<p>The numbers never add up under Bush and those are just the numbers that we know about. Some of the numbers are omitted, because well, the known numbers are bad enough.</p>
<p>The idea that republicans are the fiscally conservative party is over.</p>
<p>A 3 trillion dollar budget with 7% INCREASES FOR DEFENSE and 11% INCREASES FOR HOMELAND SECURITY.</p>
<p>Phony numbers concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>After bankrupting our country by borrowing our way into penury, the Republicans will be able to suddenly start saying that we need to balance budgets and be fiscally responsible. In this way, they will quickly reclaim the mantle which they’ve ridiculously and fraudently held as the party of so-called fiscal propriety. The American public will forget why we are in the situation we’re in – i.e. Republican profligacy.</p>
<p>This is the strategy of Starve the Beast.</p>
<p>It’s brilliant because it breaks the question up into two phases: one of borrowing and spending (it’s always hard to reign in spending when you’ve got one party in power as we had for the first 6 years of Bush’s presidency). And then in the next phase limiting spending becomes the focus – to go after Republican bugaboos: taxes, social spending (including education and healthcare).</p>
<p>And Obama and Hillary will spend even more. </p>
<p>You can thank the Democratic party for not passing the balanced budget amendment while they were busy demonizing Newt Gingrich. </p>
<p>And you can thank the Democratic party for making sure social security provides no security in the future for today’s college students because Democratics were busy demonizing President Bush.</p>
<p>And so does history. Most of these social programs that have paternal lives and never ending budgets were created by Democrats. Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are planning massive unfunded health insurance programs that will be paid for by borrowings from future generations.</p>
<p>Clinton has suggested she would pay for her plan, in part, by ending the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250K a year. I think Obama has said he would let the tax cuts expire when they’re due (2010). Both have also said that they would start to computerize medical record-keeping as well; I don’t know how much that would save, but it has to be fairly substantial. Of course, the initial investment of changing all records from paper to electronic, will be substantial, too. </p>
<p>Neither has stated where they will get that money. Obama’s plan will cost $50-65 billion a year “when fully phased in.” I expect Clinton’s to be more. </p>
<p>Does anybody actually know how much money would be saved by repealing those Bush tax cuts?</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know about the others, but Edwards was also in favor of “safe reimportation” of prescription drugs from Canada, which he said would save consumers $50 billion over 10 years. I imagine that doing that would have also had the indirect effect of U.S. drug companies getting more competitive and coming up with less expensive, generic drugs.</p>
Clinton has been talking about computerizing medical records for years. It is an old idea that will not save any money. If it was going to save money, it would have been implemented years ago becaue it would save money. Believe it or not insurance companies make money by saving money. (Realize a lot of medical informaion is already computerized). The reality is that medical records contain very sensitive information that is highly regulated. For example, the new HIPPA regulations have added a lot of oversight costs within medical providers. In short, saying we can pay for new socialized medicine programs by savings from computeritizing medical records is simply a farse.</p>
<p>You really think that’s why it’s not been implemented? Okay, then I guess somebody better go tell Obama and Clinton.</p>
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<p>Really? And here I am, thinking that insurance companies make their money by charging outrageous premiums to their customers. I thought they made money by not taking any risks – insuring only those that look to be healthy. I thought they made money by refusing to pay claims. Well, maybe you’re right. They do save money that way.</p>
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<p>I don’t know that they said they can pay for these programs simply by computerizing medical records; however, by doing so, money would be saved which could then go into helping fund some part of universal health care. It is ridiculous how much paper is generated by insurance claims alone.</p>
<p>“Believe it or not insurance companies make money by saving money.”</p>
<p>It’s the ONLY way they make money - “managing to care less”. (That, and grabbing taxpayer funding through programs like Hillary’s SCHIP.) That’s what corporate socialism is all about.</p>
<p>Razorsharp likes to talk about a version of history that Mao or Stalin and their propaganda machines would have been proud of. Ha, he blames our fiscal mess on Dems. What a joke. Look at what George W did – when the Republicans controlled Congress. And in black is white logic, it’s the Democrats fault!</p>
(That, and grabbing taxpayer funding through programs like Hillary’s SCHIP.) That’s what corporate socialism is all about.</p>