Text 13502, 49 rader
Skriven 2011-01-07 17:26:14 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 13491 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Welcome to the 21st century in a supposedly civilized country
=====================================================================
Replying to a message of Ward Dossche to Bob Ackley:

 WD> Bob,

 WD> Of course someone somewhere pays the bill ... my fellow countrymen and
 WD> myself do. You should see our taxes. But I'm glad we have such a
 WD> system where we do not have to worry about which insurance company we
 WD> are affiliated to or which political majority will slash down which
 WD> part of a universal healthcare legislation on mere partisan grounds.

The problem on this side of the pond is that government (at all levels) is
taking between
65 and 75 oercent of people's income - NOT including Obamacare.  And many of
the governments at all levals are running deficits; California has been
technically bankrupt
for years, so is New York City - and those two localities have among the
highest tax rates
in the nation.  We won't get into the US government's deficit and multitrillion
dollar debt.

FWIW the biggest single item in the US government budget is interest on the
national debt.
The budgets of the Defense Department and HHS (Social Security/welfare) are
both considerably smaller.

Note that the debt has gone from about two trillion dollars to nearly five
trillion in the past
ten years; that crushing burden isn't going to be repaid, ever, and anybody
that buys US Treasury debt instruments is an idiot,  My opinion, of course.  It
took the Spendocrats nearly
seventy years to run up the first two trillion in debt, and only ten more years
to more than double it.

Also FWIW the US government has announced that in 2011 is cutting workers'
"contributions" to Socialist Security from 6.2 percent of gross income to 4.2
percent (plus a like amount from
the employers which doesn't appear on people's pay stubs).  Great, the system
is
going broke and they *reduce* its income.  2009 was the first year that
Socialist Security
benefits paid out exceeded "contributions" coming in - all that surplus that's
been accumulating since 1935 is invested - by law - in the US national debt,
and no place else;
there is no "Social Security Trust Fund" of money saved up by the workers and
never has been.  That difference between benefits and "contributions" will only
get bigger.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)