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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (131813)	2/7/2001 3:12:11 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571158

RE: "We are not really $6 trillion in debt, and we really do need to spend $100 billion on a useless missile " Hi Scumbria, Don't give up. Here's some ammunition for you: brillig.com federalbudget.com "The National Debt stands at $5.740 Trillion!" Department of Defense: 300 Billion HHS: 375 Billion Interest Payments on Debt: 390 Billion Nothing else compares with these 3 enormous expenses - the next highest expense is 1/6th of Defense spending. In the early 90's, how much did former USSR spend in military expenses? Hint: it was a fraction of what the USA spends. Check it out - the amount is surprisingly small by comparison. i.e. The USA spends way too much in military defense spending. Btw, did you hear how Bush JR earned his first million? His Dad arranged a buyout of Junior's firm and the terms of the deal absolutely smacked of corruption. It turns your stomach to hear what happened. Regards, Amy J

To: Scumbria who wrote (131813)	2/7/2001 12:22:00 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571158

Dear Scumbria: You forget that the only thing causing your children pain is that you are kowtowing to a party that made a ponzi schemed program that ate $trillions for Geriatric Welfare and Medicine. They back ended the costs so that each generation pays far more than the previous. All studies show that unless benefits are reduced, or funding reform is made, payroll taxes for SS and MC will be over 100%. What a legacy your party has left your children. Every time a reform plan that makes long term sense comes along, Democrats consistently pull the "your benefits will be cut" and "Republicans will kill SS" rabble rousing. They used to do it for welfare. The retoric got so wild, that states finally said "Enough already", "This has failed, lets try something new", and "Let's make the incentives point toward work not welfare". What do you know, we are out of the rat race and finally making progress. It was painful to switch but, in general, people are climbing out of poverty. Now, we need to fix SS and the bigger problem of MC and MA. We have a very good experience with 401k type plans and public funded retirement funds. People prefer the 401k type with some net. The pension funds could be that net and the 401k to get people to get the same benefits as we do (I assume that most here are in a 401k type plan). Placing SS on a combination Pension Fund and 401k funding mechanism, would stop the ever increasing payroll tax hikes for "solvency" cycle. Then SS would be structured as it was sold to the public over 50 years ago by FDR and the Democrats. MC and MA require some rethink of how they are funded and money is distributed. Another combination fund like the one SS will get, could reduce the bleeding occurring. Second, an emphasis in requiring that less than 5% be spent on administration costs for providers and the government (its like 30 to 40% now). This will get rid of the escalating billing war and reduce the hidden tax to private funds. Next, a change to emphasis on prevention rather than picking up the pieces when really sick that occurs now. Lastly, some QA system that makes providers to be human rather than some error free fantasy. And that works with them to get better and mitigate the inevitable mistakes rather than place blame and that entire time wasting money burning sequence. When both of these drains are removed, government can start doing those good things that are stopped by trying to maintain failed systems. Debt will quickly disappear and the problem is paying it off too fast (many systems now are dependent on federal debt worldwide and they will change slowly (>10 years)). This will require tax cuts and I as well as others would like to go to a flat tax system where all income above the poverty line is taxed at a fixed low rate. But, all Scumbria seems to do is constantly moan, complain, bitch, make false and misleading statements, and whine constantly making much noise but, little of substance in the political arena. You are quite knowledgeable and post much more well thought out and civil posts about technical matters. Perhaps you should slow down on the political posting where, the noise does little, if anything, and spend much more time on topic here where, you do much better. Pete