Mindless Asinine BS

The Senate is apparently coming to grips with the fact that the stuff they want to inflict on us is going to cost us real money eventually and they’re “weighing” ways to pay for their healthcare unicorn…er, reform. (AP link)

The final package is likely to include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts in federal health programs. Among the possibilities: tax hikes on alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and sugary soft drinks, and restrictions on other health care-related tax breaks, such as flexible spending accounts.

Yeah, what was that thing I kept hearing during the election about no tax hikes on families with incomes below $250,000? If a family is currently paying for their own healthcare with no help from the government with their own flexible spending accounts, the government is going cut their tax break – that means their taxes will increase.

I don’t how much higher they can raise taxes on tobacco – seriously. I think it’s about $7/pack in Maryland now since we get it from the liberal state and federal government. It was just a few years ago that I paid that much for a carton.

Sugary soft drinks? I wish. There hasn’t been a soft drink sold in the US with sugar in it for decades. But, guess what? That’s a tax hike on families. Are they going to include juice boxes in that tax? If they start taxing the food we eat (read that: the choices we make ostensibly to control our behavior) where do they intend on stopping? Are they going to bust in our houses and shoot us on the spot for hiding an untaxed Snickers bar under the floorboards?

Oh, and another campaign promise falls by the wayside;

On the controversial question of taxing health benefits, Baucus is staking out a position that could put him at odds with Obama.

The president adamantly opposed such taxes during the campaign, arguing they would undermine job-based coverage. Obama’s aides now say he’s open to suggestions from Congress, even if he criticized Republican presidential rival John McCain for proposing a sweeping version of the same basic idea.

Imagine that. So why did you 52% vote for Obama again? Because he wasn’t like McCain how? Well, besides the obvious reasons that we know you really voted for him – that which can not be spoken.

Many experts say that Congress won’t be able to come up with the kind of money needed to provide coverage for all unless limitations on the health care tax break are part of the mix.

So why are we even going through this horseshit? Do away with tax breaks and incentives for those who are already paying for their own health care – the responsible people – to GIVE it to people who refuse to pay for it.

And this is better for the country how?

Added: And we’re going to get our healthcare from the people who are already doing a bang-up job;

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year’s report.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s “full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

At what point do we join together, give them a failing grade and shoulder the responsibility ourselves?

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Liberals suck, Politics