Thread: Anyone want to predict the outcome of the health care case?

Originally Posted by adaher

It doesn't actually work that way. It's true that you'd need less direct payoffs from Congress to campaign contributors, but pork isn't a large portion of the budget. And the influence of local business interests would be magnified. there's no way you can just prove it with a link, but it seems to me that European megacorps are much more taken care of by their governments than corporations here are. You just don't see any kind of adversarial relationship between major industries and their governments over there. What they want, they get.

Campaigns get the majority of their financing from the top 1/2 of 1% on the wealth scale.
And this group gets the benefit in tax rates that are lower than they should be, massive tax loopholes and corporate welfare.
Have every taxpayer get a $50 in vouchers to give to campaigns, thats like 3 or 4 times what we spend now, to get this money a campaign has to forgo all other contributions over say $100.
Congressmen spend 30% to 70% of their time fundraising, the people who fund campaigns, less than 1% of the population have the congress's ear for 30% to 70 % of the time.
Break that link and things change.

The rich would still benefit from tax policy because Congressmen themselves are rich and all their friends are rich.

Lobbying is about money, but even more importantly it's about personal relationships. That's why former Congressmen and their aides and relatives are in such high demand. Believe it or not, most Congressmen aren't so crass as to just do what they are told for money. Maybe Jack Murtha and Duke Cunningham plus many that haven't been caught yet, but most of them get talked into doing special interests' bidding by having someone they know and listen to convince them to support or oppose a bill. None of this would change with limits on donations.

No matter what system is tried anywhere in the world, politics pretty much functions the same way.

Now Congressmen spending all that time fundraising, they complain about that because in the past they'd just get a couple of big checks from rich patrons. Now they have to collect small donations and they hate that. What a lot of reformers don't realize is that a lot of impetus for reform is coming from politicians that want to be LESS accountable and LESS likely to be defeated by challengers.

Only reason I hope it fails is because government involvement in heath care seems to be causing the high prices. Everywhere the government is not involved in "controlling" the price offers it at a reasonable price or is forced off the market.

It's surprising to me that it's not yet common sense that government involvement inevitably screws up the whole dynamic of any attempt at a free market solution.

Originally Posted by jviehe

Theres no defense against the 'politically impossible' argument. But you agree spending and not taxes has to be changed, so thats good enough for me.

That is not quite what I said, but my concern is still what in the $3.598 trillion in federal outlays can be cut quick enough to get anywhere near our $2.303 trillion in tax revenue. That is where I am with the politically impossible argument. Even the damn tea party cannot live without entitlements, which is what... 43% or more of that federal outlays number. Regardless, just to make this a spending only issue well north of a $Trillion needs to go. You would have to cut into entitlements, defense, and a host of other things. Republicans plans will not go that far.

Originally Posted by goober

I would argue that setting a % of GDP as a revenue target or a spending target is pretty poor policy.
The government should spend as much as it needs to accomplish it's legitimate goals, and it should spend as little as it can to accomplish these goals, and taxes should be set at a level sufficient to pay for this spending and to effect some modest reduction in the debt during good times.

If there is a war or major crisis, spending may rise, deficits may be necessary, but the worst policy is run deficits in good times, good times should produce surpluses, and until the debt is paid off, taxes should not be reduced just because we have a surplus.

And to return to the actual topic.
Since tax supported health care, run by the government is perfectly constitutional (John Adams signed it into law, I'll take his opinion of what's constitutional over some internet poster). Then if congress feels that it needs to put some form of health care out there and pay for it by taxes, as long as the taxes are sufficient to pay for the spending, I don't have a problem with it, and neither does the constitution.

You are probably right on trying to make policy aimed at a percentages of GDP. But that does not negate that it should be considered based on trends as well as needs. In that respect, it is probably one of the better benchmarks when it comes to discussion about the decision making going on at the time as it also considers the economy at the time. One could argue well it would be difficult to make policy based on a such a moving target as % of GDP anyway.

As for the topic, we will have plenty of time to debate this as a decision may be quite a while off.

now we wait till june for decision they made before argument were even heard

Originally Posted by thanatos144

now we wait till june for decision they made before argument were even heard

That's not quite true. They all voted, and the Chief Justice will appoint one to write the majority opinion, and one to write the dissent, but the justices may, and sometimes do, change their vote after reading the opinions, so we really won't know til they announce it.
However given that federal mandates have existed since the 1790's and are a big part of the existing structure of the nation, it's hard to imagine the court overturning this legislation based on some fine point in the wording. No one doubts that congress has the power to tax and spend to provide health care, which is what this law does, whether the court wants to play a game of semantics is up to Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts.

Originally Posted by thanatos144

now we wait till june for decision they made before argument were even heard

8 of them made their decisions. Anthony Kennedy has been known to change his mind several times over the course of a case.

Originally Posted by goober

That's not quite true. They all voted, and the Chief Justice will appoint one to write the majority opinion, and one to write the dissent, but the justices may, and sometimes do, change their vote after reading the opinions, so we really won't know til they announce it.
However given that federal mandates have existed since the 1790's and are a big part of the existing structure of the nation, it's hard to imagine the court overturning this legislation based on some fine point in the wording. No one doubts that congress has the power to tax and spend to provide health care, which is what this law does, whether the court wants to play a game of semantics is up to Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts.

Yeah, but at some point you have to come up with a limiting principle. Previous mandates didn't call that into question. Now that we're talking about making every American contract with a private company as a condition of living, the justices are absolutely right to ask where this ends. If it ends right here, this far and no farther, that's one thing. But if you're implying that all mandates are okay because all previous mandates were okay, then there's no limiting principle whatsoever. And if Kennedy doesn't think there is one, he's going to make one, and he's going to send a message.

Originally Posted by Sluggo

That is not quite what I said, but my concern is still what in the $3.598 trillion in federal outlays can be cut quick enough to get anywhere near our $2.303 trillion in tax revenue. That is where I am with the politically impossible argument. Even the damn tea party cannot live without entitlements, which is what... 43% or more of that federal outlays number. Regardless, just to make this a spending only issue well north of a $Trillion needs to go. You would have to cut into entitlements, defense, and a host of other things. Republicans plans will not go that far.

Like I said, arguing something wont be done is pointless. It CAN be done, and thats what matters. Freeze spending at 2005 levels. Problem solved. What have we added since then we cant live without?

Originally Posted by Sluggo

You are probably right on trying to make policy aimed at a percentages of GDP. But that does not negate that it should be considered based on trends as well as needs. In that respect, it is probably one of the better benchmarks when it comes to discussion about the decision making going on at the time as it also considers the economy at the time. One could argue well it would be difficult to make policy based on a such a moving target as % of GDP anyway.

As for the topic, we will have plenty of time to debate this as a decision may be quite a while off.

I agree, but if you want to base taxes on what the govt legitimately needs to spend, itll be much less than 18% of gdp. The tax argument is that based on our current system of taxing primarily wealthy income, the govt cant collect more than a certain amount and thats about 18%. You might be able to collect more if you taxed more people. BUt then its a question of how much of everything produced in the country should the federal govt take? I think 18% is too much.

According to Kennedy, there are NO precedent mandates.
His puposeful blind eye, or lack of historical knowledge, indicates a nay vote.

There are no mandates like this under the commerce clause. And none that are a condition of being alive.