Obamacare cost...

[Uncle Ted]

Two more perfect examples. Then you added a gotcha Conservative "watchdog" for good measure.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp

(And I am not a Pelosi fan in any way. )



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So Pelosi didn't have Jimmy Beam as a guest on her plane?!? I am becoming less of a Pelosi fan as well.

[Moliere]

I think it's reprehensible that government employees (any and/or all) would be exempt from any legislation, especially something as big as Obamacare. I don't care if they make $43K a year, they should still be under the same rules and regulations. I think the same thing for union workers or people that are self-employed. Everyone should be subject to the same laws, granted those laws will be structured to help the poor and Obamacare is structured in that way.

The idea that they only make $43K so they should be exempt is absurd. Millions of Americans make that much or even less so I have no pity on the federal workers. My starting salary was $39,500 when I left BYU, but it was known that in my field you are underpaid until you either make partner or you leave to go to industry. I struggled to make ends meet at first, but hard work and some luck has put me in a decent situation. These congressional aides and staff will make a lot during their lifetime so to exempt them is just a big slap in the face to the workers in private business that make $43K but don't have the hope of being a staff/partner and receiving a big pay check at a large DC thinktank a couple years down the road.

[Uncle Ted]

The Rand Paul parties must suck... How about we use that money for the Pelosi Party Plane?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...y-to-treasury/

We don't have to invite Pelosi.

[dabrockster]

VC. You are a Bureaucrat aren't you.

I could give a fly flip about their needs or the needs of the staff. You are quick to jump to their need of this small group and brush aside all the hard working individuals who will be impacted by this clusterf....

This is how a certain class becomes an elitist class. When they think they are above the populace and should be exempt from such things like the rest of the country.. Hogwash..

[VirginiaCougar]

So Pelosi didn't have Jimmy Beam as a guest on her plane?!? I am becoming less of a Pelosi fan as well.

I have no doubt she had drinks as well as food on the much smaller number of trips which happened on Air Force planes because of a reasonable Bush policy change for all Speakers.


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[Uncle Ted]

I have no doubt she had drinks as well as food on the much smaller number of trips which happened on Air Force planes because of a reasonable Bush policy change for all Speakers.


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If anyone, Bush Jr. knows how to throw a party.

[snowcat]

Sorry, but corporate profits are up and the arguement that business can't afford these changes is absurd

I absolutely hate this kind of thinking.

[Uncle Ted]

I have no doubt she had drinks as well as food on the much smaller number of trips which happened on Air Force planes because of a reasonable Bush policy change for all Speakers.


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So I do some government contract work. They keep telling me they can't pay for our drinks at these receptions we get invited to because of some stupid government regulation. But Pelosi got an exception? What is up with that?

[Eddie]

I absolutely hate this kind of thinking.

Yeah...me too. I work for an organization that survives based on government contracts. Three years ago our contract amount was cut, but our expected output was not. It's been at least that long since anyone has had a raise, and benefits have been cut to make up the difference from increasing costs elsewhere. Don't tell me business profits are up. I haven't seen it.

Very few of the people I work with and none of the people I supervise make 43k or more a year. Yet the are having benefits cut too.

I agree with whoever said that whatever laws are passed should be honored by all. With few exceptions. Health care is not an example of something I believe should be one of those exceptions. So they realize it sucks enough that they want no part of it, but still think it so great that we should all be required to participate?

B.S.

[byu71]

I absolutely hate this kind of thinking.

It is the old concept of when is too much, too much. Even if there is validity to the concept, who is going to decide where that point is.

I have a hard time imagining my working a productive 10 hour day and if I put in an extra two hours beyond that, someone decides the money I make during those two hours should go to the guy who works an 8 hour day.

What is the incentive to work the additional two hours?

[VirginiaCougar]

VC. You are a Bureaucrat aren't you.

I could give a fly flip about their needs or the needs of the staff. You are quick to jump to their need of this small group and brush aside all the hard working individuals who will be impacted by this clusterf....

This is how a certain class becomes an elitist class. When they think they are above the populace and should be exempt from such things like the rest of the country.. Hogwash..

No I am not a bureaucrat. I do have dozens of former students who work in various agencies.

It is funny how you define an elite class as someone making in the low 40s and has health insurance. That says a lot.

Again, you miss my point completely.

The effort isn't to make them exempt from Obamacare. It is to have them keep their employer supported insurance that about 50 percent of all working Americans have and which is what Obamacare calls for.

Vitter and the right wing radicals want to treat them more poorly than those who get their insurance through their company, to strip the employer subsidized insurance. To make matters worse, they want to keep them from the exchange subsidies. So in a negative way, it is Vitter and the petty and vitriolic tea party allies that want an exemption from the support Obamacare would offer to GOP/Dem staffers at those income levels.

Hogwash indeed!

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[dabrockster]

No I am not a bureaucrat. I do have dozens of former students who work in various agencies.

It is funny how you define an elite class as someone making in the low 40s and has health insurance. That says a lot.

Again, you miss my point completely.

The effort isn't to make them exempt from Obamacare. It is to have them keep their employer supported insurance that about 50 percent of all working Americans have and which is what Obamacare calls for.

Vitter and the right wing radicals want to treat them more poorly than those who get their insurance through their company, to strip the employer subsidized insurance. To make matters worse, they want to keep them from the exchange subsidies. So in a negative way, it is Vitter and the petty and vitriolic tea party allies that want an exemption from the support Obamacare would offer to GOP/Dem staffers at those income levels.

Hogwash indeed!

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So you are a needleneck wanker then (Not to insult my respectable/lovable Waup or other needleneck wankers)..


And you have missed everyone's input entirely. You again, feel this group should be exempt due to their low pay, while the same individual who has the same pay will be required. What is the difference?? They work for the eff'ing congressman who can "help them out" and keep money in their pockets while the private working individual has to adjust..

It is obvious you don't understand the concept of elitist and what they can do..

[imanihonjin]

It is the old concept of when is too much, too much. Even if there is validity to the concept, who is going to decide where that point is.

I have a hard time imagining my working a productive 10 hour day and if I put in an extra two hours beyond that, someone decides the money I make during those two hours should go to the guy who works an 8 hour day.

What is the incentive to work the additional two hours?

I believe VC has stated that he thought some proposal that stated that income over $2 million a year should be 100% taxed. That should give you an idea where VC stands.

[VirginiaCougar]

So you are a needleneck wanker then (Not to insult my respectable/lovable Waup or other needleneck wankers)..


And you have missed everyone's input entirely. You again, feel this group should be exempt due to their low pay, while the same individual who has the same pay will be required. What is the difference?? They work for the eff'ing congressman who can "help them out" and keep money in their pockets while the private working individual has to adjust..

It is obvious you don't understand the concept of elitist and what they can do..

LOL. Question the ideological dogma and become a wanker. So be it, I guess. "Everyone's" point is an ideological talking point that is fundamentally false. Saying it over and over again doesn't make your position more true.

Now the Unions want an exception on their "cadillac plans" but that is a different issue, one certainly worth discussing. It is NOT an exception to just keep your employer supported health care like half of all other working Americans. That is what Obamacare, warts and all, calls for. In fact that is what it is trying to support.

Are you denying that Vitter and the others aren't doing this? Or that they are also trying to push a negative "exception" to keep staffers from getting the exchange subsidies that their incomes would allow?

It would be funny if not wildly sad where this nonsense has taken us. Now health care insurance is elitist as are wages lower than their equivalents for most of the last 50 years. It is a strange witches ideological brew many are consuming these days. One that turns good things bad. Misrepresents (I see downright lie, far removed from reality, about my one of my political views).

I will say this. Obamacare is a very flawed bill. It is flawed because of what strong liberals did to it in the House, but also because it has a lot of Conservative ideas in it (intended to draw the GOP into bipartisan negotiations/compromose/participation - silly Obama, that was never going to happen). The exchange is a GOP idea straight from Heritage.

For all its faults, however, Obamacare is not the devil incarnate, nor is it causing 3/4ths of what it is accused of causing. That is all bit stinking pile of crap. It just is. Some just need to stop drinking that nasty ideological koolaid (with apologies for mixing my drink metaphors).

[VirginiaCougar]

It is the old concept of when is too much, too much. Even if there is validity to the concept, who is going to decide where that point is.

I have a hard time imagining my working a productive 10 hour day and if I put in an extra two hours beyond that, someone decides the money I make during those two hours should go to the guy who works an 8 hour day.

What is the incentive to work the additional two hours?

Not really. That is not the argument. Actually, I could use your argument to support my point. So American worker productivity is up and has been going up for years (I could add a nice graph of this if you like). Wages have been in decline since the late 1970s. Now the Health Insurance of many workers, putting in those 10 hours and not the 8, is being called "elitist" and "excessive." All in a period when corporate profits are nearing record levels in many cases (something someone else here falsely denied).

What is the incentive to keep working at all if you are like most hard-working Americans? Maybe those workers will just go on welfare, it is better than getting screwed over in their productive work. The American system works best when it incentivizes workers - to want to do more and relatedly when the resulting economic gaps aren't too large. This is what Thomas Paine argued back in the day (the part of Paine's argument that Glenn Beck conveniently ignores), it is what deTocqueville saw in the 1820s in comparing America to Europe (his summary argument, with which he opens - there was a "general economic equality..."). It is what Roosevelt fixed after the Guilded Age which is the foundation of a lot of the economic and global success of the US in the 20th Century. It is even what a gun-regulating, Social Security/Medicare fixing, greater taxes on higher incomes, Russian enemy talking, Republican President understood in many ways in the 1980s. You may know him, his name was Reagan.

Today, as I said above, we have a revisionist and very perverse view on these things. I do agree that we should incentive work even more, health care access/insurance is a great place to start, and then lets talk wages for that productive work.