During the last two weeks of my fall semester, my sociology professor posed some political/social questions to the class. One such question was; “should the government mandate a minimum yearly wage of $23,000 to full time workers? Some money would be demanded from the places of employment, and the rest would come from increased taxes on businesses.”
Thankfully, everyone in my class disagreed with this theoretical proposition. People were worried that the businesses would suffer too much from the mandate. In order to pay some employees more, many people would be laid off. This is of course an unintended consequence, but a very predictable one. If only governmental officials had this kind of sense! Instead, they think that we can spend our way to prosperity; that we can consume without first producing. In fact, a 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill has just been passed through Congress and is on President Obama’s desk.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_spending
I think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaks for all the big-spenders when he says, “Every bill that is passed, every project that is funded and every job that is created helps America take another step forward on the road of economic recovery.” Is he listening to what he’s saying? Every bill passed? It doesn’t matter what it is? According to this logic, Congress should spend 100% of the GDP. They should take every single dollar that the people of the U.S. have earned and spend it on whichever cause suits their fancy.
But back to the original question…Unfortunately, quite a few members of my class added on an interesting opinion to their responses; they had no problem taxing the super rich and giving it to the poor. Yikes! This attitude is scary. Their argument is; “they can afford it, so why not decrease the gap between incomes?” And the answer is simple; “the wealth is theirs!” Whether you think they deserve their money or not, no one has the right to take it from them. This undermines the establishment of a moral society. In the words of Francisco d’Anconia, “Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root.” If only government bureaucrats read Ayn Rand…
On October 9th, 2009 the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) crashed into the moon in a search to find water. The plan was to shoot particles into space from the force of the impact to be analyzed by another satellite that would determine if there was any water in the sample. The total cost of the mission was 79 million dollars. While the mission was successful, was it really necessary?
According the US Office of Management and Budget, the 2007 NASA budget was 15.9 billion dollars. Under Barack Obama’s approval the budget was raised in 2009 for 17.2 billion dollars. The proposed budget for 2010 is 18.7 billion dollars. And NASA is asking for even more in order to fund a manned mission to the moon by the year 2020.
This money is going to a program that is completely wasteful. Our tax dollars are being spent to blow craters in the moon and fund projects that are irrelevant to the American people. How can the government justify spending billions of dollars on such a useless program? Our money should not be spent on exploring space when our national debt is over 12 trillion dollars, and our budget deficit for 2009 is 1.4 trillion dollars. We could be using that money for much more important things, like our own planet.
Our government could possibly put some of that money into education, transportation, health care, and defense; or something that actually benefits Americans. Pretty much anything would be a better cause than NASA.
However, the government does not have the right to take our tax-money and smash holes into the moon with it. If NASA receives a budget cut (assuming the money is not put into another government program), that would mean more money where it belongs, in the pockets of the Americans who earned it.
You can read about the LCROSS here. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html
Obama has stated that he doesn’t want government to take over health care. Instead, he wants something “uniquely American.” That is, a public alternative, paid for with tax payers’ money. If people want to, they can keep their own doctors and keep their former policies. This public option will compete with private insurers and keep prices down all across the board.
Well, it sounds fantastic. How could anyone oppose such a great piece of legislation?
This is how: when the government starts a program, it doesn’t have to worry about turning a profit. It just has to make the program seem like it’s working. So when the government creates a “public option” for health care, you can bet it’s going to be cheap. A lot of people are going to go along with it. Obama says private companies will compete, but how can they compete with a program that has a seemingly endless flow of tax payers’ money?
Private insurance companies will start to drop employees and go out of business. Hospitals and organizations will have to start paying their workers less. Doctors will leave their jobs in search of something that pays better. Eventually, the “public option” will be one of the only options.
We’ve seen that government run health care just doesn’t work. When people have to pay little, or nothing at all, for medical care, they’re going to take advantage of it. In Canada you can get lots of treatments for free. The catch is you may be waiting for your treatment for a few days…or weeks…or months. People who would have been able to afford treatment may have to wait for an indefinite period of time before they can be seen.
Private companies should be the only option for health care. Competing companies allow for the best treatments at the lowest costs. A government option seems like a great plan, but it’s really just wishful thinking.
Categories: Economics, Individual Rights, Politics
Tags: America, Canada, Competition, Government, Health Care, Insurance, Obama, Politics, Private, Public, Tax payers
In order to raise more money for Obama’s extensive health-care system, Congress is planning on passing a bill that will fine Americans for not buying affordable medical coverage. Individuals that don’t do what the government wishes will get a bill for over one thousand dollars. Apparently, this idea is based on something that Massachusetts has already been doing. It doesn’t make sense to me. People should not be fined for refusing to get health insurance.
Congress says that certain people will be exempt if they are too poor to get coverage, so anybody who has money will be required to get medical coverage or pay the fines. Once again, the government thinks it’s being Robin Hood. But Robin Hood didn’t steal money from those that had worked for it; he stole from those that had cheated and stolen money themselves. When government takes from the rich and gives to the poor, they are righting wrongs that aren’t wrong at all. Everyone deserves their own money. Why should the poor take the money that the rich earned?
Of course Obama is happy about this bill; he says it “reflects many of the principles I’ve laid out, such as reforms that will prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and the concept of insurance exchanges where individuals can find affordable coverage if they lose their jobs, move or get sick.”
If insurance companies are forced to cover people that have pre-existing conditions, they are going to lose money. They aren’t just denying sick people coverage because they don’t like them; they are trying to stay in business. It’s unfortunate that people with pre-existing conditions have a tough time getting insurance, but it is not the government’s responsibility to step in. Individuals should have the choice to help their fellow man or not. I would certainly help out a friend of mine if he or she had a life-threatening condition, and I trust that this is the case for many other people. However, man is not his brother’s keeper; he has no obligation to help people he hasn’t even met.
This is a totalitarian action; big government is stepping into our lives. Individuals should decide if they want coverage or not. It is not the government’s place to come in and tell Americans how to live their lives. Government is becoming more successful every day in convincing Americans that their money is actually our money.
I see the contradiction. I hope you do. It is your money. It is your life.
This is so horrible that it’s almost laughable. The National Institutes of Health are funding a $423,500 project to study why men don’t like to wear condoms during sex.
I’m curious as to which government officials decided this was a necessary expenditure of taxpayers’ money. I’m appalled. Half a million dollars to go to something that Americans can figure out for themselves. This is yet another example of a poor government decision. How can they even think that they are representing the American people with this sort of waste.
It’s not that I’m against studies on condoms. I think that whatever you want to spend your money on is up to you. It shouldn’t be decided by the government. I guess I’m laughing to prevent myself from crying.
If anyone has such a great curiosity to know why men don’t like wearing condoms, just go ask someone! It’s not that hard to figure out. You certainly don’t need to spend $423,000 to find out peoples’ opinions.
And this isn’t the only time the NIH has spent taxpayers’ money on something questionable:
They have studied why gay men have risky sex while drunk, why prostitutes on drugs in Thailand have a greater risk for HIV infection, and they spent $2.6 million to teach prostitutes in China to drink less while having sex.
Does this make you laugh, or cry?
Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, has just announced his support for a Federal education standard. He wants to transfer the states’ power to the Federal government because the current system leaves students “totally, inadequately prepared to go into a competitive university, let alone graduate.”
He thinks that having one standard for education will fix this problem. I completely disagree. Students are unprepared for college because government operated schools do not have to worry about money. What I mean is; govenment-employed teachers don’t have the meet the same criteria as teachers that work for, say, a privately run school. Private schools constantly have to face the demands of the market. If parents do not think a school is up to par, they can take their money and their children elsewhere. Public schools don’t have to even think about trying to keep students. Kids are assigned a school district based on where they live. This means that each school has a virtual monopoly on the school-age kids in its general area.
The law should be changed so that students can attend public schools out of their district. If parents were allowed to “shop” for schools, each school would have to compete to keep kids. That means they would have to face the strain of an open market. This is a good thing! Competing schools will try to raise the percentage of students that pass each grade, raise the SOL passing rate, and make their respective school better in general.
If the Secretary of Education gets this Federal standard of education into place, America will see one very large, ineffective monopoly on the school system. Imagine No Child Left Behind times one thousand. Every public school student in America will have to be brought down to the level of the slowest person in their class because the government wants to be our parent and make sure that everyone gets the same treatment.
