and a primary source of budget cuts...primarily because very few people really understand it. Read Laurie Garrett's "Betrayal of Trust" for an excellent treatment on the topic of public health; in addition to interesting chapters on Ebola in Kikwit, plague in India (how does a modern country have a plague epidemic??? Ridiculous...), and damn near everything in the USSR, she devotes several hundred pages to the cockeyed system in the US. Even if you don't agree with her proposed solutions (you will, I don't...as I recall, she supports universal health care), she does an excellent job outlining the problems. I also recommend Randy Shilts' "And The Band Played On" for a history of the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and an example of how horrible public health policy created a monster that no individual health care system would ever address... 154118[/snapback] Thanks.
ExiledInIllinois Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Pet theory I have not yet researched but no body cares about that here : NY and other large states in terms of population get consistently screwed in terms of the money they pay in federal taxes and the federal spending returned. The states are divided into creditor and debtor states. That is states that get back more than what they pay and those that get less. Wouldn't NY and California and other more populous states be in better shape and their local and state taxes lower if more of their federal tax dollars come back to their own state? If that were so, shouldn't republican and democratic congressman from those states band together and use their votes to insure a more balanced distribution of revenue among the states? Why are so many of our own congressman voting to give our money to Wyoming? 154885[/snapback] I totally agree. I like to hear a rebuttal to this.
Adam Posted December 12, 2004 Posted December 12, 2004 Increased sales tax + Increased minimum wage = financial disaster
Adam Posted December 12, 2004 Posted December 12, 2004 See how simple it really is? There's a reason Euro governments are trying to shed their outmoded socialist programs....they've been crippled in the global economy. The reason we kick the snot out of them in the market is because we have less government as opposed to their more intrusive federal systems. 154615[/snapback] Communism in Russia was successful when it first started, until the political and economic climate took a downturn. Capitalism will eventually fail us too. Its not that either is a bad idea, but these man-made systems cannot last
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