If Universal Healthcare is a Bad Idea...

[Dragonlady]

The fact of the matter is American health care and system is one of the worst same goes for the education sydtem.

Yes, we do have our union problems with education. However the US spends the most money per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world. What do we have to show for it?

First off, American universities are the most expensive in the world and many are among the world's best. It is the cost of University that makes the American education system the most expensive in the world. In terms of high school and public schools, both are woefully underfunded and the teachers are poorly paid compared to other countries.

It is false the assume the problem with your public education system lies with unions. The unions don't set the curriculum nor do they purchase text books or classroom supplies. They don't decide student/teacher ratios either.

I place the blame on the school districts and the states. The states control what is taught, and what text books are bought. My American public school teacher friends tell me that their kids often have to share textbooks. They're purchasing classroom supplies from their own pockets. Much of the curriculum is taught to pass the standardized testing which is the yardstick by which schools are measured.

The US is one of two first world countries which spends less per capita on the children of the poor than middle class kids. Turkey is the other. The rest of us spend the same regardless of where you live. There are cases of upper middle class sections of town incorporating as a separate town within a town, so that none of their tax dollars go to educate poor children. This is why fewer and fewer poor people have the tools to work themselves out of poverty.

It's been my opinion that Republicans hate providing government services like education, so they deliberately starve the system until it fails, utterly, and then they say it proves the system doesn't work. Because right now the conservative push is to charter schools. They point to the public system and say "It's not working", which gives them an excuse to get rid of it.

New Orleans used Katrina to fire all the teachers and move to a charter system. It didn't work. 60,000 students disappeared from the system. That is 60,000 poor kids who were enrolled in public schools at the end of the school year, didn't enroll in charter schools the next year. Their parents had no money to cover the shortfall between the vouchers and the tuition.

With the public school board disbanded, there were no truant officers to track what happened to these kids. Republicans in NO didn't care. It simply meant they didn't have to pay to educate them. And that's what this push to charter schools is all about.

This is no way to deal with education and poverty since education is the only realistic route out of poverty.

Dumb. Really really dumb.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

First off, American universities are the most expensive in the world and many are among the world's best. It is the cost of University that makes the American education system the most expensive in the world. In terms of high school and public schools, both are woefully underfunded and the teachers are poorly paid compared to other countries.

And this we can agree on. But most colleges are liberal run. Secondly, our social standards are supply and demand. The less supply and the more demand, the higher the cost. For our non-profit colleges, they are making over 20% profit. Think about that for a second. If our liberal colleges are making that kind of loot, a person could get rich making investments in those colleges if it were available, but it's not.

It is false the assume the problem with your public education system lies with unions. The unions don't set the curriculum nor do they purchase text books or classroom supplies. They don't decide student/teacher ratios either.

Correct, the people of the city or town do. We do not have a national public education system, we have local public education systems. If any city or town wishes to fund the schools even more, they can put it up for a vote by the people. Curriculum is set by the school board; politicians who are elected by the town people. The exception to that are schools that have federal funding such as the school lunch program. If a school accepts any federal funds, then the federal government sets the curriculum.

I place the blame on the school districts and the states. The states control what is taught, and what text books are bought. My American public school teacher friends tell me that their kids often have to share textbooks. They're purchasing classroom supplies from their own pockets. Much of the curriculum is taught to pass the standardized testing which is the yardstick by which schools are measured.

The parents of public schools have no costs besides books and supplies. WTF can't parents supply these things for their own children? If you can't afford to participate in your child's education, WTF did you have children in the first place? Taxpayers fund most of your child's education. You can supply the couple hundred dollars a year for school supplies.

The US is one of two first world countries which spends less per capita on the children of the poor than middle class kids. Turkey is the other. The rest of us spend the same regardless of where you live. There are cases of upper middle class sections of town incorporating as a separate town within a town, so that none of their tax dollars go to educate poor children. This is why fewer and fewer poor people have the tools to work themselves out of poverty.

The tools needed are a two-parent family. The Democrats in the past have promoted single-parent families, and that led us to the poverty we have today on top of poor education outcomes.

The schools are not the problem in most cases, it's the parent that's the problem. These parents of poor children assume that once you throw them on the school bus, their problem is solved. Or let me put it another way:

If you could switch schools, and put those poor kids in great suburban schools, and put the suburban kids in lower income schools, the suburban kids will perform just as well whereas the poor students will continue to be failures. Money doesn't fix that.

It's been my opinion that Republicans hate providing government services like education, so they deliberately starve the system until it fails, utterly, and then they say it proves the system doesn't work. Because right now the conservative push is to charter schools. They point to the public system and say "It's not working", which gives them an excuse to get rid of it.

By your own admission, our public schools have failed. What the Republicans try to do is provide an alternative to failed pubic schools. Democrats don't like choice--they never have. Choice means freedom and progress. Democrats are against freedom and improvement. They will fight to protect their union buddies who fund their party just as they have with school vouchers that they took to court.

This is no way to deal with education and poverty since education is the only realistic route out of poverty.

Dumb. Really really dumb.

Once again, the United States of America spends more per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world. What more can you want than that?

 

[Issa]

Well said....i grow up in a third world country. Went to college here and me and other international students were appalled about the education in the US...i have kids that went to public schools in one of the best districts in LA and still we have to work with them and I always feel that they are not learning much.

What saved the US from the decline is immigration and HB1 visa....if it was for US born citizens this country would be just another ordinary country. In fact and with all due respect I can't wrap my head around, how did the US come this far, with such a poor education system.

The fact of the matter is American health care and system is one of the worst same goes for the education sydtem.

Yes, we do have our union problems with education. However the US spends the most money per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world. What do we have to show for it?

First off, American universities are the most expensive in the world and many are among the world's best. It is the cost of University that makes the American education system the most expensive in the world. In terms of high school and public schools, both are woefully underfunded and the teachers are poorly paid compared to other countries.

It is false the assume the problem with your public education system lies with unions. The unions don't set the curriculum nor do they purchase text books or classroom supplies. They don't decide student/teacher ratios either.

I place the blame on the school districts and the states. The states control what is taught, and what text books are bought. My American public school teacher friends tell me that their kids often have to share textbooks. They're purchasing classroom supplies from their own pockets. Much of the curriculum is taught to pass the standardized testing which is the yardstick by which schools are measured.

The US is one of two first world countries which spends less per capita on the children of the poor than middle class kids. Turkey is the other. The rest of us spend the same regardless of where you live. There are cases of upper middle class sections of town incorporating as a separate town within a town, so that none of their tax dollars go to educate poor children. This is why fewer and fewer poor people have the tools to work themselves out of poverty.

It's been my opinion that Republicans hate providing government services like education, so they deliberately starve the system until it fails, utterly, and then they say it proves the system doesn't work. Because right now the conservative push is to charter schools. They point to the public system and say "It's not working", which gives them an excuse to get rid of it.

New Orleans used Katrina to fire all the teachers and move to a charter system. It didn't work. 60,000 students disappeared from the system. That is 60,000 poor kids who were enrolled in public schools at the end of the school year, didn't enroll in charter schools the next year. Their parents had no money to cover the shortfall between the vouchers and the tuition.

With the public school board disbanded, there were no truant officers to track what happened to these kids. Republicans in NO didn't care. It simply meant they didn't have to pay to educate them. And that's what this push to charter schools is all about.

This is no way to deal with education and poverty since education is the only realistic route out of poverty.

Dumb. Really really dumb.

 

[Redfish]

Oh please Ray, don't tell me this nonsense is the truth. There might be parts of the truth there, the problem is you're saying all the problems come from the Democrats and you'll ignore completely and utterly that the Republicans are a massive part of the problem too. If you don't see that, it's because you don't want to.

I'd love to see that. Tell me where the Republicans are part of the problem. Better yet, show me their political agenda about healthcare.

Obamacare, for me, was an attempt at making change, but he reality was that is wasn't the solution to any problem. But hey, you can just tell me what I think, seems to be all the rage these days.

I never tried to tell you what you think, I told you what I think and you are just in denial. I told you that Commie Care was designed for likely Democrat voters. I told you that it was designed to make as many new government dependents as possible. You have provided no counter argument to that. Obama's White House itself boasted about how they created over 20 million more new government dependents out of the program.

As for your sentence on the choices that British people have, it tires me that you'd write something so unworthy of a response.

Why? I created that response from you. You were the one that said British people had the option to buy insurance to get better and preferred care.

I was surprised to learn that New Zealand and Australia do the same...so even under those systems, private insurance brings better results

And what do you mean by this?

There is private insurance, but:

The amount paid by Medicare includes:

1. patient health costs based on the Medicare benefits schedule. Typically, Medicare covers 75% of general practitioner, 85% of specialist and 100% of public in-hospital costs.
2. patients may be entitled to other concessions or benefits[8]
3. patients may be entitled to further benefits once they have crossed a so-called safety net threshold, based on total health expenditure for the year.[8]

Health care in Australia - Wikipedia

So, most of the costs are paid for by the government.

your last sentence says it all "paid for by the government" The government never pays for anything------------WE, the taxpayers pay. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

 

[Redfish]

the number doesn't matter. my example is valid regardless.

So what; You could always quit and collect, "money for nothing" instead of merely complaining and "damaging your health".

you just made my point and don't even realize it.

What point? You either have a rational choice or not.

the choice of working or being on welfare????????????? WTF are you trying to say?

Sure, especially if you cannot find a job due to capitalism's, natural rate of unemployment.

do you think there is 100% employment in socialist countries? Have you seen what is happening in socialist Venezuela?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Oh please Ray, don't tell me this nonsense is the truth. There might be parts of the truth there, the problem is you're saying all the problems come from the Democrats and you'll ignore completely and utterly that the Republicans are a massive part of the problem too. If you don't see that, it's because you don't want to.

I'd love to see that. Tell me where the Republicans are part of the problem. Better yet, show me their political agenda about healthcare.

Obamacare, for me, was an attempt at making change, but he reality was that is wasn't the solution to any problem. But hey, you can just tell me what I think, seems to be all the rage these days.

I never tried to tell you what you think, I told you what I think and you are just in denial. I told you that Commie Care was designed for likely Democrat voters. I told you that it was designed to make as many new government dependents as possible. You have provided no counter argument to that. Obama's White House itself boasted about how they created over 20 million more new government dependents out of the program.

As for your sentence on the choices that British people have, it tires me that you'd write something so unworthy of a response.

Why? I created that response from you. You were the one that said British people had the option to buy insurance to get better and preferred care.

I was surprised to learn that New Zealand and Australia do the same...so even under those systems, private insurance brings better results

And what do you mean by this?

There is private insurance, but:

The amount paid by Medicare includes:

1. patient health costs based on the Medicare benefits schedule. Typically, Medicare covers 75% of general practitioner, 85% of specialist and 100% of public in-hospital costs.
2. patients may be entitled to other concessions or benefits[8]
3. patients may be entitled to further benefits once they have crossed a so-called safety net threshold, based on total health expenditure for the year.[8]

Health care in Australia - Wikipedia

So, most of the costs are paid for by the government.

your last sentence says it all "paid for by the government" The government never pays for anything------------WE, the taxpayers pay. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

It's a government of the People, dumbass.

 

[Redfish]

Oh please Ray, don't tell me this nonsense is the truth. There might be parts of the truth there, the problem is you're saying all the problems come from the Democrats and you'll ignore completely and utterly that the Republicans are a massive part of the problem too. If you don't see that, it's because you don't want to.

I'd love to see that. Tell me where the Republicans are part of the problem. Better yet, show me their political agenda about healthcare.

Obamacare, for me, was an attempt at making change, but he reality was that is wasn't the solution to any problem. But hey, you can just tell me what I think, seems to be all the rage these days.

I never tried to tell you what you think, I told you what I think and you are just in denial. I told you that Commie Care was designed for likely Democrat voters. I told you that it was designed to make as many new government dependents as possible. You have provided no counter argument to that. Obama's White House itself boasted about how they created over 20 million more new government dependents out of the program.

As for your sentence on the choices that British people have, it tires me that you'd write something so unworthy of a response.

Why? I created that response from you. You were the one that said British people had the option to buy insurance to get better and preferred care.

I was surprised to learn that New Zealand and Australia do the same...so even under those systems, private insurance brings better results

And what do you mean by this?

There is private insurance, but:

The amount paid by Medicare includes:

1. patient health costs based on the Medicare benefits schedule. Typically, Medicare covers 75% of general practitioner, 85% of specialist and 100% of public in-hospital costs.
2. patients may be entitled to other concessions or benefits[8]
3. patients may be entitled to further benefits once they have crossed a so-called safety net threshold, based on total health expenditure for the year.[8]

Health care in Australia - Wikipedia

So, most of the costs are paid for by the government.

your last sentence says it all "paid for by the government" The government never pays for anything------------WE, the taxpayers pay. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

It's a government of the People, dumbass.

only if the people vote in a majority for what the government is doing, taking from them, etc. Otherwise it is a form of slavery run by a small group of super elites who know how you should live better than you do. Do you really want every aspect of your life controlled by the clowns in DC?

 

[frigidweirdo]

Well said....i grow up in a third world country. Went to college here and me and other international students were appalled about the education in the US...i have kids that went to public schools in one of the best districts in LA and still we have to work with them and I always feel that they are not learning much.

What saved the US from the decline is immigration and HB1 visa....if it was for US born citizens this country would be just another ordinary country. In fact and with all due respect I can't wrap my head around, how did the US come this far, with such a poor education system.

The fact of the matter is American health care and system is one of the worst same goes for the education sydtem.

Yes, we do have our union problems with education. However the US spends the most money per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world. What do we have to show for it?

First off, American universities are the most expensive in the world and many are among the world's best. It is the cost of University that makes the American education system the most expensive in the world. In terms of high school and public schools, both are woefully underfunded and the teachers are poorly paid compared to other countries.

It is false the assume the problem with your public education system lies with unions. The unions don't set the curriculum nor do they purchase text books or classroom supplies. They don't decide student/teacher ratios either.

I place the blame on the school districts and the states. The states control what is taught, and what text books are bought. My American public school teacher friends tell me that their kids often have to share textbooks. They're purchasing classroom supplies from their own pockets. Much of the curriculum is taught to pass the standardized testing which is the yardstick by which schools are measured.

The US is one of two first world countries which spends less per capita on the children of the poor than middle class kids. Turkey is the other. The rest of us spend the same regardless of where you live. There are cases of upper middle class sections of town incorporating as a separate town within a town, so that none of their tax dollars go to educate poor children. This is why fewer and fewer poor people have the tools to work themselves out of poverty.

It's been my opinion that Republicans hate providing government services like education, so they deliberately starve the system until it fails, utterly, and then they say it proves the system doesn't work. Because right now the conservative push is to charter schools. They point to the public system and say "It's not working", which gives them an excuse to get rid of it.

New Orleans used Katrina to fire all the teachers and move to a charter system. It didn't work. 60,000 students disappeared from the system. That is 60,000 poor kids who were enrolled in public schools at the end of the school year, didn't enroll in charter schools the next year. Their parents had no money to cover the shortfall between the vouchers and the tuition.

With the public school board disbanded, there were no truant officers to track what happened to these kids. Republicans in NO didn't care. It simply meant they didn't have to pay to educate them. And that's what this push to charter schools is all about.

This is no way to deal with education and poverty since education is the only realistic route out of poverty.

Dumb. Really really dumb.

It's strange. But I think what the US has is a system of an elite and a sub-system of poorly educated and cheap workers who commit a lot of crime and allow the elite to put the fear of God and crime into the Middle Classes, to keep them working hard. The health system benefits the rich too, people are less likely to quit their jobs.

China is in a similar situation now, the govt favors the companies over the workers (Communist huh?) and this means that people are more likely to stay in a bad job working for bad employees than would happen in a place like Europe. And China will overtake the US by doing that. China's education system is good in the sense it teaches kids to be hard working, but poor in that it never, ever encourages them to think, not one bit. Robots, that's what the elite like.

 

[Redfish]

Well said....i grow up in a third world country. Went to college here and me and other international students were appalled about the education in the US...i have kids that went to public schools in one of the best districts in LA and still we have to work with them and I always feel that they are not learning much.

What saved the US from the decline is immigration and HB1 visa....if it was for US born citizens this country would be just another ordinary country. In fact and with all due respect I can't wrap my head around, how did the US come this far, with such a poor education system.

The fact of the matter is American health care and system is one of the worst same goes for the education sydtem.

Yes, we do have our union problems with education. However the US spends the most money per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world. What do we have to show for it?

First off, American universities are the most expensive in the world and many are among the world's best. It is the cost of University that makes the American education system the most expensive in the world. In terms of high school and public schools, both are woefully underfunded and the teachers are poorly paid compared to other countries.

It is false the assume the problem with your public education system lies with unions. The unions don't set the curriculum nor do they purchase text books or classroom supplies. They don't decide student/teacher ratios either.

I place the blame on the school districts and the states. The states control what is taught, and what text books are bought. My American public school teacher friends tell me that their kids often have to share textbooks. They're purchasing classroom supplies from their own pockets. Much of the curriculum is taught to pass the standardized testing which is the yardstick by which schools are measured.

The US is one of two first world countries which spends less per capita on the children of the poor than middle class kids. Turkey is the other. The rest of us spend the same regardless of where you live. There are cases of upper middle class sections of town incorporating as a separate town within a town, so that none of their tax dollars go to educate poor children. This is why fewer and fewer poor people have the tools to work themselves out of poverty.

It's been my opinion that Republicans hate providing government services like education, so they deliberately starve the system until it fails, utterly, and then they say it proves the system doesn't work. Because right now the conservative push is to charter schools. They point to the public system and say "It's not working", which gives them an excuse to get rid of it.

New Orleans used Katrina to fire all the teachers and move to a charter system. It didn't work. 60,000 students disappeared from the system. That is 60,000 poor kids who were enrolled in public schools at the end of the school year, didn't enroll in charter schools the next year. Their parents had no money to cover the shortfall between the vouchers and the tuition.

With the public school board disbanded, there were no truant officers to track what happened to these kids. Republicans in NO didn't care. It simply meant they didn't have to pay to educate them. And that's what this push to charter schools is all about.

This is no way to deal with education and poverty since education is the only realistic route out of poverty.

Dumb. Really really dumb.

It's strange. But I think what the US has is a system of an elite and a sub-system of poorly educated and cheap workers who commit a lot of crime and allow the elite to put the fear of God and crime into the Middle Classes, to keep them working hard. The health system benefits the rich too, people are less likely to quit their jobs.

China is in a similar situation now, the govt favors the companies over the workers (Communist huh?) and this means that people are more likely to stay in a bad job working for bad employees than would happen in a place like Europe. And China will overtake the US by doing that. China's education system is good in the sense it teaches kids to be hard working, but poor in that it never, ever encourages them to think, not one bit. Robots, that's what the elite like.

what you say has some truth to it. However you forget who the elites in your scenario are. The elites who have created this mess are the left wingers in our universities, the media, and Hollywood. Those socialists who have made themselves rich at the expense of others and believe that they have some divine right to rule the rest of us and tell us how to live.

Your china example is on point. China is a massive socialist state with virtually no individual freedom-------------and you on the left argue for a similar situation here in the USA.

Freedom has a price. Not everyone will get equal results in life. Real freedom includes both the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. YOU are responsible for your life, not the government.

 

[danielpalos]

The US has major problems and just doesn't wanna learn from others about it.
Health care, guns, education.

Unfortunately, we only have two major parties. One has some solutions, the other one only seems to have, nothing but repeal.

 

[danielpalos]

Oh please Ray, don't tell me this nonsense is the truth. There might be parts of the truth there, the problem is you're saying all the problems come from the Democrats and you'll ignore completely and utterly that the Republicans are a massive part of the problem too. If you don't see that, it's because you don't want to.

I'd love to see that. Tell me where the Republicans are part of the problem. Better yet, show me their political agenda about healthcare.

Obamacare, for me, was an attempt at making change, but he reality was that is wasn't the solution to any problem. But hey, you can just tell me what I think, seems to be all the rage these days.

I never tried to tell you what you think, I told you what I think and you are just in denial. I told you that Commie Care was designed for likely Democrat voters. I told you that it was designed to make as many new government dependents as possible. You have provided no counter argument to that. Obama's White House itself boasted about how they created over 20 million more new government dependents out of the program.

As for your sentence on the choices that British people have, it tires me that you'd write something so unworthy of a response.

Why? I created that response from you. You were the one that said British people had the option to buy insurance to get better and preferred care.

I was surprised to learn that New Zealand and Australia do the same...so even under those systems, private insurance brings better results

And what do you mean by this?

There is private insurance, but:

The amount paid by Medicare includes:

1. patient health costs based on the Medicare benefits schedule. Typically, Medicare covers 75% of general practitioner, 85% of specialist and 100% of public in-hospital costs.
2. patients may be entitled to other concessions or benefits[8]
3. patients may be entitled to further benefits once they have crossed a so-called safety net threshold, based on total health expenditure for the year.[8]

Health care in Australia - Wikipedia

So, most of the costs are paid for by the government.

your last sentence says it all "paid for by the government" The government never pays for anything------------WE, the taxpayers pay. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

State capitalism is more effective when you need to solve some macroeconomic problems instead of microeconomic problems.

 

[dblack]

Oh please Ray, don't tell me this nonsense is the truth. There might be parts of the truth there, the problem is you're saying all the problems come from the Democrats and you'll ignore completely and utterly that the Republicans are a massive part of the problem too. If you don't see that, it's because you don't want to.

I'd love to see that. Tell me where the Republicans are part of the problem. Better yet, show me their political agenda about healthcare.

Obamacare, for me, was an attempt at making change, but he reality was that is wasn't the solution to any problem. But hey, you can just tell me what I think, seems to be all the rage these days.

I never tried to tell you what you think, I told you what I think and you are just in denial. I told you that Commie Care was designed for likely Democrat voters. I told you that it was designed to make as many new government dependents as possible. You have provided no counter argument to that. Obama's White House itself boasted about how they created over 20 million more new government dependents out of the program.

As for your sentence on the choices that British people have, it tires me that you'd write something so unworthy of a response.

Why? I created that response from you. You were the one that said British people had the option to buy insurance to get better and preferred care.

I was surprised to learn that New Zealand and Australia do the same...so even under those systems, private insurance brings better results

And what do you mean by this?

There is private insurance, but:

The amount paid by Medicare includes:

1. patient health costs based on the Medicare benefits schedule. Typically, Medicare covers 75% of general practitioner, 85% of specialist and 100% of public in-hospital costs.
2. patients may be entitled to other concessions or benefits[8]
3. patients may be entitled to further benefits once they have crossed a so-called safety net threshold, based on total health expenditure for the year.[8]

Health care in Australia - Wikipedia

So, most of the costs are paid for by the government.

your last sentence says it all "paid for by the government" The government never pays for anything------------WE, the taxpayers pay. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

It's a government of the People, dumbass.

Oooohh.. "People" capitalized!

 

[danielpalos]

Providing for health care promotes the general welfare.

Simply cutting benefits for the poor to lower taxes for the rich, does not promote the general welfare.

 

[Dragonlady]

In reading this thread, I'm reading a lot of conservative talking points which are completely false. Ray talks about Democrats support of single parent families as a huge part of the problem. You're still seeing your issues as being the result of liberal policies.

All of the top nations in education are liberal social democracies. Before conservatives in the US starting pushing for "choice" in education with home schooling, charter and Christian schools becoming a big thing in the US, your education system was also ranked in the top 10. Once conservatives started undermining your public education system and pushing "choice", your rankings started dropping.

Canada has similar demographics regarding single parent families. We also have cities where white people are in the minority. Our marriage and divorce figures, as well as our birth rate outside of marriage, are similar to the US and yet Canadians schools are consistently ranked among the top 5 in the world.

"Choice" is a red herring. Walk through a supermarket in the US and you have aisles and aisles of "choice", and yet Americans are among the fattest and least healthy in the world. When humans have unlimited choices, they tend to make bad choices.

I've had discussions with American parents who have told me that they put their kids in "Christian" schools because they didn't want their kids going to school with black kids. Christian school are teaching Creationism, not science. If you're looking for a well educated work force for your new manufacturing company, the US is going to be well down your list.

Teacher salaries in the US are among the lowest in the first world. Charter schools pay even less than public schools. How can you attract quality people to the profession while paying poverty wages, and vilifying the profession as the root of all evil? The short answer is, you can't. Factor in the enormous debt university grads are facing coming out of college and few people can afford to work for so little and pay their student debt or start a family.

Charter schools aren't producing better results than public schools, especially when you factor in their cherry picking of top students from the public schools, and the expulsion of "problem" kids, ie those who drag down their test results.

Ray says that parents should be able to pay a couple of hundred dollars for books and supplies. Poor families who haven't had a meaningful increase in income since 1990, who are dependent on food stamps and school lunch programs to feed their kids cannot afford to buy text books and supplies. Nor can they afford to pay tuition gaps between charter school vouchers and charter school tuition. When local boards move to a charter school/voucher program, thousand of children just disappear from school.

Last but not least, we need to touch on the War on Drugs. Since the Reagan Administration started the War on Drugs, combined with minimum sentencing, hundreds of thousands of black and brown men have been imprisoned. Although statistics show that drug use among white people is just as prevalent, far fewer whites (as a percentage), are imprisoned for simple possession. This is a huge factor in single parent families in poor neighbourhoods.

One of the best examples of a program gone wrong was the federal affirmative action program, which gave tax breaks to corporations for hiring minorities. When these companies hired a black man, the could tick a box on minority hiring. But when they hired a black woman, they got a 2 for 1. They could tick the boxes for women AND minorities. Companies raced to hire black women. Black men, not so much.

Canada also spends a lot less on education, per capita than the US, but we spend on quality teachers and on resources. We also spend the same amount in poor neighbourhoods as we do in wealthy neighbourhoods. Canadian conservatives have been pushing for charter schools in Canada but we have stubbornly resisted funding for charter schools.

It's easy to mount an effective opposition to charter schools, which syphon tax money and resources away from public education. All we do is point to what had happened in the US. As Americans have increasingly embraced "choice", their worldwide rankings in education have dropped like a stone.

 

[Dragonlady]

Providing for health care promotes the general welfare.

Simply cutting benefits for the poor to lower taxes for the rich, does not promote the general welfare.

I read an article this morning in the Washington Post in regard to the fight against the Senate health bill. ONE municipal hospital in Phoenix reported that their write off for unpaid medical care for those who had no insurance or didn't pay for services was $25 million before the ACA, and $8 million last year.

That's one city hospital. They're urging everyone to fight against repeal of the ACA.

Many conservative here say they don't want their money going to pay for health care for those who don't have insurance, but someone is picking up the tab for the medically indigent. People in Phoenix will see that $25 million added to their tax bills, one way or another.

You can either fund the medically indigent through state and federal taxes, or through higher state and property taxes. Pick your poison.

In order to have a viable country, the benefits of being American have to apply to ALL Americans, not just the wealthy. If you don't consider that ALL Americans are created equal, then you don't have a nation. You have a bunch of warring tribes.

The Rich Tribe and the Upper Middle Cladd are getting the best education, the best health care, and most of the money. The tax code is syphoning off the wealth of the nation for them.

The Lower Middle Class are told the poor is taking their wealth and they're finding it tough to keep up. They can't afford the best of anything, and they're living from pay check to pay check.

The Poor Tribe works the longest hours, but haven't had a meaningful raise in 25 years. They are dependent on earned income credits, food stamps and other government programs to feed and house their families.

Unless you acknowledge that the poor need living wages, nothing will change. No other first world country in the world has the income inequity of the US. No other country in the world uses a tax code to benefit the wealthy like the US.

It's not liberal policies that have made this mess, it's conservative policies since Reagan.

 

[danielpalos]

In reading this thread, I'm reading a lot of conservative talking points which are completely false. Ray talks about Democrats support of single parent families as a huge part of the problem. You're still seeing your issues as being the result of liberal policies.

It is not, "liberal policies" but mediocre attempts at solving problems due to the right wing having no solutions, only repeal.

Employment is at-will in our at-will employment States. We could have solved simple poverty, "yesterday", but for right wing, "hate on the poor".

Unemployment compensation for simply being unemployed on an at-will basis for Individuals, does not engender more children as does, means testing for means tested welfare.

 

[danielpalos]

Providing for health care promotes the general welfare.

Simply cutting benefits for the poor to lower taxes for the rich, does not promote the general welfare.

I read an article this morning in the Washington Post in regard to the fight against the Senate health bill. ONE municipal hospital in Phoenix reported that their write off for unpaid medical care for those who had no insurance or didn't pay for services was $25 million before the ACA, and $8 million last year.

That's one city hospital. They're urging everyone to fight against repeal of the ACA.

Many conservative here say they don't want their money going to pay for health care for those who don't have insurance, but someone is picking up the tab for the medically indigent. People in Phoenix will see that $25 million added to their tax bills, one way or another.

You can either fund the medically indigent through state and federal taxes, or through higher state and property taxes. Pick your poison.

In order to have a viable country, the benefits of being American have to apply to ALL Americans, not just the wealthy. If you don't consider that ALL Americans are created equal, then you don't have a nation. You have a bunch of warring tribes.

The Rich Tribe and the Upper Middle Cladd are getting the best education, the best health care, and most of the money. The tax code is syphoning off the wealth of the nation for them.

The Lower Middle Class are told the poor is taking their wealth and they're finding it tough to keep up. They can't afford the best of anything, and they're living from pay check to pay check.

The Poor Tribe works the longest hours, but haven't had a meaningful raise in 25 years. They are dependent on earned income credits, food stamps and other government programs to feed and house their families.

Unless you acknowledge that the poor need living wages, nothing will change. No other first world country in the world has the income inequity of the US. No other country in the world uses a tax code to benefit the wealthy like the US.

It's not liberal policies that have made this mess, it's conservative policies since Reagan.

We do not need the cost of a drug war; that money could be going towards, health care.

 

[Crixus]

Who should go without?

Those who don't go out and get it. Simple.

 

[Dragonlady]

Means testing for social programs adds an enourmous cost to these programs. For one Canadian child care program, conservatives demanded a means test. It was found that it would be cheaper to give the money to ALL who applied, than it would be to pay for the additional administration costs of the application review means test, as well as staff needed to police income levels and revoke coverage if the recipients income increased.

But American conservatives keep ladling on expensive administration costs, the most expensive and ludicrous of which is drug testing for welfare recipients. Florida spent over $1 million flagging welfare recipients for drug testing and performing the tests. Savings to the taxpayers - less than $200,000. Spending $1 million dollars to save $200,000 is penny wise and pound foolish.

Taxpayers are out of pocket an additional $800,000 over the amount they would have spent leaving well enough alone.

This is why I oppose earned income credits. It would be cheaper to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour than to collect payroll taxes from workers, review each tax return to determine who qualifies for EIC's and send that money back to them.

Ditto food stamps. Give the poor higher wages. Stop using EIC's for fast food and retail workers and pay a bit more for your hamburger. Better a quarter out of your pocket now than $1 added to your tax bill later.

Conservatives scream about social programs, but manage to make them as inefficient and expensive as possible.

 

[Boss]

This is why I oppose earned income credits. It would be cheaper to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour than to collect payroll taxes from workers, review each tax return to determine who qualifies for EIC's and send that money back to them.

Ditto food stamps. Give the poor higher wages. Stop using EIC's for fast food and retail workers and pay a bit more for your hamburger. Better a quarter out of your pocket now than $1 added to your tax bill later.

But the jury is in on raising the minimum wage. In places where it has been done, it is shown to cost the average low-income worker $121 a month. That's because businesses cut hours and/or benefits and eliminate jobs. Now, I'm not going to argue for EIC, I don't agree with that either.

They recently voted in St. Louis to LOWER the minimum wage from $10 to $7.50, it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the economy there. I predict it will be a positive.

Do you know when the last time black unemployment was lower than white unemployment? (Oh yes, there was a time such as this!) Go do your research like a good little progressive.... you'll find out, it was the year before passage of the first "minimum wage" law. the Davis-Bacon Act.