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Soooo Close!
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Yea, but Bill Clinton doesn’t get a vote, and that’s a huge step forward in and of itself! Though, John Kerry would.
Anyway, Huckabee will not be the VP. Romney maybe. Since Romney handed McCain a lot of delegates and stopped Huckabee from being a contender and, I think, Romney’s got an arrangement with the party to be the nominee in 2016 (or 2012 when McCain loses to Obama).
Otherwise, there are a few other viable candidates for McCain. He needs someone with strong domestic issues and a tie to the religious base to even have a heart beat’s chance at beating Obama. (Against Hillary I think he might win, not because people would vote FOR him, but because they’d be terrorized by the thought Hillary MIGHT win and vote to stop her!)
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I don;t think so (as far as Romney being VP)
Huckabee is the one that carried the South. Romney carried the Great Plains (which have been “safe” Republican states forever, and will go to whoever gets the Republican nomination). The South is the area that tends to decide elections… Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43… all came to power by carrying the Old South. That kind of political history is NOT going to be forgotten by campaign managers.
And if Obama gets the Democrat nomination (amazingly enough that is looking more likely than it once did), then the Battle for the South takes on CRITICAL status. The Republicans cannot afford to cede the Southern states to the Democrats in a racial vote. They HAVE to make a strong play for the Old South AS A WHOLE in order to win. That eliminates single state candidates like SC’s junior senator Lindsey Graham from consideration and FORCES McCain to look for a “global” Southern candidate. And that means HUCKABEE… the only PROVEN winner that the Republicans have in the Old South.
Huckabee also puts the Clinton’s home state into play (and we know from 2004 that losing your home state can cost you an election).
Huckabee also brings about 5,000,000 voters nationally with him JUST on the strength of his Fair Tax support, something that NO other Republican VP candidate can do. That alone is a 4% gain in the General Election.
The election is likely to be close. 5,000,000 extra votes from both Dems and Republicans… a 4% gain in the popular vote… that is going to take a HELL of a lot for McCain to ignore and choose someone other than Huckabee.
Truth be told though… probably not enough to get ME to vote for McCain…
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Huckabee might be a good choice, but McCain won’t take him on. I almost guarantee it. Romney has a better shot then Huckabee since Romney carried the second largest segment of the Republicans AND gave McCain enough delegates for McCain to tell the Huckster to go suck a lemon. I think it was an arrangement to allow McCain to tell the Huckster exactly that. Since if Romney had endorsed Huckabee, Huckabee would now be the leading candidate and not McCain.
But that’s how republican campaigns go. Runner ups endorse the leader so they can run in the next election or, as in the case of Reagan and Bush, run as their VP.
I will not be surprised to see Romney on the ticket as a fiscal conservative to balance McCain’s eccentricities.
As far as fair taxes go, the Democrats will efficiently and effectively parlay that into a regressive tax that only hurts the poor and look at the evil fat cat Republicans how they hate you poor people, come support the racist democrats so we can enslave you to government handouts because we love you and we “feel your pain.”
No, having Huckabee shooting from the tree tops that we need a fair tax is just a good way to put more nails in McCain’s coffin.
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What can you do though? were talking 50+ trillion in unfunded liabilities. Eliminating S.S. or Medicare is not politically possible. Heres some drastic options:
- cap medicare benefits based on income level- if you make more than $100,000, youre phased out of the program (no coverage at all for $150,000+). it sucks that people payed into it for decades, but if your making that much you can afford your own healthcare.
- double the medicare tax. If old rich people are going to suffer, then poor young people have to pay more.
That would at least buy us some time to get our fiscal house in order.
of course this will never happen. We’ll keep printing money and selling bonds until the inevitable crash happens.
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It took a Carter to get a Reagan and look how well one man turned the economy around.
It’s not impossible to fix this, just improbable given the “Compassionate Conservatives” and Liberals (which are essentially the same thing) we have in government.
Social Security could fixed very easily:
1) Anyone under 45 is screwed. You get nothing, no rebates, nothing.
2) Anyone under 65 gets a 33% rebate of all Social Security returned to them to invest as they see fit.
3) Anyone over 65 lucks out.
4) Social Security is dropped to 1% of your net income and is applied only to those individuals who are so old and sick they cannot work and so poor they cannot afford to take care of themselves.Healthcare is also pretty simple to fix:
- Companies are FORBIDDEN to pay for healthcare benefits, PERIOD
- In order to successfully sue a hospital or medical provider you must show a GRIEVOUS bodily injury, death or serious negligance. (This will drop the rates on insurance, and lower medical costs resulting in more money for everyone.)
- The Government puts together a basic plan to cover everyone. This plan will only assist you in saving your life, your limb or your eyesight and NOTHING ELSE.
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That seems like a pretty fucked up plan to me Jen. So the thousands that I put into the SS system just disappears?
Why not just get rid of the whole system, and give EVERYBODY their money back. There’s already a fucking 10 trillion dollar debt, a few trillion more won’t hurt.
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@M36:
That seems like a pretty fucked up plan to me Jen. So the thousands that I put into the SS system just disappears?
Why not just get rid of the whole system, and give EVERYBODY their money back. There’s already a fucking 10 trillion dollar debt, a few trillion more won’t hurt.
Because we cannot afford a refund. The Democrats have been spending all the money in the lock box for decades. It is not there. Every dollar you put in goes out immediately to some retiree or some government program.
Furthermore, your options are to lose all that money NOW, or keep paying into the program and lose all that money + interest + future payments into the program later.
Honestly, I’d rather take my lumps now, he out the few dozen thousand of dollars and not have the 33% encumbrance on my checks from this point forward. In the long run, it’s MUCH cheaper! (Otherwise I’d have 34 years of paying 33% of my paycheck and at the end, STILL not get any social security anyway. Or, I could take the same 33% and invest it somewhere and actually earn a return on that money.)
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How about refunding the young people who need the money instead of the old fools who will be kicking the bucket any day?
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My personal thoughts on Social Insecurity:
1. Anyone currently getting it will continue to do so.
2. Anyone 50 or older has the option to stay in the program as currently written (with FULL current social security tax rate for the remainder of their working years), or to opt out.
3. Anyone under 50, or anyone over 50 who opts out, will continue to pay HALF of their current Social Security taxes (in order to fund the payments to current recipients).
4. Anyone under 20 is forever exempt from ANY Social Security taxes (the number of people collecting will be zero by the time they form the majority of the taxpayers so they do not need to pay).
5. Any shortfall in SS revenues will be made up with transfers from General Revenue (as SS over collections have been transfered TO General Revenue for the past 70 years)Once you opt out, that is IT. You can never go back. If you are under 50, it does not matter if you paid in for 30 years… it was a tax and you paid it and now the program is GONE.
That would effectively eliminate Social Insecurity in about 30 years, with complete and total elimination in 50 years (a few THOUSAND folks would collect for another 10 years after that, and a few DOZEN folks might collects for a few more year, but that is IT).
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Complete and immediate elimination. All those under 30 get their money refunded.
Thats more to my liking.
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Hey there wipper snapper, some of us in our thirties would like to see some of that cash. Besides it’s not like you young’uns have made a huge contribution yet. :wink:
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We all want a refund, but let’s be honest. That money is gone, forever. We can either write it off now, or keep throwing money at it and write that money off later.
Better to just let the government wipe out the debt to us, cancel the program for anyone under 45. Between 45-65 I could see a small rebate (33% or lower) to give them seed money to invest into their own retirement, since they have significantly fewer years to recoup their loss then those under 45. Anyone 65 and older can keep it because they have 0 years left to invest their money.
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@Cmdr:
The best thing this nation could do is to default on all it’s socialist programs and tell the states to either pick up the slack on the important ones, or default on them as well.
Socialist programs are now THE LARGEST item on the US Budget. Not the war. Not the military. Not transportation. Not emergency services. HAND OUTS TO SENIOR CITIZENS (not even the other stuff, JUST THE SENIORS) is the largest segment of the budget and it exceeds 35% of our annual income from taxes.
Think of what we COULD be using that money for!?!? Diplomatic missions. We could fund research for cancer cures or AIDS cures. We could pay off the national debt!
I’m sorry, they are not. Military by far is the largest item. Much of the “socialist programs” pay for themselves. Not all, of course. But they are also cannibalized for other things. But Military by far, is the most expensive item we have. And not all of it is even budgeted.
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take away all the useless things we have to pay for.
like translations! :evil:
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Well, maybe they’re being tricky, but I just looked up the 2008 budget and:
Total outlay for:
Dept of Defence = 583,283 Million
Social Security Admin = 656,282 Million
Dept Health & Human Serv. = 700,980 Millionthat apears to be the big three
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Well, maybe they’re being tricky, but I just looked up the 2008 budget and:
Total outlay for:
Dept of Defence = 583,283 Million
Social Security Admin = 656,282 Million
Dept Health & Human Serv. = 700,980 Millionthat apears to be the big three
Yeah, at cursory glance. But there is more than meets the eye (tricky bastids). :wink:
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To get total “defense” budget you would need to add in the budget for Homeland Security, and personally I think Veterans Affairs as well.
For total social spending you would need to add Education, HUD, etc to the mix.
And even with “wartime” budgets for the DOD and the brand new Homeland Security department, social welfare spending FAR exceeds security spending.
Also please note that, of all the spending we are discussion, most of it is entire Cabinet departments (DOD, HUD, HHS, etc.) But SSA is only a SUB-DEPARTMENT. 2nd largest budget line item, and it is not even Cabinet level spending…
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@ncscswitch:
To get total “defense” budget you would need to add in the budget for Homeland Security, and personally I think Veterans Affairs as well.
Yes, but you also have to include military spending in departments other than Defense, monies appropriated for the War on Terror not declared, veterans’ benefits (if that’s what you are referring to as Affairs), and a few other things. Some even include the portion of interest on our national debt that was accrued through military spending, which is also a hefty sum.
For total social spending you would need to add Education, HUD, etc to the mix.
Education & HUD is already included in the budget.
And even with “wartime” budgets for the DOD and the brand new Homeland Security department, social welfare spending FAR exceeds security spending.
No, it doesn’t. Military spending outweighs all non-military spending slightly, or just about even if you don’t include interest considerations.
Also please note that, of all the spending we are discussion, most of it is entire Cabinet departments (DOD, HUD, HHS, etc.) But SSA is only a SUB-DEPARTMENT. 2nd largest budget line item, and it is not even Cabinet level spending…
Yes, but Social Security is a trust fund that is separate from federal funds. And the budget you are looking at is not at all the entire picture of all that is going on. Social Security is still something to think about, especially with all the boomers retiring, but it is not in danger of running dry anytime soon, even though there are still some criticisms of it that deserve to be heard and addressed.
My whole point is that if we are looking to cut fat, the first place to start is the military expenditures.
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If we are going to get ridiculous, then everything under the Executive and Judiciary should be included in the Military budget too….
Or we could be rational and say that Homeland Security is really police/law enforcement and that VA Benefits are really social services.
So yes, the Government is spending the MOST on handouts. If we want to trim the budget, we should PROBABLY start there, huh? Maybe drop that budget from 35% of our national budget to like, 15%.
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@Cmdr:
If we are going to get ridiculous, then everything under the Executive and Judiciary should be included in the Military budget too….
Why the hell would that be? I’m talking about things like nuclear weapons being budgeted in the Department of Energy and not listed on DOD expenditures.
Or we could be rational and say that Homeland Security is really police/law enforcement and that VA Benefits are really social services.
A point I was going to make. And your college money. I wonder how people would react if they thought of that. But sadly, I don’t think veterans get enough as it is.
So yes, the Government is spending the MOST on handouts. If we want to trim the budget, we should PROBABLY start there, huh? Maybe drop that budget from 35% of our national budget to like, 15%.
Well, the “handouts” are accounted for. Military expenditures mostly aren’t and what’s more, they are taken out as loans and we pay interest on them. This is why our debt is growing.
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