We should decouple health insurance from employment



Reasons to agree
:

  1. You shouldn't loose your health insurance just because you loose your job.
  2. There is no logical reason to provide health insurance through your employer. It was just done as a loophole to get around rules during WWII that stooped increases in salary.  
  3. Healthcare as an employment benefit keeps you from comparing apples to apples when you compare jobs. Some companies don't make you pay very much for health insurance. Other make you pay a lot.
  4. Health insurance as an employment benefit keeps people from going into different jobs because they are afraid of loosing insurance. 
  5. When healthcare is connected to employment, employers only want to employ young healthy employees, because they end up footing the bill of the health insurance. If you had insurance as an individual, and tax incentives were restructured so it was just as cheap to get it as an individual, you would already have your insurance, and their would be one less reason to not hire an older individual. 
  6. It encourages employers to push their married employees onto their spouse's heal insurance. 
  7. Workers in low paying jobs have no health insurance. Workers in high paying jobs of super expensive health insurance. So most of the pre-tax benefit goes to the wealthy. This could be restructured in a way so that instead of benefiting people proportionally to how expensive the insurance is, and tying it to your income, the insurance benefit could come to individuals separate from their employer. 



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  1. Robert B. Reich
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    Each state should be responsible for caring for their own uninsured

    Reasons to agree:
    1. Citizens of Ohio and Florida shouldn't have to pay health insurance for people from Texas. 

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      South Carolina Republican Debate

      • Perry:  2nd joke of the night about the oops moment. 
      • Huntsman: Says we won't be able to take China to WTO, but does not explain why.
      • Romney: Will use trade to help guide China. China has to play by the rules. Declare them currency manipulators. Go to the WTO. We are in a trade war. 
      • Perry: Believes communist Chinese will end up on ash-heap of history. Keeps mentioning Mitt's name in his response. 
      • Newt:  Civil defense is within the rule of law. Does not apply to enemy combatants. 
      • Romney: It is absolutely justifiable for us to have killed. Our foreign policy would be guided by the value where America leads the free world, and the free world leads the entire world. Will use every means within the the law to advance.  
      • HuntsmanHas 2 boys in Navy. 
      • Paul: Water boarding is torture. Un-American. 
      • Bachmann: We are allows ACLU run the CIA. 
      • Cain: Torture. Water boarding is an enhanced interrogation technique. 
      • Perry: Has dealt with Generals, apparently in the Texas Military? 
      • Santorum: Will only hire people who agree with him. 
      • Newt: Refuses to stand by his accusation that Mitt Romney is a good manager. Says it is OK to criticize him behind his back on a national radio show, but chicken out when Romney is standing there. 
      • Santorum:  Disagrees with Newt and Perry. Says Pakistan must be our friend. Most don't back 
      • Newt: Agrees with Perry. Shouldn't just give money because they gave money last year. Conserned that Arab Spring is becoming an Anti-Christian Spring. Aid gives military hardware, which helps America
      • Bachmann: Would not disagree with giving money to Pakistan. Pakistan needs foreign aid to prevent bad guys there from getting access to their Nuclear Weapons. Obama stands with Occupy Wall Street, but doesn't stand with Israel. 
      • Perry: Why is Pakistan playing a double game. Foreign Aid? When asked a different question. Says foreign aid starts at zero dollars. Thinks that foreign aid is the most important aspect of middle east.  Never answered why they are playing a double game. He doesn't trust Pakistan. 
      • Cain: We don't know if Pakistan is a friend or foe. Ask Pakistan to make Pakistan make a commitment.  Need a regional strategy. 
      • Newt:  Pakistan is a sanctuary. 
      • Romney: Take out 30 to 40 by end of next year. Should not bring them home in the middle of the fighting season. December of next year. December 2014.
      • Huntsman: Bring most of our troops home. Not 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
      • Santorum: Thinks he should get more time. Says Bush should have given money
      • Perry: Can answer both questions at the same time. Should not give our enemies a time table.
      • Paul: Go through congress to declare war. 
      • Newt: Deniable cover operations
      • Romney: Obama's greatest failure. Should have stood with rebels. Crippling sanctions. Would take military action.
      • Cain: Assist rebels in Iran (not militarily). Become energy independent. Sanctions.

      The federal government should not spend money to fix housing



      Reasons to agree
      :

      1. Government should not try to fix prices. Government should not try and say people's houses are not expensive enough. Government should let those who want to buy a house determine how much a house should be worth. Government can try spur innovation as far as smart grown, but it can't buy all the foreclosed homes.
      2. Government created a housing bubble when they made laws that forced banks to lend money to people who couldn't afford them. 
      3. Some efforts by states my be justifiable in promoting affordable housing, but the Federal States are best at trying to promote affordable housing. 
      4. Government should try to promote affordable housing, not try to raise.
      5. State Governments can do precise actions to offset infrastructure and education expenses, but should not do clumsy nationwide expensive approaches.
      6. State Government should free up unused public property at times to free up housing property, to support affordable housing, but Government shouldn't try to make homes more expensive just to keep people from loosing money, because after Government burns the money, the home will eventually reach market value, no matter how much money we burn. 
      7. If sprawl causes government to spend more money per person, Government can use the estimated money they would by stopping sprawl, to promote smart growth. 
      8. State governments could use money they use for the homeless to try and create long term housing solutions. Some local governments put homeless people in hotels. If state governments want to be nice, they should also be smart. Perhaps government could build a home for the same price they spend putting homeless people in hotels. 
      9. One of the few things state governments should do to promote affordable housing, is make it easier to build houses in places that have no affordable housing. 
      10. States that have no affordable housing, can try to promote mixed income housing, so poor people don't have to drive hours and hours just to get to rich places where jobs are. 

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        Republicans in 2012 should propose modifications to the Tax Code that help the middle class



        Reasons to agree
        :

        1. Cain is defining himself with 999. This is a tax code plan not an economic plan. Taxes affect the economy, but you need more than just a tax code to help our economy. Republicans can't be defined in 2012 as doing things that only help the Rich. 999 and other flat codes raise taxes on low and middle income individuals, and lower taxes on the Rich. Some republicans feel this is the right thing to do, but that doesn't matter. Defining ourselves with something that helps the rich is a sure way to loose in 2012. 
        2. Romney said: "With regards to our tax code, what I want to do is to take our precious dollars as a nation and focus them on the people in this country that have been hurt the most, and that's the middle class.The Obama economy has really crushed middle-income Americans. This president has failed us so badly. We have 26 million people out of work or in part-time jobs, that need full-time work or have stopped looking for work altogether.Median incomes have dropped 10 percent in the last three years. At the same time, gasoline prices are up, food prices are up, health care costs are up. And so what I want to do is help the people who've been hurt the most. And that's the middle class. And so what I do is focus a substantial tax break on middle-income Americans.Ultimately, I'd love to see if -- see us come up with a plan that simplifies the code and lowers rates for everybody. But right now, let's get the job done first that has to be done immediately. Let's lower the tax rates on middle-income Americans."

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          We should allow "Italy to fail" if not letting them fail means giving them bail outs

          Reasons to agree:
          1. The concept of Italy failing is ridiculous. This isn't a game with winners and looserItaly may be less successful, or more successful but it probably be more successful than 1/2 of this planet's countries. They are more successful than most countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. If we are supposed to rescue Italy, we should probably rescue the rest of the world first. 
          2. Italy isn't helping us in Afghanistan, why should we help them? 
            1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force
          3. Greece isn't helping us much in Afghanistan. Why should we help them?
            1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force
          4. They have the capacity to deal with that themselves. 
          5. We shouldn't try to do impossible things. It is impossible for the United States Government to make another large economy successful. 
            1. Italy is a very large economy. 
            2. We should bail out California before we bail out Italy. And there is no reason for farmers in North Dakota to pay for healthcare benefits of people living in San Fransico, let alone a country that looks down on us from the otherside of the planet. 
          6. Europe is able to take care of their own problems. 
            1. Those who would be hurt most if Italy fails, should give the most.
            2. Europe is able to help Europe.
            3. We would help if we could, but we got our own problems.
              1. If we stay on the course we're on, with the level of borrowing this administration is carrying out, if we don't get serious about cutting and capping our spending and balancing our budget, you're going to find America in the same position Italy is in four or five years from now, and that is unacceptable. We got to fix our deficit here.
            4. We with WWI, and WWII. They will have to do this alone. 
            5. Some Europeans resented our help in the past. 
            6. We should avoid foreign entanglements. 
          7. Those who say we shouldn't let them fail, are implying that we should bail out their banks or government. 
          8. Efficient capitalism requires fair competition. When people are competing with money, those who fail should not be given more money. If those who don't deserve to be given money, keep getting more money, then those those who should be trusted with money will have less. If no one can fail: bad behavior is rewarded until more people fail. 

          1.  It feels good to give people things! Maybe they will like us! :) :)
          2. It's not like we don't have money?!
          3. Government is the perfect way to feel good about giving people stuff! You get all the self righteousness of saying we should be nice, and don't ever have to realize that you have to pay for it in taxes. And if your one of the lucky 55% of people in this country, you might never have to pay taxes! So why not give money to Italy! You won't have to pay for it! As long as you make slightly less than average, you won't have to pay a penny!




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            1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
            2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
            3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
            4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
            5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

            We are broke











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