Which is why I get so annoyed when I hear House Minority John Boehner say the stimulus isn’t working because we are still losing jobs, as if anyone really expected it would be able to completely and immediately reverse our job losses. It’s unfortunately a tough message to sell politically, but the fact is that the stimulus has had a major impact:
“if gross domestic product shrank by 1 percent in the April-May-June period, it would have fallen by 4 percent without the recovery package,” [Economist Lawrence Mishel] says. “The plain facts are we’ve been losing jobs, but we’ve been losing them at one-third the rate we were losing them at the beginning of the year before the recovery package.”
To take just one example, the stimulus act has saved hundreds of thousands of jobs just in education, according to an analysis by the Department of Education:
Based on an analysis of states’ initial and preliminary submission of the first ARRA Section 1512 Quarterly Report we foresee that over 250,000 education jobs have been retained or created through the Recovery Act. These jobs include teachers, principals, and support staff in elementary and secondary schools, and educational, administrative, and support personnel in institutions of higher education.
Yes, Mr. Boehner, we all know the economy isn’t exactly roaring yet. But as a Congressman, I’d think you’d be glad we were able to save all of these jobs to prevent things from getting even worse.
Why do I think that every Democratic politician should end every speech insisting that the sky is blue, the sun rises in the East and that apple pie tastes good… just to watch the Republicans take the opposite position?
two completely unbiased analyses; Mishel is an expert at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank in Washington and the Department of Education is under the Obama Administration… I can't imagine that would have influence at all over their findings?
Would you give Cato Institute studies the same merit?
No argument from me, The sky is blue, the sun rises is the east, apple pie tastes good, and Obama is ruining our economy!
Actually, the sun doesn't rise. The earth does. Also, the CBO has estimated that obamacare will DECREASE the deficit (Bush wrecked the economy, by the way, dimwit)
Obamacare. The magical solution to so many problems. Close your eyes, click your heels, and wish real hard.
You STILL genuinely believe that this bogus, bloated, incomprehensible piece of confiscatory, re-distributive legislative garbage will improve medical care and reduce medical costs? Huh. That's amazing.
And, just for the sake of fun argument, let's say that Bush DIDN'T always make the best decisions domestically. You're right…he didn't.
No Chld Left Behind when he actually should have dismantled the Federal Department of Education; a try for "Comprehensive" Immigration Reform; signing fat, porky Transportation and Agriculture bills, the first meaningless individual stimulus checks, just to name a few things I didn't like. He was no fiscal conservative, that's for sure.
I'm still reserving judgment on the actual efficacy of TARP (again, it is hard to know what is fact and what is spin) but I hate that it opened the door for this new guy to run the deficit up to even more dizzying heights and insert government (aka "taxpayer dollars") into the private sector in oh-so-many new ways in order to "save us".
Those pesky numbers. Job numbers. Health care cost numbers.
Economic recovery numbers. At this stage of the game, it certainly can't hurt to be somewhat of a cynic as our kids and grandkids are spent into oblivion.
Wherever one falls on the political spectrum, whatever kind of health insurance reform or job creation stimulus one believes would be most beneficial, watching this crowd operate boggles the mind and would, it seems, make anyone who is honest with themselves and informed about all that is happening say, "NO. STOP. We want to borrow and use Hillary's famous "button".
Many of our elected Washington officials seem to be either thugs or fools - take your pick - and we deserve better. Isn't that what this election was supposed to be about? At long last, a change for the better…
When will that start?
It will reduce the deficit if Medicare (or Medicaid, can't remember which) are reduced by something like 20%. The problem being the very difficult work of doing that is not part of the bill.
Libertardian fail.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/21/health.car...
If there is a public option and no one is refused care, then why would we need Medicaid? That's a 100% reduction.
But that is not the bill to which lojasmo is referring. You can't take the costs of one bill and apply it to the benefits of another. There is no unified version of "Obamacare" and the one the CBO analyzed as reducing the deficit only does so by assuming cuts to an entitlement program. While it seems rational that providing care in one way should reduce what you need to spend in another unless you make those reductions part of the same bill it is nothing more than wishful thinking. Wishful thinking that given the history of entitlement programs will likely never come true.
"There is no unified version of "Obamacare"
I was making fun of dumb-asses like you.
KH is exactly right on this one.
When you examine the numbers, the difference between this healthcare plan being a net deficit increaser and a net deficit reducer lies solely with the 20% cuts in Medicare reimbursements. Keep in mind that Medicare already pays at about 96 cents on the dollar of healthcare costs. Not of inflated healthcare prices, but of the actual cost to administer that drug or perform that surgery, the provider loses money. Should we really expect the doctor to buy that heart valve from a supplier for $1,000, and then get reimbursed $960 by Medicare for giving it to a patient? He or she should at least get the $1,000 back plus a little bit for their time.
I digress. My point is that cutting Medicare reimbursements by 20% has nothing to do with the Public Option. Why not debate a 20% cut in Medicare reimbursements on its merits, and then debate the Public Option on its merits.
I have a WSJ analysis that says just the opposite.
I have a WSJ analysis that says just the opposite.
I have a WSJ analysis that says just the opposite.
Pull that out of whatever hole you're hiding it in, and show us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204...
Here is the deal, lojasmo:
Obama and Biden said we had to borrow $800 billion dollars for stimulus so the unemployment rate would max out at 8%. So we said OK, let's do that and borrowed the $800 billion dollars. Now unemployment is at 10%. 2 points higher than the reason given why we needed to spend $800 billion. And Obama is saying that it worked. Say again, Barack?
Hate to make this about healthcare, but do we have any reason to believe Obama can execute a plan? Given his stimulus history, he will do this:
Tell us we need to spend $1 trilllion on healthcare in order to save money. Then we spend $1 trillion. Then we don't save money. And Obama will say it worked.
Fool me once…….
http://reason.com/blog/2009/09/16/health-care-ref...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_go_co/u...
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/23/cbo-medicar...
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/10/09/medicare-p...
The "Public Option" in no way means that the people who's benefits would be cut with the reduction in Medicare would receive equal benefits in return. The bigger point is that the cuts to Medicare will likely never happen, it simply uses the promise of those cuts as the way to making it reduce the deficit. They are playing the system in order to get the numbers they want.
So I guess that would be a lojasmo ,epic dipshit who supports legislation without understanding it, fail.
Your single legitimate source is three weeks old. Your most recent source (some dipshit blog) is over a week old. The CBO report I cited has been reported, for the first time, today.
You are a fool, sir.
In your original post you do not cite an specific bill or CBO release. At that time the only CBO report on a health care bill that showed a reduction in the deficit was the one relating to the senate finance committee bill. I made the assumption that you were commenting on something that had been available for analysis rather than simply parroting a press release. Since the CNN article you linked to provides nothing about the bill that was analyzed by the CBO or anything about the report itself since it had yet to be released I thought it best to stick with the information which was a bit more reliable , and actually available to comment on.
I should have been more clear about this. I guess my two mistakes were thinking you were smart enough to comment on things that were actually knowable and then not being more clear about my attempt to stick to the one bill where the analysis had been made public.
Just to follow my heart valve example, the UK solution is strikingly simple. You just don't include the heart valve in the single payer formulary. Cost avoided. Problem solved. Everyone is happy, except the poor sap who needed a heart valve.