McPlenty of Universal Apologists
Posted by Andy on November 28th, 2006
The Pawlenty apologists must really be worried about their boys’ future. Even the once uber conservative Center for the American Experiment is now trying to spin the Universal Health Care plea Pawlenty made mere days after winning reelection. (You can read their pap here.)
Now here is why it is so damn bad for Pawlenty to say the word Universal. It is a pandering word. Amy Klobuchar was using that word when she was facing a threat from the Single Payer supporting Ford Bell. By her using that word, to fool the activists desperate to get the true Universal coverage the word Universal implies, she forced Bell to drop out of the race.
Pawlenty is misreading the results, again, and is trying to race to the middle by proposing, even if he doesn’t mean what it sounds like, that there will be Universal coverage.
When in the heck did it become Government’s job to wipe every snotty nose? All this big government crap is doing is opening the door to ‘cradle to grave’ health care here in Minnesota. There is no way Republicans will stop the DFL controlled MN Legislature from passing the real Universal version of what Pawlenty proposed, and I do not have faith that the Governor would veto it.
It was foolish and a political mistake to even bring it up. But then again, maybe he does want it. I don’t know anymore.
Spending problem? What spending problem?
Sphere: Related Content
November 28th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
tell me, is your real reason for being against it, is it truly because you feel that Gov’t aided health care coverage will reduce the overall quality of health care and raise your premiums? Or do you just not want to help out those less fortunate?
be honest with me here, even if it’s the latter…
November 28th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
also, i agree that conservatives currently have a spending problem. something to the tune of almost 300 billion last i checked
November 28th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
montanaliberal,
Stupid and insulting question. Conservatives and liberals both want to help the unfortunate. We just have very different views on the best way to do it. If there is no competition, there is no question that costs will increase and quality will drop (see public school system). Other than National Defense, name one thing the government does more economically, effectively and efficiently than can be done in the private sector. Look at welfare. Where tax dollars are redirected to the poor, about 30-35% of the expense goes to administration. When I give to the Salvation Army something like 85% goes to those who need assistance. Which does more good?
Actually, I just heard a university professor talking about an extensive research project and publication he undertook. He found that people who value small government conservatism give to charity at four times the rate of those that believe in European style liberalism, when you control for other variables. I don’t have the name of the book or the professor, but if you could find it might remove some of your prejudice about conservatives.
November 28th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
wtf? what happened to this post for like 20 minutes?
anywho…
my question wasn’t insulting whatsoever (and it was to Andy, fwiw). also, i never said Universal Health Care is the be-all end-all, i asked why he personally was against it (which doesn’t mean why conservatives in general are against it, i’m able to separate the two).
there’s no denying that welfare and other gov’t funded social service programs are in need of an overahaul, but i’ve spoke with many people who, if they had their way, there would be ZERO gov’t spending on social programs. you can’t have it both ways. it’s about finding a balance between spending and still providing needed services & programs. you get rid of after school programs, crime goes up, etc.
as for your comment re: public schools… i also agree that public schools need help, but i don’t see them as being necessarily inferior to private schooling either. there’s always going to be a need & desire for both.
i think we can all agree, right or left, no matter what, that it’s not gov’t spending that’s such a big problem (just part of it), but WHAT and HOW they spend our tax $$ that really matters.
people on the right want to paint it as though everyone on the left wants to raise your taxes, blah blah, well maybe if you consider liberal = democrat, which isn’t the truth, but even then, that’s a bit of a stretch. taxes are a necessary evil. both sides can agree that for a society to flourish, there is always going to have to be some sort of fairly big tax program. my problem isn’t that my taxes are too high, it’s that they are going to things which i don’t necessarily support (see my above comment) or feel has been spent in the right way.
November 28th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
also, i wasn’t prejudicing towards conservatives either, like i stated above, i was asking Andy the question personally. i’m not one to stereotype or group people based on their political beliefs. i’d like to think that people can think for themselves and even if they happen to subscribe to one of the two main parties (which i myself don’t), that doesn’t mean they agree with everything on their side, nor should they receive the same generic criticisms or stereotypes.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
I don’t believe in rebuild an entire house just because one shingle needed some work.
Here’s how I see it:
Universal Government run health care would be like build a solid gold 300 hole out house in the back yard because someone’s toilet was plugged.
There’s a better way, and the Government has yet to do something better than the private sector.
I feel very bad for people, and I think those that can’t should get some sort of help, but for every one persona that truly needs help, there are 5 - 10 scamming the system.
My solution for welfare is that the checks get delivered in person. Oh and they aren’t checks, they are the food and clothes for the kids. You got to show the old clothes and empty food containers, submit a urine sample, and have 3 denial letters from job apps.
Yeah I’m a hard ass, but I am sick of the lazy taking away from the needy.
I used to work at a liquor store in North East, I know how it works. All the guys were from Chicago and had like 3 ‘bitches’ each, all with a few kids, and the guy only came around when the welfare checks were dolled out. Sometimes you got to look a mother in teh eye and say sorry, tell teh kids daddy no more money for 40ies this month. (Yes I know not ALL cases are like that, but there are WAY too many that are. Those sperm donors/biological male genetic suppliers are perfectly capable of getting a job back home in IL, but refuse to because MN is just handing it away.
Basically I don’t believe in white washing a fence because a bird shit on one board.
Buy a new car because you need a car wash.
etc etc.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
“but for every one persona that truly needs help, there are 5 - 10 scamming the system.”
source?
November 28th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
I git a bit carried away in that rant, meant to say 3-4. Source: my eyes. It was rampant in front of them when I worked down there. Other than that, you;ll have to settle for my good old suspicion of people, oh and teh bloated budget for health and human services.
Liberals think the military pisses away money, but they don’t see any problem with HHS being bigger (i believe) than our national defense dept.
November 28th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
http://www.federalbudget.com/
well… not gonna debate Defense vs. Human Services (i’d agree that both are inflated too much, especially compared to many of the things WAY lower than them (Education, Transportation, just to name 2)…
but that $400+ billion paid in interest isn’t pleasing to me…
also:
09/29/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00
are you happy with that trend? i’m not…
November 28th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
But what is the deficit as a % of GDP? We are way lower.
If you want to talk about cutting the budget I’m all for it. But chances are you and I would never agree on what we can cut.
November 28th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
let’s hear it…
November 28th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Later tonight or tomorrow. I got a Park Board meeting to go to.
November 29th, 2006 at 7:41 am
HHS is the biggest, why not start there?
Then we can cut out the Member’s of congress’ nest eggs.
Then Dept of Ed.
END EARMARKS!!!!!!!! No more.
That’s my quick picks.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Sorry, but you’ve tossed up a big, fat kittenball. It’s easy. Cut federal spending on anything not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution. There goes all of HHS, Medicare, Department of Education, Most of the departments of Energy, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, and probably Social Security (it could be immediately privatized without violating the Constitution or harming any present or future recipients), and probably at least half of the rest of the federal bureaucracy. The current budget of $2.5T would be cut to the roughly $0.5T we spend on “the common defense.”
November 29th, 2006 at 11:30 am
J. Ewing… uhm… you make huge cuts in all of those things you listed, and watch this country turn to shit faster than you can blink an eye…
November 29th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Uh-huh. Despite the language, I would like to point out what happened the last time there was a federal government shutdown, almost nothing. Liberals think that if government doesn’t spend money or “solve problems” that “things” don’t get done at all. What really happens is that if government doesn’t do things, people do them for themselves, or for each other. We’re not stupid or helpless, despite what liberals may believe. The only thing that comes of giving government more control over our lives is that government gains more control over our lives. 80% of what the federal government does today could as easily be done by individual citizens, citizen groups, state or local governments, private enterprise or private charity. And it would be much more cost-effective.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
“80% of what the federal government does today could as easily be done by individual citizens, citizen groups, state or local governments, private enterprise or private charity. And it would be much more cost-effective.”
again… i hate to ask for “proof” or facts, but in this case, i guess i’d like to know…
November 29th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
That would be a very long list, let’s just take a few:
-Keep the Department of Defense in its entirety, though it might be doable for less.
-Keep the INS, the BLS, the NPS, and the Bureau of Standards, plus a few others, less than 1%
-Get rid of HHS, Education, Energy, Transportation, HUD, the rest of Labor.
-Privatize Social Security, carefully. Privatize Medicare, more carefully still. There’s half of the budget and a very large part of budget growth, even though it’s “off budget.”
-Fold the VA and Intelligence into the DOD, another 2%
-To the extent that State and Treasury have legitimate functions, keep them, but they’re less than 1%, I think.
OK, That adds up to 21% so I’m wrong. And I’m not saying it would be easy, just that it is nowhere near impossible. And we need to start in that direction or we’re not going to survive. It’s like I keep asking the schools: How many years can you spend more than you take in before you start to have a problem? If you spend faster, does it help?
November 30th, 2006 at 2:28 am
“-Get rid of HHS, Education, Energy, Transportation, HUD, the rest of Labor.”
alrighty….
well… good luck with that…
i take it you ride your bike everywhere?
November 30th, 2006 at 11:51 am
There you go again, assuming that if the federal government doesn’t build roads or airports or railroads, they won’t get built. About the only thing that wouldn’t get built is boondoggles like light rail, and that’s a good thing. Nobody can justify that thing unless “federal money” finances most of it. Well, “federal money” isn’t free. You’re assuming that if Washington doesn’t spend the dollars that they somehow disappear, but that’s not true, either. Minnesota would be much better off if tax dollars were kept in our own pockets rather than sent to Washington. We receive back only about 75 cents of every dollar we send to D.C. in taxes. We could save a lot of money by just “cutting out the middle man.”
November 30th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
light rail is a boondoggle? you mean the light rail that has been exceeding expectations ever since it started?
have you even ridden it yourself? or you’re just against it in principle. plus, only people who can’t afford cars would ever ride it… obvs
alright, well, it’s been nice chattin’ w/ yeah, but it’s obvious we don’t see eye to eye, so no sense in wasting both of our time.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
oh, and no, i’m not assuming that about Washington money, i’m saying the money for roads has to come from somewhere, whether it’s state or federal gov’t, it’s just you seem to think we can cut Transportation (among other thingss) funding big time, and the roads will still get built somehow… and i’d really like to know how you’d go about that…
November 30th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
wait… not done just yet… i thought of something that we can both agree on i’m sure…
public funding for sports stadiums…
November 30th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
I’ve been trying to stay out of this but…………..
Lightrail is a boondoggle. No one that lived there before (almost no one) can utilize that damn thing unless they happen to work in either point A or point B. People that lived down along there who work in St.; Paul, no longer have bus service. They cancelled all those routes in order to FORCE people to ride LRT.
It doesn’t do jack crap for the rest of the state BTW, and it was the largest project ever funded by the STATE (I think). It doesn’t do jack for me either! Live in Blaine, work in New Brighton, what good does it do me? None!
The only reason it is deemed successful is that there was a ton of redevelopment along the corridor. If that thing was to stand on its own, with the area as it was before all that money was spent on it, it would be an abject failure.
Oh and shall we talk about how the nutters want to shove one down University? Did they tell you they would have to wipe out half the building there, throwing people out of their homes, tearing down businesses, and destroying the character that is that region, or make it so that cars are no longer able to drive on that road, well at least not at normal, modern traffic levels. Oh and to the tune of another billion dollars.
Those pieces of crap are economic development and social engineering and nothing else when it comes to Minnesota. We are TOO sparsely populated for them to work. We SHOULD be focussing on more smaller, faster, and convenient busses and bus routes, but instead we keep cutting them so people are forced to go from point A to point B. What, they say 20,000 a month ride it or whatever.
Well did you know some where between 5.5 million and 300 million paid for it?
But I digress
November 30th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
fair enough, you’re more than entitled to your opinion, just as i am in saying that Iraq has been a giant “boondoggle” as well
November 30th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
I love how we are all so far from the topic of the post…. I love how liberals debate.
Sure, there have been mistakes in Iraq. My quick take:
1) The initial war, Removing Saddam, took 21 days, and that was over. Then came trying to rebuild the country and install a Guv. And up popped the insurgency. We should have put the other stuff on hold, but because of the negativity from the (ahem) loyal opposition and media, we “had to put an Iraqi face on the security forces”. That was the first mistake. We forced a people who had never really known freedom and democracy to figure it out, in the midst of an internationally supported insurgency to over throw the democracy.
2) The Iraqis are pretty much expecting to lose to the insurgents, thanks to anti-war peacenicks in the US media and governemnt. They know they will some day (sooner than later if YOU folks get your way) be completely alone battling Iran, al Queda, and the other terrorist supporters, and they are probably more hedging there bets than trying to defeat them. They don’t want to be compeltely against them, because they will someday be left alone with them.
3) The public opinion has been allowed to sway from the war due to Bush and the GOP’s complete ineptitude of dealing with the press. This is a noble fight. It is the right thing to do. When has liberating 26 million people from oppression not been a GOOD THING? (Only when the Dems oppose it.) Now, here we are, looking at leaving 26 million people (and billions of oil $) to terrorists from across the globe, all because the American left doesn’t habve the intestinal fortitude or cajones to fight a good fight.
4) Sadr should have been taken out when we had the chance. Letting him (and the others) hunker down in mosques, and illegally (international law BTW) fight from them, schools, and hospitals should never have been tollerated. Not saying we should have blown them up, but the UN and peacenick groups shouldn’t have over looked it.
There were lots of mistakes made, but not all of them are on one particualr person. There’s a lot of bnlame to go around. Most of it lies with the American left though.
You got played like fools by the terrorists. Yep. They knew, just as the Viet Cong knew, that if they can just keep nipping at our heels long enough, the American eft would come bail their asses out for taking on the most capable military in the world.
So once again, we have a war in which we have or are winning all if not most of the battles, but thanks to the peacenick lefties back home, we’re losing.
November 30th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
i wasn’t “debating”, i don’t “debate” online, i find it pointless cock stroking. i’ll debate someone in person however…
but i love how it’s the lefties and medias fault with everything that’s now gone wrong in Iraq… that’s pricelesss… keep on believing that
November 30th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
hell, even my very conservative co-worker and friend just laughed at your claim here at work
November 30th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
You know, it is always easy to stroke your own cock as an anonymous coward comment troll with out the courage to start their own thing and generate information. But then again, you’re a liberal and just like the liberal media you’d rather tear down conservatives. No problem, I;m used to the thought process. But it is pretty childish to hide who you really are.
Sure I know your name from the whining email, but you hide behind some grand pseudonym. Why? Why not have the courage to let people know who you are since all you care to do is come here and trounce on people?
Come on be real with people if you are so right.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
The topic was government spending, particularly with regard to health care (the universal kind). I don’t think it is unreasonable to point out government’s “track record” of fiscal ineptitude. Such as:
- For every dollar of fares paid by the riders of LRT, the taxpayers pay about $3. Using the original ridership assumptions, it would have been cheaper to provide every potentially rider with a chauffered limousine. With the current ridership numbers, I guess they’ll have to take cabs, or go two to a limo. Ridership is so high that it now carries as many as Hiawatha Ave. does. Of course I35 W N and S, I 94 E & W, EACH carry six times as many into downtown!
-In order for Minnesota to get a “federal dollar” for any purpose, we have to send $1.33 to Washington. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to spend it ourselves?
-Medicare is one of the fastest growing parts of the federal budget, yet many doctors are refusing to treat Medicare patients because of low reimbursement rates, or else they “troll for warts” and deliberately inflate Medicare bills with unnecessary procedures or tests.
-Every Health Savings Account allowed by Congress is quickly “bought” by somebody. Why do you suppose Congress wants to limit this “competition?”
-The current “return on investment” of your Social Security taxes is something like 1%. Congress doesn’t care, their retirement is already privatized.
As for your last comment about Iraq: Fools laugh at lots of things. If you aren’t willing to believe the pronouncements of our own government, why not believe Al Qaeda leaders who say that Iraq is the “central front,” and that their only hope for victory is to use American media?
November 30th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to spend it ourselves?”
thing is, many conservatives i know don’t want us to spend it ANYWHERE, doesn’t matter if it’s at the federal, state, OR local level.
i agree with you in regards to, why waste a good chunk of our tax $$ by sending it to Washington, but it’s the folks who say that, and then when it comes to state & local taxes, they bitch and moan endlessly about those too. it’s lose lose with those types of people.
as for Iraq being the “central front”, you’re right, it is… now. it wasn’t before February 2003
November 30th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
oh, and Andy, the only reason i don’t put my real name on here is because of my employer, fwiw
November 30th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Now that I think of it, maybe universal health care IS a good idea. After all, if it performs as promised, I could have all the health care I need and I wouldn’t have to pay a penny for it. One thing bothers me, though. How can you say I have a “right” to health care if I cannot get to the doctor, hospital, pharmacy or grocery store? I have a RIGHT to a car!