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Elizabeth502
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Please elaborate on how the centrality of the traditional family is disrespected in India.
Thank you.
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Thank you.
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_Abyssinia
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_Abyssinia
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Wyden and Ryan co authored an article in the Wall street journal last year in which they referred to the plan as ‘our plan’
'Our plan would strengthen traditional Medicare by permanently maintaining it as a guaranteed and viable option for all of our nation’s retirees. At the same time, our plan would expand choice for seniors by allowing the private sector to compete with Medicare in an effort to offer seniors better-quality and more affordable health-care choices…Under our plan, Americans currently over the age of 55 would see no changes to the Medicare system. For future retirees, starting in 2022, our plan would introduce a “premium support” system that would empower Medicare beneficiaries to choose either a traditional Medicare plan or a Medicare-approved private plan. Unlike Medicare Advantage, these private plans would compete head-to-head with traditional, fee-for-service Medicare on a federally regulated Medicare exchange’
Wyden did not try to distance himself then
Plan has the word bipartisan in the title
Wyden’s website has a press release regarding the plan
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RPRPsych
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Interesting question, thanks for asking!Please elaborate on how the centrality of the traditional family is disrespected in India.
Thank you.
Not to derail the thread, but the situation here is sort of a “worst of both worlds” scenario. One clarification - I’m referring to the traditional family as described in Catholic teaching, and I’m describing the picture among Indian Catholics. While I could say much about those of other religions, I believe that charity begins at home.
On the one hand, “traditional” here is nowhere as benign as “traditional” in the West (which is the model I admire). Even among those who profess the Catholic faith and undergo “marriage preparatory classes” (a 2-day crash course on what’s in the Catechism), the picture is as follows:
Domestic violence is rampant and is viewed as acceptable, even among the educated class; it hardly elicits the outrage in would in a Christian country. Forced marriages are common. Marriages are contracted on the basis of horoscopes and caste matches. Women are forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money as “dowry” to get a “suitable” match, and are subsequently subjected to torture if they do not “pay up”. Child abuse occurs in up to 20-30% of families (according to a recent survey) but is kept a “family secret” and victims are often blamed. Contraception is almost universal, and is openly encouraged by the Government with “small family” incentives and disincentives. Abortion isn’t viewed as a particularly big deal, as it’s seen as a “legal” way to avoid financial hardship.
On the other hand, an “educated” minority is beginning to subscribe hook, line and sinker to the Western “liberal” viewpoint. Gay marriage, premarital and extramarital sexual contacts, and short-term “flings” or live-in relationships are viewed as desirable and acceptable in these circles.
Add to this widespread poverty, poor catechesis, and an overall low quality of public education, and it’s clear that Catholic families in India are in dire straits.
We are caught between the Scylla of non-Christian tradition on one hand, and the Charybdis of modern secular values on the other. The only good thing about this is that things will probably get better someday.
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eightandsand
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Yes, those that do not make reckless statements of that magnitude.
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fnr
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Paul,
I’m not talking about the Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan, which I agree is a bipartisan attempt at a way through the health care morass. That’s a decent first whack at the main Medicare program. This is a policy that seems easier to push through Congress, because senior vote.
I’m talking about his independent policy on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP). This is a distinct item on the 2013 budget from Ryan. This is how the CBO characterized the impacts:
“The responses of the states [to this policy] would be of particular importance. If states were given additional flexibility to allocate federal funds for Medicaid and CHIP according to their own priorities, they might be able to improve the efficiency of those programs in delivering health care to low-income populations. Nevertheless, even with significant efficiency gains, the magnitude of the reduction in spending relative to such spending in the other scenarios means that states would need to increase their spending on these programs, make considerable cutbacks in them, or both. Cutbacks might involve reduced eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP, coverage of fewer services, lower payments to providers, or increased cost-sharing by beneficiaries – all of which would reduce access to care.”
Unlike the politically powerful group of seniors, Medicaid and CHIP recipients are poor people (of various types). I’ll point out that a large number of seniors are Medicaid recipients because long-term nursing home stays consume all of seniors’ savings.
Ryan’s budget for 2013 also repeals the Affordable Care Act (so I know it’s never going to pass the Senate and therefore is an election year pitch to the base). Doing that would repeal:
-The establishment of health insurance exchanges and subsides for eligible individuals and families who purchase coverage through them;
-The expansion of Medicaid coverage to include most nonelderly people with income below 138 percent of poverty;
-The Community Living Assistance Service and Supports (CLASS) act (which Congress has blocked anyway – this is assistance to adults needing support with daily activities like getting out of bed and feeding themselves);
-The fix to the “doughnut hole” in Medicare Part D;
-The tax credits for small employers that offer health insurance.
In order to repeal the individual mandate.
Simultaneously his budget would extend all of the “temporary” Bush 2001-2010 tax cuts, repeals the AMT, and reduces corporate tax rates.
On aggregate, Ryan’s budget results in reducing poor people’s access to health care and the number of people with health insurance. Meanwhile, he protects (and arguably increases) defense spending at a rate of around $700 billion, and extends tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the highest-income earners.
So I think of what Ryan’s 2013 budget would do and I see that it hurts poor people and helps rich people and boosts military spending. I think of that as anti-poor and pro-rich. He may do a ton of volunteering, but numerically, that’s not going to make up the deficit in Medicaid.
I’m using the independent Bipartisan Policy Center for my source here.
I agree that abortion is important. I started a thread on the issue and changing culture (in response to the Ninth Federal Circuit blocking Arizona’s fetal pain law):
forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=702097
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SamH
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I guess “far right” means anyone that understands basic math?
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SamH
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So JoeBowen7 isn’t qualified to be president?
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Scott_Lafrance
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Jason_Firestone
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I find it “interesting” that a Catholic could or would applaud the choice of someone whose budget was denounced by the authorities in their own Church.
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Rich_Olszewski
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I suggest that he would have done far better if he had picked Marco Rubio, the junior Senator from Florida.
First, this would not be the usual pick of a white man that the GOP tends to do. Picking a Latino would have guaranteed that vote; also Rubio is favored by the Tea Party. He is also a Catholic.
Ryan can’t compare with Rubio, and I think it might cost the GOP the election to go with a wholly vanilla VP. IMO, of course.
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Scott_Lafrance
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I find it “interesting” that Catholics would be so uniformed about who in the Church as “denouced” said budget. Ryan’s own bishop (Morlino) lauds Ryan’s work on the budget.
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salusanimarum17
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As noted many times in this thread, “authorities” (bishops) who criticized the Ryan budget are outnumbered by those who said it was not contrary to the Catholic faith. Ryan’s own bishop is among the latter.
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Charlotte408
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I have a question. CBO showed Ryan’s plan four decades into the future, and said that the size of government would shrink to 15% of the economy by 2050, which would be the smallest government since 1950/'51. How would we provide for the growth of our country from 1950 till now? What kind of impact would that drastic of a cut have on education or other programs that serve the poor?
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Scott_Lafrance
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Tell me, how well are federal educational programs serving the poor. Comparatively, we don’t compete very well against most other industrialized nations. Many areas are switching to voucher programs to give students an actual fighting chance of a quality education. The numbers of homeschoolers have swelled in the last decade, principally because of the poor quality of public education.
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salusanimarum17
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Re: the Latino vote: I wonder if there is much homogeneity (sp?) in that group. Cubans (like Rubio) tend to be more conservative than Mexicans, right? I doubt Rubio would have, simply by fiat, gained the majority of that bloc. Some, yes. A majority? I wonder.
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Scott_Lafrance
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Not to mention that Cubans and Puerto Ricans tend NOT to like each other. And Caribbean latinos don’t consider themselves in the same case of ethnicity as South American latinos. To say that the Latino vote is homogenous is to say that the Catholic vote is homogenous. It simply isn’t.
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salusanimarum17
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Setting aside the fact that I find little of value in these projections, what does he project the size of the economy to be in 2050? How does it compare to 1950? There is your growth.
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Rich_Olszewski
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Don’t worry about the poor. Why should the GOP care about them? The GOP mantra is Matt 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you.” So, it doesn’t matter what cuts the GOP makes further empoverishing the poor.
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Ridgerunner
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Except, of course, that it wasn’t. Ryan’s own bishop vetted it and found nothing contrary to Catholic teachings in it. Cdl Dolan remonstrated with those who said it was contrary to Catholic teachings. There is a big myth out there that “the bishops” of the USCCB condemned it. That’s not true. One bishop critiqued it to another one who seemed to agree with him. There were two bases only upon which they did so:
- It reduced the increase in food stamp funding from 12% to 8%.
- It eliminated a $1,000/child gift to illegal aliens with children.
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