I just do not understand how the mainstream GOP Foreign Policy is acceptable to anybody. Rick Santorum was speaking on Meet The Press, about Iran and how to deal with it. No wonder our world is such a mess.
First he discusses his legislation which literally took American Dollars, and paid for the Pro Democracy Iran movement to OVERTHROW the current regime. Explain to me how this in its self isn’t an Act of War?
Second, his plan is to prevent war by going to war? By bombing them strategically and destroying their capabilities of creating a nuclear weapon. The only problem is that Iran is a member of the nuclear non proliferation treaty, has inspections being done, and isn’t even close to having a bomb, yet we should go to war, risking thousands to millions of lives and what is left of the wealth of our country to stop them?
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Wake up America, get your country back.
How Senator Harkin was ever elected into his position is one thing, now look how destructive he is trying to be to the ATM industry. He is trying to “Cap” the excessive fees made by banks and ATM operators. In his mind, it is crazy for people to pay to access their own money.
Sorry Senator, but often they are not paying to access their own money. First of all, what bank charges ATM fees on their own customers? I can’t think of any Bank of America or Chase etc charging their own customers to use an ATM. So we know it is not their money.
Now consider taking away the evil profit incentive independent ATM operators, all this will do is put them out of business. Why would they put 10k of their own money in a place to sit at risk of theft for no return on investment? Why would they risk carrying a bag of money to fill it up again, risk being shot, put in the hours of work to maintain them? Why will they invest 10 thousand dollars into an ATM machine that they can’t make money, they won’t.
Beyond the fact that anyone slightly more intelligent then Senator Harkin would use their own banks ATM, or use a bank that offers refunds on ALL ATM fees, why destroy an industry? He clearly is just another shill for the banks. His laws would put all private ATMS out of business since they are the only ones who make money if his horrendous idea passed.
Wake up America and throw this bum out and any other person trying to attack jobs.
Drilling offshore for oil is a good start. It generates jobs, tax revenue, and helps with our need for fuel.
The biggest thing which is overlooked about opening drilling is how tight the oil market is. This may not lower prices by 2 dollars a gallon, but it should make shock far less common if we didn’t have such a tight supply. Literally if a tanker or two sinks, it can drive up markets to high price levels.
My guess is oil prices will eventually come lower as China’s economy finally blows up. Repubs will say see, but regardless, this is good for America.
Matt
http://talkofliberty.com
In taking the suggestion of a fellow freedom loving blogger, Dr. Orphe Pierre Divounguy who commented on the Laffer Curve, I will take another look at it. I suggest everyone take a look at his blog as well.
The Cato Institute made some great videos regarding the Laffer Curve I have posted below, which I also recommend you check out.
To keep it simple I will use the analogy of a deadbeat son working for a family run company. The government in this story is the dead beat, and the family run company is America.
A family run business is very successful and operates at an extremely efficient level. This means that they are very profitable and are able to reinvest into the company to grow it. They have extra money each month to spend on advertising and are able to hire the best people. Currently the deadbeat son of the owner who doesn’t work for the company, therefore there isn’t any dead weight on the payroll. This is what zero taxes on the Laffer Curve represents, in this state, the company reinvests and grows at a very fast pace.
The family decides to hire the deadbeat, but they decide to give him 1% of the company’s profit. Because the company is so profitable, the missing money is not noticed, and are able to keep running quite efficiently, the non deadbeats may need to work a little harder to make up the extra 1%.
The deadbeat explains he needs more money and takes on a few new roles, which he really is not good at and the company would be better off hiring someone else, but he is dads son, therefore should be paid more and gets a 20% raise. Because he is such a deadbeat, he makes 20 times more percentage wise, but because money is being diverted from profitable centers such as advertising or hiring good people, the company is less profitable overall, so he makes more money overall, but the company is making less. This is why on the Laffer Curve, increases in taxes are not dollar for dollar more money.
The owner of the company dies and the deadbeat inherits the company. The deadbeat decides he should be paid 50% of all the profit. The deadbeat parasite begins leaching so much money out of the company, they stop advertising, and begin to hold off on spending more money on hiring, overall this makes the profit begin to fall. There is immense harm being put onto the company and makes it far higher to reinvest money into operations. Because profit is down, the deadbeat actually makes less than when he was taking 20%.
Finally the deadbeat decides to take 100% of all profit from the company because his bills are just so high and he needs more money. Rather than cut his expenses, he pillages more. All the workers who are left decide it is best to quit working and work for other companies which offer far more growth. This means the company dies, and the deadbeat makes no money.
This is the Laffer Curve in practice. The government consumes wealth, it does not create wealth. The government does not make anything and has nothing but for what it takes. The Laffer Curve is a tool for politicians to figure out how much blood they can suck out of its people before it begins to kill its host.
There are some legit reasons for government and spending, but every dollar taken kills its host by that much. Strong growth of the economy can out grow what is sucked out until you hit a tipping point.
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This new health care bill which has passed does not help reform any of the issues regarding cost. Though I am a Libertarian idealist, I can think of ways which provide state support for those who may need financial assistance. I understand in the ideal world, all government programs ultimately hurt individuals and I associate the programs that are intended to help those in need as reason those same people are in need. The reason is the cost. Government is a terrible system of allocating resources. Here is my Libertarian fix to this health care reform I hope those running for election in November will consider and try and implement.
The ultimate goal of any government program should be to lower the amount of individuals using assistance not grow it. With that goal in mind, first we need to look at where we are in order to create a plan of where we are going.
In scouring the internet to figure out the average cost of a Medicaid recipient since this is how the most of those not covered will be covered under this healthcare reform. This report gives us a quick idea of what the average cost per Medicaid recipient is. Keep in mind most doctors are now not even accepting new Medicaid patients even with the average cost being $10,918 per year in Arizona.
Rather than spending $10,918 per person on a plan that then requires the individual to not pay any money out of pocket, we can simply issue a voucher to that individual for that amount, deposited directly into an HSA. The Health Savings Account should be able to be used to pay any medical expenses including premiums as well as deductibles and medications. So now that we are depositing this money into a savings account, let’s now look at what a non government option would look like for individuals.
Using www.ehealthinsurance.com I simply did a quick look for insurance plans for someone who I consider expensive. So I could make this very difficult I used a female who is 55 years old living in Arizona. We can find the highest deductable where we can get the most bang for the buck if you will. This would be the United Health One Plan 100 policy. The choosing the highest deductible that this person could use the voucher with this plan makes the deductible $7,500 per year and has a monthly cost of only $156 dollars.. What this means is that after $7,500 is spent, the insurance company will pay for 100% of all medical expenses beyond that amount. This plan also covers prescription drugs in it as well. It would be important, that any money saved and not spent after one year from the HSA would be allowed to be withdrawn by the individual as earned income or rolled into an IRA. This way it is their money if they do not waste it rather than use it or lose it.
Ok so here is how it will work. Individual would be given the voucher for $10,918 instead of being forced to take an expensive government plan. This private insurance plan will only cost $1,872 per year. Subtract that cost from the voucher cost and the difference; $9,046 would be deposited into the individuals HSA.
Over the course of an entire year, under the policy above the most an individual could have to pay if they are sick would be the deductable of $7,500 leaving $1,546 left over to start since this is above what 100% coverage with all co-pays and deductable covered. I just saved America $1,546 per person already.
What is better about this plan is how it would empower individuals to save. The individual will be rewarded for living a healthy lifestyle. Those who smoke, eat unhealthy foods, and do not work out, are also those who need medical care more often. This means they will use their deductable money for health care. Those who live a healthier lifestyle will be rewarded financially. Consider if a married couple is actually healthy and just need their regular checkups. They may only spend $500 dollars for the year on medical expenses total. This would actually reward them for being healthy with over $15,000 dollars in additional income for the year.
Anyone wanting a free power chair will think twice about the cost since it will come out of their HSA savings and they will receive that much left in income at the end of the year. This plan would also lower lawsuit issues with doctors since individuals will decide for themselves if they should use their savings for medical tests. Doctors and patients will make decisions together rather than insurance companies or bureaucrats. If an individual decides not to get a treatment, they own that decision; therefore they will not likely sue the doctor since they made the decision themselves. This is who should decide if a service should be rendered or not.
In the bigger picture having a voucher will freeze the growth of medical costs. Clearly in this plan there is plenty of money to be saved. Giving the poor and needy vouchers rather than a plan they do not control savings leads to over use. They will think twice before going to an ER rather than waiting until the next morning to see their doctor. This will begin to turn this massive ship around. We need to control health care costs.
As a libertarian, I can support this because I have realized the transition is more important than an all or nothing battle. This model makes it easier to scale back the amount of subsidies i.e. vouchers are given based on need. If someone makes enough money, it would be reasonable to see the voucher amount decreased accordingly. The ultimate goal of this would be to get all individuals to the point of prosperity where they do not need subsidies. Attaching the welfare checks into the subsidies like this would be far more beneficial to society by rewarding healthy behavior.
This is a scalable plan that gets a handle on costs and will help unleash the free markets for health care. This will be good for individuals.
Matt
