The most communist organization in the United States is its military. It is an organization that basically practices what it preaches - equality. Recruits come in with an equal chance to succeed based entirely on their merits. If they work hard and follow orders, study and advance, they can reach the highest ranks. But even if they don't, their daily work and sacrifice is recognized by the rest of the world as something they can be proud of. Does this sound like real life to you?
Consider this, while in the military they are fed, housed, and given unlimited access to free health care. For the most part, this is not something they have to pay for, but even if it does, it comes out of their paycheck and is never a burden to the soldiers, sailors, or marines. They are also given access to educational opportunities, usually at a much discounted rate.
Their job is considered so important that every day issues like health care and food and housing should not be a burden to them. As long as they continue to do the work, they have job security and life security.
Why can't the rest of the country get it right? Why must we create rules and regulations that are designed to give everyone access to all the basic things they need to succeed and then overburden them with unrealistic budgets and overwhelming red tape? Either we think these things are important for all citizens to have, or we don't. And if we do, then we should create a system that works for everyone with as little fuss as possible.
I'm not talking about free rides. I'm not talking about hand outs. I'm talking about people being able to go to work in whatever field they want while not having to worry about food, housing, and health care. Remove those three worries from life and imagine what you could accomplish.
Or we could continue to have a system that supports those with money while burdening those without regardless of how hard someone works or tries to make a living for themselves.
I for one know where I stand on this issue. And I'm not impressed with Congress or the President right now. I know where they want to stand on the issue, but they haven't got it done yet.
7 comments:
I'm with you. There were some positive pieces in the legislation, but to be honest, when I read the rules and regs and red tape and different levels of taxes...wow.
I dislike a LOT of the new law. Funny that the stuff I really like is occurring in the 1st year...it's the outer year stuff that really has me concerned.
Will, the problem is that the desire to have all these needs "taken care of" ignores the fact that they must be acquired and payed for by someone. That necessarily means taking it from them to give to someone else, by force or compulsion, if necessary. That's not an incentive for the producers to continue to produce.
As for the current law, there will be new rounds of lay-offs to pay for the fines or added costs of the bill to ordinary taxpayers; I know to the penny how much this bill is going to cost me. I also know that to compensate and to keep my business afloat, probably two, if not three, people will be let go in order to buy something for the rest of my employees which none of them want. The alternative is reducing the money I pay into their retirement plans (100% funded by me) by about 95% to again buy something none of them want.
Congratulations on the brave new world.
See also, this.
Randall - Nobody in the military gets rich. But they do get housing, food, and health care and provide a valuable service for the country in the process. The same stipends are arranged for other government workers (embassy workers for one) and some benefits are supplied for other jobs like the infamous medical coverage for Congress. What do these benefits cost? Well, I don't have the budget in front of me, but I'm going to guess that they cost far less than health coverage and other expenses out in the "real" world. Why? Because the government owns and operates all of these facilities. They own the barracks. They own the chow halls. They own the medical facilities. Their costs are the cost of the medicine being dispensed and no more. Nobody is making a profit on these basic human needs.
My biggest problem with the new bill is that it tries to address this large problem with a series of band aids. Health care is hemmoraging money and we're trying to put band aids on top of the wounds. I agree with you about the effects of this bill (though I'm cognizant of the fact that things will likely change before implementation). This Congress has proven again and again that though their hearts are in the right place, they couldn't write a See Dick Run book, much less complex government legislation. This Congress wrote No Child Left Behind which has as its core tenet that all children should be above average (a statistical impossibility). But to be fair, public education didn't die. CPSIA didn't ruin retail sales in this country. And this new health care bill will not destroy the country either. But it will certainly be very tense for a while.
The point is that if we really want reform we as a society must look at the basic needs of all Americans and address them - not the needs of the few or the rich. We need to put Americans back to work. We need to restore our safety nets. And we need to create a government that works hard to keep Americans from ever having to need those safety nets.
Why is profit such a bad thing? Profit is what allows me to hire people to work, who in turn pay taxes.
If you're talking about health insurance companies, their profit margins are about the same as grocery stores. Why not make grocery mandatory non-profits, too?
Could it be because nobody works for free?
Query, do you really want the government in charge of distributing all human necessities? History shows us that doesn't work out so well. See, e.g. the Stalin-made Ukrainian famine designed to starve out the farm owning Kulaks. It worked to the tune of seven million deaths by starvation.
I'm not buying this "national healthcare will lead to totalitarianism and mass murder" theory.
My heart is with Will on this issue--ideally I'd like healthcare to just be provided by the government--but I just have this horrible feeling that *our* government would do it terribly.
So I actually think the approach of the new healthcare law is a good one--keep healthcare and insurance private ventures, but regulate and give them incentives to do it better.
Yes it will aslo expand coverage to people who don't have it now, and that $$ comes from somewhere. Anyone who can begrudge that is seriously deficient as a human being.
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