The nation does need more capitalists and entrepeneurs if it is to prosper again. I love those commercials (are they for Verizon?) starring little Susie, who starts a lemonade stand and in the next series of commercials has launched a big lemonade business with trucks and boardrooms. Unfortunately, in real life, she’d still be working on getting permits, licenses, OSHA clearances, and various agency permissions.
(my bold italics)
Except that statistics do not bear this out. The much-maligned War on Poverty, for example, cut the American poverty rate in half.
Depends on how you interpret the statistics, and also what expectations you would have for the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars of aid. What did we get for such an expenditure? The War on Poverty was in the words of LBJ, designed to end poverty, yet, there are still 37 million people living below the poverty line and a poverty rate of 12% (compared to 39 million in 1960 a poverty rate of 22%). The article I linked to below, questions whether the War on Poverty was the cause of this reduction in the poverty rate. The GDP rose from 526 billion in 1960 - four years before the War on Poverty - to 11.7 trillion in 2004. Maybe that economic expansion helped reduce the poverty rate by creating opportunities for the poor? My point here is to show that its not quite simple just to say, “the poverty rate has decreased by 50% since the War on Poverty began therefore it is the War on Poverty that caused this.”
You are correct. It isn’t that simple-this was an economic boom time which was creating more opportunity to the poor. On the other hand, the poverty rate dropped in a way that it had not even during other boom times, so there was clearly something going on. And on the last hand, measurements of the War on Poverty are somewhat complicated by the fact that Vietnam broke LBJ’s presidency in two and ended up running him out of office, to be replaced by Nixon who promptly ended the thing.
Actually I disagree with your premise. The healthcare system was a wreck long before Obama. Did he and the Congress at the time go far enough to improve things? No. But he at least tried to bring about some change and improvement. For instance in not allowing people with pre-existing conditions to be denied coverage and allowing younger people to remain on their parents’ plans longer. That’s more that I can say for the Republicans when they were previously in power.So Obama is wrecking the health care system and you blame the doctors?
Well we might have discovered some common ground then. Regarding LBJ it is my understanding that the presidents after - including Nixon, definitely, continued the War on Poverty welfare policies. Reagan made an attempt to cut some of the domestic programs with his budget proposals in the 80’s, but Tip O’neil saw to it that the welfare policies continued. The spending on welfare and other programs designed to help the poor (whether they were effective or not) continued and increased beyond LBJ, so it didn’t end with LBJ.
Oh please spare me the hyperbole. He’s not trashing Christianity.It is unconscionable to support Barack Obama, who trashes Christianity, morality and common sense at every turn.Rob
The man is a Christian himself. Baptized and married in the United Church of Christ. His daughters as well were baptized.He trashes Christianity with his policies, Cmatt. He trashes the catholic church be the HHS mandate. You need to open up your eyes.Oh please spare me the hyperbole. He’s not trashing Christianity.
I have personal experience of living in a country with socialized medicine and there are long waiting lists, people in certain areas are allowed a certain drug, but in other areas of the country the heath department considers the drug too expensive and people in that area can not get the drug, I don’t know if you can call it ‘rationed,’ but I have heard of people waiting in line for treatment etc. And the health care trusts have their own abortion clinics, its not like in America where Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses are mostly separate from hospitals, when socialized medicine is a reality abortion becomes another service the health care trusts offer as well as contraception and the morning after pill given out free in nearly every doctor’s surgery. Almost 90% of abortions paid for by taxpayers.Already I see sick patients at my dad’s facility who go untreated until it is too late. Pneumonia is a common cause of death, and often it could and should have been treated. Socialized “care” exacerbates every problem in the medical system. Actress Natasha Richardson may well have died b/c of Canada’s sub-standard health systems. Helicopters were cut from the budget, and the first “hospital” that she entered, 2 1/2 hours away, before her brain had died, had no ability to relieve the swelling on her brain.
Is this the nightmare that we wish for AMERICA to enter? Wake up!Rob
Being successful, in the minds of most conservatives, probably in the minds of most people, is “being good at doing what you love that is of service to mankind”. Money is a side effect.
The form of Christianity that he has been exposed to and demonstrates with his words and actions are very unorthodox and at times antithetical to orthodox Christianity.Oh please spare me the hyperbole. He’s not trashing Christianity.
Half?
The top 10% of wage earners pay 70% of all Federal taxes.
Speak for yourself. I believe that money as a product of “success” is what drives most conservatives. I’ve yet to have conversations with conservatives who say, “I want to be good at my work because I want to be of service to mankind.” Pshaw!
All the Great Society programs did were to addict people to government entitlement programs. Same thing with the New Deal. A compassionate society does not make slaves out of the less fortunate.