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Will we get the healthcare that is needed?

A

Anonymous

Guest
Read this and decide who is on board and will get the healthcare bill they want. Who will our representives listen to us or them.

Lobbyists Per Lawmaker Work on Health Overhaul
.Jonathan D. Salant and Lizzie O’Leary Jonathan D. Salant And Lizzie O’leary – Fri Aug 14, 1:31 pm ET
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- If there is any doubt that President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul U.S. health care is the hottest topic in Congress, just ask the 3,300 lobbyists who have lined up to work on the issue.

That’s six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

“Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group, referring to the street in the capital where many lobbying firms have offices.

Stock Prices

Health-insurer and managed-care stocks have gained this year, led by WellCare Health Plans Inc., based in Tampa, Florida; Cigna Corp., based in Philadelphia; and Coventry Health Care Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland, company. The three paced a 13 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Managed Health Care Index since Jan. 1. Drugmaker shares have stagnated.

Health-care lobbyists said their efforts are the biggest since the successful 1986 effort to overhaul the tax code. The result is a debate involving thousands of disparate voices, forcing Congress to pick winners and losers.

“There’s a lot of money at stake and there are a lot of special interests who don’t want their ox gored,” Allison said.

The lobbyists are on all sides of the issue. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Washington-based trade group for drug companies such as Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen Inc. and New York-based Pfizer Inc., has embraced a health-care overhaul.

Amgen, Pfizer

Lobbying by Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, is intended to “effectively shape health-care policy,” said Kelley Davenport, a spokeswoman. Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, is “dedicated to insuring that our voice is heard,” said spokesman Ray Kerins.

The Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, is opposing efforts to offer government- run health insurance to compete with private companies. The chamber spent $26 million in the first six months of 2009 to lobby, more than any other group.

For lobbyists, the goal is to ensure that whatever measure eventually becomes law doesn’t cripple the industry they represent.

“They assume health-care reform is going to happen and they want to be protected,” said John Jonas, a partner with the lobbying firm of Patton Boggs LLP in Washington.

Patton Boggs, the top lobbying firm in terms of revenue, has three dozen clients in the health-care debate, including New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and Bentonville, Arkansas- based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., more than any other lobbying firm.

Bristol-Myers, Walmart

Brian Henry, a spokesman for Bristol-Myers, maker of the world’s No. 2 best-selling drug Plavix, said the company wants to ensure any legislation preserves incentives for innovation.

“We believe the health-care system needs to be reformed and we’ve specifically supported an employer mandate and cost- containment measures,” said Greg Rossiter, a spokesman for Walmart, the largest U.S. employer.

The lobbyists fill the appointment books of lawmakers, and line up at House and Senate office buildings. The staff of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, rotates weekly meetings among the various groups in the health-care debate, providers one week, purchasers a second, consumers a third.

“We hear from lobbyists all the time,” said Representative Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who heads the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee.

The blitz by lobbyists carries a risk for the public, said Larry McNeely, a health-care advocate with the Boston-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

‘Drowning Out’

“The sheer quantity of money that’s sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them,” said McNeely, whose group backs a public health plan, which Obama and many Democrats consider a centerpiece of any proposal and most Republicans oppose.

The lobbying push also risks delaying legislation, said Rogan Kersh, associate dean at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.

“That amount of activity is inevitably going to slow down the process,” Kersh said.

The quest for influence isn’t limited to lobbying. Health- care advocates have spent $53 million on commercials, according to Arlington, Virginia-based TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis, which tracks advertising spending.

The health-care industry also contributed $20.5 million to federal candidates and the political parties during the first six months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is up for re-election next year, received $382,400, more than any other lawmaker.

“There is a cacophony going on with so much money and so many individuals hoping to shape the legislation,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

The number of lobbyists could grow once Congress returns next month and resumes efforts to enact legislation by the end of the year.

“They have just decided this is serious enough and more fully understand the impact it’s going to have,” Jonas said.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
How insurance firms drive debate

By Wendell Potter
Special to CNN


Editor's note: Wendell Potter has served since May 2009 as senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit organization that says it seeks to expose "corporate spin and government propaganda." After a 20-year career as a corporate public relations executive, Potter left his job last year as head of communications for one of the nation's largest health insurers, CIGNA Corporation.


(CNN) -- Having grown up in one of the most conservative and Republican places in the country -- East Tennessee -- I understand why many of the people who are showing up at town hall meetings this month are reacting, sometimes violently, when members of Congress try to explain the need for an expanded government role in our health care system.

I also have a lot of conservative friends, including one former co-worker who was laid off by CIGNA several years ago but who nonetheless worries about a "government takeover" of health care.

The most vocal folks at the town hall meetings seem to share the same ideology as my kinfolks in East Tennessee and my former CIGNA buddy: the less government involvement in our lives, the better.

That point couldn't have been made clearer than by the man standing in line to get free care at Remote Area Medical's recent health care "expedition" at the Wise County, Virginia, fairgrounds, who told a reporter he was dead set against President Obama's reform proposal.

Even though he didn't have health insurance, and could see the desperation in the faces of thousands of others all around him who were in similar straits, he was more worried about the possibility of having to pay more taxes than he was eager to make sure he and his neighbors wouldn't have to wait in line to get care provided by volunteer doctors in animal stalls.

Friday morning my former CIGNA buddy sent me an e-mail challenging something he said his wife heard me say in a radio report about my press conference in the Capitol on Wednesday with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.

"She heard you say that these protestors are funded by the insurance companies. Frankly, nothing would surprise me, but certainly not each and every person," he wrote. "If there was a meeting near me, I certainly would tell my local representative how I feel about this entire subject (and it wouldn't be pretty), and I certainly am not funded by anyone. So I am ultimately wondering what proof there is that seemingly ordinary Americans are finally protesting what is going in Washington and there are all of these suggestions of a greater conspiracy."

If the radio report had carried more of my remarks, he might have a better understanding of how the health insurance and its army of PR people are influencing his opinions and actions without his even knowing it.

Until I quit my job last year, I was one of the leaders of that army. I had a very successful career and was my company's voice to the media and the public for several years.

It was my job to "promote and defend" the company's reputation and to try to persuade reporters to write positive stories about the industry's ideas on reform. During the last couple of years of my career, however, I became increasingly worried that the high-deductible plans insurers were beginning to push Americans into would force more and more of us into bankruptcy.

The higher I rose in the company, the more I learned about the tactics insurers use to dump policyholders when they get sick, in order to increase profits and to reward their Wall Street investors. I could not in good conscience continue serving as an industry mouthpiece. And I did not want to be part of yet another industry effort to kill meaningful reform.

I explained during the press conference with Rep. Slaughter how the industry funnels millions of its policyholders' premiums to big public relations firms that provide talking points to conservative talk show hosts, business groups and politicians. I also described how the PR firms set up front groups, again using your premium dollars and mine, to scare people away from reform.

What I'm trying to do as I write and speak out against the insurance industry I was a part of for nearly two decades is to inform Americans that when they hear isolated stories of long waiting times to see doctors in Canada and allegations that care in other systems is rationed by "government bureaucrats," someone associated with the insurance industry wrote the original script.

The industry has been engaging in these kinds of tactics for many years, going back to its successful behind-the-scenes campaign to kill the Clinton reform plan.

A story in Friday's New York Times about the origin of the absurdly false rumor that President Obama's health care proposal would create government-sponsored "death panels" bears out what I have been saying.

The story notes that the rumor emanated "from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating Bill Clinton's health care proposal 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, the lieutenant governor of New York)."

The big PR firms that work for the industry have close connections with those media outlets and stars in the conservative movement. One of their PR firms, which created and staffed a front group in the late '90s to kill the proposed "Patients' Bill of Rights," launched a PR and advertising campaign in conservative media outlets to drum up opposition to the bill.

The message: President Clinton "owed a debt to the liberal base of the Democrat Party and would try to pay back that debt by advancing the type of big government agenda on health care that he failed to get in 1994."

The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. I know from having served on numerous trade group committees and industry-funded front groups, however, that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with insurers' ability to increase profits.

So the next time you hear someone warning against a "government takeover" of our health care system, or that the creation of a public health insurance option would send us down the "slippery slope toward socialism," know that someone like I used to be wrote those terms, knowing it might turn many of the very people who would benefit most from meaningful reform into unwitting spokespeople for the industry.
 

Mike

Well-known member
We get it. All Corporations are bad.

Corporations are run and owned by humans......thus all humans are bad................................

You can solve that problem.

Dismiss yourself from the human race.
 

Lonecowboy

Well-known member
The health-care industry also contributed $20.5 million to federal candidates and the political parties during the first six months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

Maybe there is greed on both sides of this issue.
it is a power struggle over who get to control more of our money

revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

good post Hurley
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Mike said:
We get it. All Corporations are bad.

Corporations are run and owned by humans......thus all humans are bad................................

You can solve that problem.

Dismiss yourself from the human race.

And its human nature to want to make as much as you can...Its called GREED- which isn't such a bad factor when you have competition...But in an industry where there is NO competition and the industry is one big Conglomerate Monopoly - Greed superimposes on the good of the public and the country...

Insurance companies and Major League Baseball are the only two industries exempt from anti-trust laws.

I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern civilization; but I believe that they should be so supervised and so regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as a whole.
~Theodore Roosevelt

We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.
~Theodore Roosevelt
 

alice

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
Greed huh. I suppose we all should work for minimum wages and be happy about it.

And right now there are those that are damn happy to be getting any wage at all...minimum or otherwise! Not that a family can possibly be supported on it...

Alice
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Democrats Turn on Obama in Fight Over 'Public Option'

Monday, August 17, 2009 1:06 PM

By: David A. Patten Article Font Size

Democrats rather than Republicans are now officially the No. 1 threat to President Obama's healthcare reform plans, as conservative blue dogs battle party progressives over the so-called "public option" that opponents see as an incremental step toward single-payer, social healthcare.

Faced with unrelenting town hall protests and polls indicating the body politic has gone into cardiac arrest on the issue, President Obama has been signaling his willingness to back off of government-subsidized healthcare.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., predicted on CNBC Monday morning that if Obama jettisons the public option, it will cost the president 100 House votes from the left-wing of his party.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
PrairieQueen said:
The way I see it, the less the government controls - the less it can be bought.

Decide what is private and get the government out of it? We should only support the military with taxes period. All Highways should be private. All schools and universties should support themselves. Do away with labor unions they are the problem for high prices. Make everyone school their own children. It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.
I would challenge all of you to look at the job you have does the government buy anything from your company. I wish life was as simple as some people think. But we all have responsiabiltys to help and support a better nation than we have now. Do you do any engineering for the government. Really really think about this use all of your brain both liberal and the consertive side.
 

PrairieQueen

Well-known member
hurleyjd said:
PrairieQueen said:
The way I see it, the less the government controls - the less it can be bought.

Decide what is private and get the government out of it? We should only support the military with taxes period. All Highways should be private. All schools and universties should support themselves. Do away with labor unions they are the problem for high prices. Make everyone school their own children. It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.
I would challenge all of you to look at the job you have does the government buy anything from your company. I wish life was as simple as some people think. But we all have responsiabiltys to help and support a better nation than we have now. Do you do any engineering for the government. Really really think about this use all of your brain both liberal and the consertive side.

Let's see...

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes,

school their own if they want, private schools otherwise,

does the government buy from my company no, but so what, what does that have to do with it?,

we can only help and support a better nation by contributing our money through taxes? Giving to a government that is inefficient and full of it's own corruption?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
hypocritexposer said:
It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.

Hurley, in your opinion are the students being "dumbed down" presently?

Hypo I am not advacoting more dumb students at all I was using this as an example it taxes are cut everywhere then a lot of things we take for granted will go away. I have grand children in school now. They are in some of the smaller schools in our area. They seem to pickup more than some of the kids. They are offered the same studies straight across. I hope they are smart. I have one that is in school and he does not do as well as the rest of them, but he is always thinking up something to make a little money. He went up and down the street where he lived and asked the neighbors what they did with their aluminum cans. Most were tossing them. He carried bags to them and asked them to save them for him. He went regualry and collected the cans. Over a three year period he sold around $1500 worth of cans. Where did the money go in the bank and buying stock. He bought five hundred shares of Ford at 1.50. Look at the price now. If he is given money in the bank it goes. The other bunch of kids that do well in school cannot wait to get to Walmart to spend any money they get.
I really think that the problem in education now is that they try to teach where everone can make the grade and pass. Until someone somewhere figures out that all kids are not created equal in brain power then school will not get across to all of them. Some of the smarter ones get bored and lose interest.
Sorry about the long answer. The answer to your question would be as always there are some that will be smarter than others. And giving them test to find out which is smarter will not accomplish anything. Did I answer yiour question or not. You be the judge of that. Also some schools do a better job than others. So everything is not equal. The founding of the education cabinet at the fed. level has not helped. You cannot take a brilliant kid and put him in a special class without someone that has another kid that is not as smart say my kid needs to be in that class also.
Schools in America are more interested in sports than they are academics. The football coach is the highest paid teacher in school and the mathmatics teacher chances are will be the lowest.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
I was not speaking of intelligence level of the children. I was speaking more about the information that is provided to the students.

Take for example Global Warming. If the students are only provided with one data set or one view, they will not have all the information to form an educated opinion.

"dumbing down" in my opinion has little to do with intelligence level. It does have something to do with motivation though.

Is the student motivated to research all/most information pertaining to a subject or just one biased view?
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
hurleyjd said:
PrairieQueen said:
The way I see it, the less the government controls - the less it can be bought.

Decide what is private and get the government out of it? We should only support the military with taxes period. All Highways should be private. All schools and universties should support themselves. Do away with labor unions they are the problem for high prices. Make everyone school their own children. It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.
I would challenge all of you to look at the job you have does the government buy anything from your company. I wish life was as simple as some people think. But we all have responsiabiltys to help and support a better nation than we have now. Do you do any engineering for the government. Really really think about this use all of your brain both liberal and the consertive side.

Curious were you so Pro Government when you were young? Or is it just now that are in a position where you only have them to rely on in your old age? I am really sorry that you did not invest and save for your future and now your only hope is the Government! But you have no right to punish us that are being personally responsible!

The Governments job should be to look at how they can do the least possible in our private lives not to see how they can gain more control over it.
 

Larrry

Well-known member
reader2 said:
That was an unwarranted low blow at someone who has been civil and brought up good points. Why did you have to stoop so low?
reader2 said:
Get back to work Sage looking for truck stops
http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37955&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=truck&start=36

HYPOCRISY AT IT"S FINEST
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
aplusmnt said:
hurleyjd said:
PrairieQueen said:
The way I see it, the less the government controls - the less it can be bought.

Decide what is private and get the government out of it? We should only support the military with taxes period. All Highways should be private. All schools and universties should support themselves. Do away with labor unions they are the problem for high prices. Make everyone school their own children. It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.
I would challenge all of you to look at the job you have does the government buy anything from your company. I wish life was as simple as some people think. But we all have responsiabiltys to help and support a better nation than we have now. Do you do any engineering for the government. Really really think about this use all of your brain both liberal and the consertive side.

Curious were you so Pro Government when you were young? Or is it just now that are in a position where you only have them to rely on in your old age? I am really sorry that you did not invest and save for your future and now your only hope is the Government! But you have no right to punish us that are being personally responsible!

The Governments job should be to look at how they can do the least possible in our private lives not to see how they can gain more control over it.

What is your business worth. Maybe I could buy you out. I have a monthy income in the five figures and do not have to work for it Just go to the mail box for it. What is your net worth want to compare them. No when I was younger I did not really care what was going on. Because there was no internet no television with hundreds of channels reporting something 24 hours a day. Could be I have paid my share of taxes in my lifetime and still send a considerly amount to the government. I voted for John Kenndy my first vote, Barry Goldwater my second, Jimmy Carter my third. Ronald Reagan my forth, fifth vote Walter Mondale, sixth vote George Bush Senior, Ross Perot my seventh, Bill Clinton my eigth, George W my ninth, John Kerry my tenth and Barack Obama my eleventh. So you see I have been all over the spectrum in my presidential votes. No I do not have to have the government money if all government money stopped today I would still be well off. Would you.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
hurleyjd said:
aplusmnt said:
hurleyjd said:
Decide what is private and get the government out of it? We should only support the military with taxes period. All Highways should be private. All schools and universties should support themselves. Do away with labor unions they are the problem for high prices. Make everyone school their own children. It would not hurt to have more dumb children in the USA.
I would challenge all of you to look at the job you have does the government buy anything from your company. I wish life was as simple as some people think. But we all have responsiabiltys to help and support a better nation than we have now. Do you do any engineering for the government. Really really think about this use all of your brain both liberal and the consertive side.

Curious were you so Pro Government when you were young? Or is it just now that are in a position where you only have them to rely on in your old age? I am really sorry that you did not invest and save for your future and now your only hope is the Government! But you have no right to punish us that are being personally responsible!

The Governments job should be to look at how they can do the least possible in our private lives not to see how they can gain more control over it.

What is your business worth. Maybe I could buy you out. I have a monthy income in the five figures and do not have to work for it Just go to the mail box for it. What is your net worth want to compare them. No when I was younger I did not really care what was going on. Because there was no internet no television with hundreds of channels reporting something 24 hours a day. Could be I have paid my share of taxes in my lifetime and still send a considerly amount to the government. I voted for John Kenndy my first vote, Barry Goldwater my second, Jimmy Carter my third. Ronald Reagan my forth, fifth vote Walter Mondale, sixth vote George Bush Senior, Ross Perot my seventh, Bill Clinton my eigth, George W my ninth, John Kerry my tenth and Barack Obama my eleventh. So you see I have been all over the spectrum in my presidential votes. No I do not have to have the government money if all government money stopped today I would still be well off. Would you.

If you are making a minimum of $120,000 a year and your retired then I would quit worry about what the government will do for you and enjoy life! Surely you have more than a Million in retirement along with that awesome retirement income! Go enjoy it while you still can!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
aplusmnt said:
hurleyjd said:
aplusmnt said:
Curious were you so Pro Government when you were young? Or is it just now that are in a position where you only have them to rely on in your old age? I am really sorry that you did not invest and save for your future and now your only hope is the Government! But you have no right to punish us that are being personally responsible!

The Governments job should be to look at how they can do the least possible in our private lives not to see how they can gain more control over it.

What is your business worth. Maybe I could buy you out. I have a monthy income in the five figures and do not have to work for it Just go to the mail box for it. What is your net worth want to compare them. No when I was younger I did not really care what was going on. Because there was no internet no television with hundreds of channels reporting something 24 hours a day. Could be I have paid my share of taxes in my lifetime and still send a considerly amount to the government. I voted for John Kenndy my first vote, Barry Goldwater my second, Jimmy Carter my third. Ronald Reagan my forth, fifth vote Walter Mondale, sixth vote George Bush Senior, Ross Perot my seventh, Bill Clinton my eigth, George W my ninth, John Kerry my tenth and Barack Obama my eleventh. So you see I have been all over the spectrum in my presidential votes. No I do not have to have the government money if all government money stopped today I would still be well off. Would you.

If you are making a minimum of $120,000 a year and your retired then I would quit worry about what the government will do for you and enjoy life! Surely you have more than a Million in retirement along with that awesome retirement income! Go enjoy it while you still can!

Aplus I am not worrying about myself I am worrying about the next generation that is coming along. I am just saying that the government has been our friend over the years and tried to do what is good for America. I will glady pay my share to keep it that way. Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn were liberal thinkers not many people know of some of their accomplishments. One is they establised a program to fund the Rural Electric Cooperatives to get electricty to the country side. You may take this for granted. The private power companies did not want the rural citzens, not enough money in it. The loans created by the government has been repaid many times. I still am served by a cooperative, bills are reasonable and if any profit is made it comes back to the members. The location of the cooperative had a locker plant so a person could kill a beef they raised and store it in a locker that they rented before that a beef would have to be canned pretty quick or it would spoil. The coopertive loans and programs were very sucessful with loans. This also worked very well, people got good clean potabe water instead of water from the farm pond or a cistern with wiggle tails in it. Was this a good plan for the citzens, it did not help any city people were they against it as people are now on the healthcare because they have theirs and to hell with everyone else. If they were I was not around then to know. The REA created a new consumer, for electric refrigators, electric irons for the wife. Can you inmagine life without electricty on the farm. You guys overlook a lot of things and take for granted that a lot of our elected representives fought for and got for us. Use you brain when I ask if there is anything in your life that you enjoy that some liberal representive in the past did that you enjoy now. It had not been for the REA I would be running my computer on coal oil. Do you even know what coal oil is?
Have you found any post anywhere that I have asked the government to help me out. I am an old man and my mind is not as good as it needs to be . If you do I would like to see them to refresh my memory. How about a million plus and growing.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
hurleyjd said:
aplusmnt said:
hurleyjd said:
What is your business worth. Maybe I could buy you out. I have a monthy income in the five figures and do not have to work for it Just go to the mail box for it. What is your net worth want to compare them. No when I was younger I did not really care what was going on. Because there was no internet no television with hundreds of channels reporting something 24 hours a day. Could be I have paid my share of taxes in my lifetime and still send a considerly amount to the government. I voted for John Kenndy my first vote, Barry Goldwater my second, Jimmy Carter my third. Ronald Reagan my forth, fifth vote Walter Mondale, sixth vote George Bush Senior, Ross Perot my seventh, Bill Clinton my eigth, George W my ninth, John Kerry my tenth and Barack Obama my eleventh. So you see I have been all over the spectrum in my presidential votes. No I do not have to have the government money if all government money stopped today I would still be well off. Would you.

If you are making a minimum of $120,000 a year and your retired then I would quit worry about what the government will do for you and enjoy life! Surely you have more than a Million in retirement along with that awesome retirement income! Go enjoy it while you still can!

Aplus I am not worrying about myself I am worrying about the next generation that is coming along. I am just saying that the government has been our friend over the years and tried to do what is good for America. I will glady pay my share to keep it that way. Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn were liberal thinkers not many people know of some of their accomplishments. One is they establised a program to fund the Rural Electric Cooperatives to get electricty to the country side. You may take this for granted. The private power companies did not want the rural citzens, not enough money in it. The loans created by the government has been repaid many times. I still am served by a cooperative, bills are reasonable and if any profit is made it comes back to the members. The location of the cooperative had a locker plant so a person could kill a beef they raised and store it in a locker that they rented before that a beef would have to be canned pretty quick or it would spoil. The coopertive loans and programs were very sucessful with loans. This also worked very well, people got good clean potabe water instead of water from the farm pond or a cistern with wiggle tails in it. Was this a good plan for the citzens, it did not help any city people were they against it as people are now on the healthcare because they have theirs and to hell with everyone else. If they were I was not around then to know. The REA created a new consumer, for electric refrigators, electric irons for the wife. Can you inmagine life without electricty on the farm. You guys overlook a lot of things and take for granted that a lot of our elected representives fought for and got for us. Use you brain when I ask if there is anything in your life that you enjoy that some liberal representive in the past did that you enjoy now. It had not been for the REA I would be running my computer on coal oil. Do you even know what coal oil is?
Have you found any post anywhere that I have asked the government to help me out. I am an old man and my mind is not as good as it needs to be . If you do I would like to see them to refresh my memory. How about a million plus and growing.

You made some good points, but what I think you are missing is that today's government is not the government of your past, just because the government is needed to secure certain services does not mean they should over reach this need!

Actually that is one of the ways Hitler came into the power he did, he provided some very good programs for Germany and had some positive plans, but we know how that all turned out!

Power should be limited and closely watched so the Government does not over step its boundaries. This is where we differ, you feel their power should be far reaching than I do! You quote the positive things the Government has done with its power, but the list is equal or longer on the bad things they have did with that same power.

Example is cash for clunkers, if you are on the new car sales side it is a good program, but if you are on the used car sales side it is a bad program. That is why it should just be left alone and the Gov. not pick winners! Let the market weed out some of these issues!
 
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