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Even someone on Fox News couldn't help but call him out on his BS.
Holy shiz, if you look at her articles, she is quite the liberal or at least Democrat. It's mind blowing they've kept her on this long. Not that they'd ever let her on air to speak such blasphemy. Fox and Msnbc are more than happy to keep their viewers in a glass box.
Even someone on Fox News couldn't help but call him out on his BS.
And with each day that passes, more and more Ryan for Congress signs (from 2010) pop up in my neighborhood next to the Romney signs. At least I'll be out of the f*cking suburbs soon.
Also, I'm just salivating for when the debates start.
I only want to watch the debates if the moderator is given the right to call BULLSHIT, and have an immediate fact check. I'll bet the ratings would jump.
And with each day that passes, more and more Ryan for Congress signs (from 2010) pop up in my neighborhood next to the Romney signs. At least I'll be out of the f*cking suburbs soon.
Also, I'm just salivating for when the debates start.
I only want to watch the debates if the moderator is given the right to call BULLSHIT, and have an immediate fact check. I'll bet the ratings would jump.
The debates are bullshit in themselves, as they are not debates at all. I'd love to see a real debate like the ones Sam Harris or Hitchens often took part in or Chomsky vs Buckley even. Something that is open ended and based on arguments, not this 1 minute limit bs where everything is written by writers and rehearsed to death. It's really just an exercise on who can make the least mistakes or can come up with the greatest one line ad slogan bs.
Holy shiz, if you look at her articles, she is quite the liberal or at least Democrat. It's mind blowing they've kept her on this long. Not that they'd ever let her on air to speak such blasphemy. Fox and Msnbc are more than happy to keep their viewers in a glass box.
Not sure if you're implying that the writer is inaccurate or not, but the broad consensus has been that the GOP Vice-Presidential nominee whole-cloth lied to the American people (not misled, not twisted truth, lied) several times in his prime time convention speech.
Eh? I wasn't implying anything other than Fox News hardly ever has a liberal voice in anything they do because it is a sham news source. I liked her article and thought it was quite honest.
Clint Eastwood as the special guest at the RNC might be the best thing ever. I guess it makes sense. He is probably the most famous grumpy old white guy. Hope he does his speech as his character from Gran Torino.
Damn! I did NOT expect to side w/Romney this much...this disturbs me. Guess I'm more of a fiscal conservative than I realized, esp. on domestic issues. But I'm a hardcore social liberal; that will NEVER change.
Interesting read on the growth of entitlement payments since the 60's.
I'm going to guess a lot of people will be surprised by this article.
I'm assuming the part you thought people would be surprised by was this:
In current political discourse, it is common to think of the Democrats as the party of entitlements, but long-term trends seem to tell a somewhat different tale. From a purely statistical standpoint, the growth of entitlement spending over the past half-century has been distinctly greater under Republican administrations than Democratic ones. Between 1960 and 2010, the growth of entitlement spending was exponential, but in any given year, it was on the whole roughly 8% higher if the president happened to be a Republican rather than a Democrat.
This is in keeping with the basic facts of the time: Notwithstanding the criticisms of "big government" that emanated from their Oval Offices from time to time, the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush presided over especially lavish expansions of the American entitlement state. Irrespective of the reputations and the rhetoric of the Democratic and Republican parties today, the empirical correspondence between Republican presidencies and turbocharged entitlement expenditures should underscore the unsettling truth that both political parties have, on the whole, been working together in an often unspoken consensus to fuel the explosion of entitlement spending.
Seems a little strange to spend most of two paragraphs stating that Republicans have presided over lavish expansions of the welfare states, then in the last sentence blame Democrats equally.
That aside, the article seems to argue that the government is spending more and more of your money at will, expanding the "entitlement state" in a way we are hopeless to predict. But most of the programs mentioned are funded by trust funds. The government doesn't just sit down and decide how much of your money to spend on others every year. The escalating payouts are in large part simply the result of the baby-boomers reaching retirement age all at once, coupled with the dramatic rise in health care costs, fueled in part by our uniquely free market health care system.
It is sort of odd a writer for the WSJ would be so naive as to base the spending on who is in the executive office. Though they certainly push agendas onto the congress, we all know congress has the power to spend monies. The writer didn't even mention how the congress was controlled by the Democrats during Nixon and Ford. It was controlled by Republicans for half of Bush's term, Dems 1/4 and split the first 2 years.
To this end, the writer could have made a point on Medicare part D and all the Republicans in Congress that voted for it due in large part to a massive lobbying effort from the pharm industry and all the wonky things that happened during the time the bill spent in and out of Congress. It seemed to be a prime example of how industry and money influence our government, to the point where they can get an entire party that touts itself as vehemently anti-big government to push through such a bill. Odd how none of this is even brought up. Oh yeah....it's the Wall Street Journal
The article also seems to make the changes in government's role/expenditures out to be simply a change of attitude. Might it simply be that we are living longer? There was a time when few people would live past working age, so of course these programs weren't necessary. This just seems so blatantly obvious.
The article also seems to make the changes in government's role/expenditures out to be simply a change of attitude. Might it simply be that we are living longer? There was a time when few people would live past working age, so of course these programs weren't necessary. This just seems so blatantly obvious.
You just criticized an article for using too many broad strokes, then say the changes in gov't role/expenditures is simply because we live longer now? Uhhhh....
My point in bringing up this article was the section iamthehorn quoted. I am not naive to think "hey, it's all on the President," but the President dictates policy. Obama can't get blamed for this stuff while giving any Republican president a pass simply because they didn't have complete control of Congress.
The fact is that those presidents could have stopped the exponential increases in expenditures. We're not talking "hey, a couple point increase over time isn't the end of the world," we're talking "hey, a couple point increase every year for decades."
To give conservative presidents a pass for this is to dismiss the executive power of the president altogether.
How many terms do you need before you deem something a pattern?
And iamthehorn, I 100% agree with you on the baby boomers hitting retirement age being a key contributor. My main reason for posting this is because people take the party lines at face value, when the reality is both parties say certain things and do something else entirely and people generally don't even notice or care.
Post by kikosanchez on Sept 4, 2012 11:41:31 GMT -5
Looks like Gary Johnson is my man. Sort of a wonky quiz though, not quite as comprehensive as political compass, but I do like the multitude of optional answers.
The article also seems to make the changes in government's role/expenditures out to be simply a change of attitude. Might it simply be that we are living longer? There was a time when few people would live past working age, so of course these programs weren't necessary. This just seems so blatantly obvious.
You just criticized an article for using too many broad strokes, then say the changes in gov't role/expenditures is simply because we live longer now? Uhhhh....
My point in bringing up this article was the section iamthehorn quoted. I am not naive to think "hey, it's all on the President," but the President dictates policy. Obama can't get blamed for this stuff while giving any Republican president a pass simply because they didn't have complete control of Congress.
The fact is that those presidents could have stopped the exponential increases in expenditures. We're not talking "hey, a couple point increase over time isn't the end of the world," we're talking "hey, a couple point increase every year for decades."
To give conservative presidents a pass for this is to dismiss the executive power of the president altogether.
How many terms do you need before you deem something a pattern?
And iamthehorn, I 100% agree with you on the baby boomers hitting retirement age being a key contributor. My main reason for posting this is because people take the party lines at face value, when the reality is both parties say certain things and do something else entirely and people generally don't even notice or care.
No, I certainly see and agree with your point and the point in general, I just thought the writer made the same point, but with awful justification. Instead of pointing out specific things Republicans did to increase entitlement spending, he simply linked a weak correlation between a president being in office and something happening. It just seems an obvious case of post hoc ergo propter hoc and for this person to be writing for the WSJ is just sort of sad.
I am shocked that I have 12% for Romney because I hate everything he stands for
^ That's what I thought, too! But it turns out I share his views on funding under-performing public schools, welfare & Social Security reform, Affirmative Action, and a few other points. The reason my results were surprisingly high is that I didn't change the importance. If we'd said these policies were "most important" then our results would've been lower.
Here's something terrifying we discussed at work today: Ryan-Romney would cut student financial aid (Pell Grants) by $850. Decreased Pell Grants = more student loans with high interest rates. That means most people will have more debt load while unemployed.[/b] No job = no bill paying = bad credit.
What does that mean for college education?
1. Fewer students will receive federal grants, so fewer students will be in the classroom; 2. Fewer students equals fewer faculty needed to teach the courses. 3. Fewer faculty means more classes per instructor (each professor will teach multiple courses), which basically means reduction in pay. 3. Reduced financial aid means more college dropouts, which means an undereducated, underemployed workforce which can't pay off whatever student loan debt they accumulated when they DID attend. 4. Unemployed students equals student loan debt defaults.
It's a vicious cycle. Ryan's answer? MOAR WAR. He's all about defense spending & maintaining a strong worldwide military presence. That ticket has also vowed to cut NEA funding, so wave goodbye to Sesame Street. Because obviously, the next generation doesn't need to know how to count and spell as long as it can successfully operate a Howitzer and shoot the hell outta stuff.
The article also seems to make the changes in government's role/expenditures out to be simply a change of attitude. Might it simply be that we are living longer? There was a time when few people would live past working age, so of course these programs weren't necessary. This just seems so blatantly obvious.
You just criticized an article for using too many broad strokes, then say the changes in gov't role/expenditures is simply because we live longer now? Uhhhh....
My point in bringing up this article was the section iamthehorn quoted. I am not naive to think "hey, it's all on the President," but the President dictates policy. Obama can't get blamed for this stuff while giving any Republican president a pass simply because they didn't have complete control of Congress.
The fact is that those presidents could have stopped the exponential increases in expenditures. We're not talking "hey, a couple point increase over time isn't the end of the world," we're talking "hey, a couple point increase every year for decades."
To give conservative presidents a pass for this is to dismiss the executive power of the president altogether.
How many terms do you need before you deem something a pattern?
And iamthehorn, I 100% agree with you on the baby boomers hitting retirement age being a key contributor. My main reason for posting this is because people take the party lines at face value, when the reality is both parties say certain things and do something else entirely and people generally don't even notice or care.
What worries me about this article OR the mindset it is trying to display for us - are the factors of "self-reliance" from America's past indicated. Sure in the 1830's and then for more then a century, there was free to cheap labor for large swathes of working Americans (mainly those of colors and immigrants). So to me, the past statistics may hold true for those surveyed but I always question this time period when it comes to research. Large groups were often ignored because they weren't entitled to much of anything or didn't know their rights to claim. Medicare didn't statistically exist until the 1960's so of course that took up the most money in a nation of profit and for profit hospitals?
The terminology of the whole article feels predatory, calling it a "national hunger for entitlements", when most of us pay into these systems (they should be reserves, not "entitlements"). The terminology is used to cannibalize the middle class against the poor - but how about us approaching the fact that we have allowed our country to be bought out? Subsidies rule this nation - and may have since Nixon. Executive powers have gone unchecked because honestly we sold off Congress too and sustaining that balance act is what's more important to politicians.
Sure the poor used to be able to refuse assistance, but there were members of the communities who were growing food (at honest prices...) and might give you something to subsist on for labor. Education and health standards have become an epitome of what [makes] America exceptional and independent -- yet we seem to be unwilling to deal with the cost associated with keeping people healthy and possibly off the medical rolls.
[Shit drives me nuts]
Last Edit: Sept 4, 2012 14:56:54 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
No, I certainly see and agree with your point and the point in general, I just thought the writer made the same point, but with awful justification. Instead of pointing out specific things Republicans did to increase entitlement spending, he simply linked a weak correlation between a president being in office and something happening. It just seems an obvious case of post hoc ergo propter hoc and for this person to be writing for the WSJ is just sort of sad.
As a point of reference, Eberstadt is one of the most well respected economists in the world.
And I don't see how it's an obvious case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. I think you're reading this article as Eberstadt's belief that Republicans are responsible for the growth of entitlement spending, which isn't the case. Eberstadt is saying that the Republicans' war cry of "smaller gov't" is hogwash. They, like the Democrats, have no allegiance to big or small gov't, they have allegiance to doing what it takes to remain in office.
Post by kikosanchez on Sept 4, 2012 15:16:12 GMT -5
He may be a great economist, but maybe he needs a ghost writer. He doesn't seem to make much use of logic and is happy to present fallacies as needing no further justification. Such as:
"Irrespective of the reputations and the rhetoric of the Democratic and Republican parties today, the empirical correspondence between Republican presidencies and turbocharged entitlement expenditures should underscore the unsettling truth that both political parties have, on the whole, been working together in an often unspoken consensus to fuel the explosion of entitlement spending."
The "empirical correspondence between Republican presidencies and turbocharged entitlement expenditures" is precisely what I mean by his use of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I wouldn't disagree with your point, just his poor reasoning that he passes off as "unsettling truth". That added to the overall "predatory feel" of the article that someone just mentioned makes me very wary. I think maybe he is trying hard to look unbiased while presenting a view very much inline with the rest of the AEI's economic views. We're just a country of moochers it seems and none of this has anything to do with the aging population, living longer, or increased medical costs.
Or to gain a quick glimpse of his basic thesis: the article is "Excerpted from "A Nation of Takers: America's Entitlement Epidemic,"