U.S. Budget Negotiations

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HintonJamesHeel said:
This chart would make any reasonable person understand we have to have changes. This level of increase isn’t sustainable.
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You've been duped. That chart is complete bullshit.

1. Medicaid was completely altered in 2010, as it became a vehicle for Obamacare's attempt at universal coverage. The expanded coverage was not implemented until 2013 and not fully until 2015 or 2016. So anything about Medicaid before that point is irrelevant. You need to start at 2015, or 2013 at the earliest. And let's see, starting in 2015, the program grew a total of 14% over 4 years, which is pretty fucking sustainable. And note: that increase included states expanding their Medicaid program to take advantage of the federal subsidies -- several states, e.g., Missouri, opted into Obamacare in those years.

So, accounting for inflation and program growth, it was essentially flat for those years. Then, 2020 saw an increase in Medicaid spending. Hmm. Have any theories as to why? 2021? 2022?

2. What that chart is showing is:

A. Tens of millions of Americans got health insurance from Obamacare, and many of those did so through a program called Medicaid;
B. Medical expenses went up during Covid.

That's all. There's nothing at all unsustainable about it. In fact, IIRC the per capita Medicaid cost dropped as a result of Obamacare. So more people got better insurance at better prices. That's exactly what we predicted Obamacare to do; that's exactly what happened; and no idiotic framing on a chart can change that.

3. BTW health payments are supposed to go up in a recession. That's a feature, not a bug. When you look at the impact of social safety net programs, you'll see that their expenditures start to increase even in advance of a recession, and definitely through the recession. This is considered the #1 best anti-recession government program, as it delivers needed stimulus at exactly the time it's needed -- before the recession cuts too deep. We don't complain about the amount of unemployment being paid out during a recession -- well, we didn't used to, until the GOP got it in their heads -- because that's the entire point of it. And it keeps the downturn from getting worse, automatically.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
We need a common sense party. Most Americans understand we have to cut expenses and raise taxes.
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How is that common sense party going to work? Whose common sense? Yours? Because your common sense is usually objectively wrong, as evidenced by that nonsense chart and the conclusion you drew from it.

Invariably, common sense is what a person resorts to when they have no argument and no basis for the opinion they are desperate to hold. I mean, some policies can be common sense and also supported by science, which is to say that the common sense is nice but not required to justify the program. When you don't have the science on your side, when you have "common sense," it means you're probably wrong.
 
superrific said:
How is that common sense party going to work? Whose common sense? Yours? Because your common sense is usually objectively wrong, as evidenced by that nonsense chart and the conclusion you drew from it.

Invariably, common sense is what a person resorts to when they have no argument and no basis for the opinion they are desperate to hold. I mean, some policies can be common sense and also supported by science, which is to say that the common sense is nice but not required to justify the program. When you don't have the science on your side, when you have "common sense," it means you're probably wrong.
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Common sense party platform

We can’t run trillion dollar deficits
Gun rights but ban automatic rifles and heavily tax ammo
Pro-choice
Close the southern border
Tax hedge funds
Cut Pentagon budget
Support Ukraine against Russia
Work to destroy Hamas
Gay rights are human rights

There are multiple others but overall, a platform like the above wins easily nationally.

The Democrats are on the correct side in most of everything but they get immigration wrong and they get way, way, way, way too distracted by small segments of the population. They are known as the party of open borders and obsession with political correctness.
 
1. I'm not sure taxing ammo counts as common sense. Everything I've read suggests that it would not be remotely workable.

2. Anyway, again we're back to the border, I see. The southern border cannot be closed, and we don't want it to be closed. I mean, I suppose it depends on what you mean. You see, you guys have this trick you play, where you say, "I'm for closing the borders!" and then someone like me says, "closing the border would be bad." So then you come back with, "see, you want open borders, no restrictions on anything." That's typical MAGA logic.

The southern border cannot be closed because the US has obligations under international law to be available for refugees and asylum claims. To close the southern border is basically to withdraw from the Geneva Convention. I cannot emphasize too much how idiotic that would be. Immigration carries so many benefits for the United States.

There's no reasonable debate that immigration is good. All that fearmongering you inject into your veins is baseless. The optimal level of immigration is up for debate, as well as the way immigration is structured are debatable. But the lies you hear about immigrants or migrants bringing crime or disease -- it's all bullshit. You might find one or a handful of examples of something bad; that doesn't make it any less bullshit. It just means critical thinking is necessary.

3. That platform would not win nationally. When was the last time "fiscal restraint" won an American election? Every single fucking election, the GOP talks about new across the board tax cuts; the Dems talk about more focused tax cuts. Cutting spending has no natural constituency, because why do you think the spending is there in the first place? That's what the complete and utter failure of DOGE signifies -- there just isn't the "waste, fraud or abuse" in government spending. Every presidential campaign since Clinton has talked about cutting waste and fraud. We've had multiple commissions study the issue; we've had multiple rounds of cutting waste, etc.

The problem is that the average voter has no idea what "waste" even means. People like ZenMode just assume that everything he doesn't understand is just waste, which would have the odd effect of making the US government into a garbage dump with a flower growing on the edge.

But anyway, the spending is there for a reason, and almost all the time, that reason still exists when that spending goes on the chopping block. And the public choice dilemma also remains. Occasionally there can be exogenous factors, like the so-called "peace dividend" that can change the spending infrastructure but that's exception, not rule.

Dems tried to run on cutting the military budget. It did not work. There's no political appetite for cutting defense, because it's the ultimate public choice dilemma -- and the defense budget has been used by the GOP for years as a way of proving their manliness, and they paint as weak anyone who points out the useless spending and extraordinary waste.

The defense budget will not be reduced until the parties can work on a bipartisan basis, or if the Dems crush the Pubs to such an extent post-Trump that they will be electorally safe.
 
Trump accusing Dems of saying anything to win is bizarro world even by his standards. Last I checked, I have sent three boys to school for a combined 25 years or so and not once did they go to school as a Johnny and come home a Janie. Maybe I'm missing something, but that sure seemed like a complete fabrication, saying anything without shame in order to win.
 


In fairness, it is possible no one who voted for or against the bill had read more than whatever action their committee prepared, if that.
 
nycfan said:


In fairness, it is possible no one who voted for or against the bill had read more than whatever action their committee prepared, if that.
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These massive bills rarely get a comprehensive read from anyone. But it certainly didn't help that they were throwing it together haphazardly at the last minute, with only lies substituting for mooring principles.
 
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