Jewbutca

You need to watch this video:


I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized - The 30 Minute Version:
youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo (You have to copy and paste the link as is. This video can't be embedded)


Cutting government spending is not enough to get us out of the hole we have dug ourselves into; or I should say the hole the previous generations have dug the future generations into.

Cutting the prices of health care, Solving our Social Security problems that are about to get a hell of a lot worse, Cutting the price of energy, Saving some of what little exports we have left in this country and creating new exports: These are problems that need to be solved NOW.


Whether you believe the numbers in the video, no one can deny that health care is ridiculously priced in America. Maybe it's capitalism, maybe it's greed, maybe it's just the way things need to be to balance the books... no matter the reason, our current spending on health care is way too high. People have been hoping for a way to decrease health care costs, and many believe the answer is right in from of us... Stem cell research has been very promising in curing a wide range of diseases including cancer and the fact that some people are even against using umbilical cords in stem cell research blows my mind.

Someone on the YouTube comments said this about our health care costs:

"This could be solved with a few changes that nobody in our government has the courage to do:

1. Declare that Free Healthcare is Not A Right . With this fact, the phasing out of Medicare and Medicaid can begin. We can then give those below a certain age fair warning that they are in charge of their own health. Not a difficult concept to grasp.We should also means test Medicare and change the belief that medicaid is a free insurance plan for those who choose not to pay for their own."

I'm compelled to agree with this person to an extent, as some health problems are hereditary and some people really can't afford health care. Any comments?


I don't know much about Social Security, but I knew enough before this video to know that something needs to be done before the Baby Boomers deplete your and my Social Security savings and increase everyone's costs for health care.


Energy prices are going up and the power plants are polluting our planet. CleanCoal sounds redundant to some, but it's a two way street. Roughly 50% of our energy in the U.S. is produced by coal. In the U.S. we have HUGE deposits of coal which are supplying jobs to countless U.S. workers. Now we can either work towards improving the technology to decrease the CO2 produced from these coal power plants, or we can slowly work our way away from coal, rendering our coal deposits relatively useless. From any viewpoint that would be catastrophic to the coal mining industry, not to mention how much money would not be made through the sale of that coal. On the other hand trying to make coal cleaner defiantly makes it more expensive. I still haven't made up my mind of coal yet...

Nuclear power plants I have made my mind up on though. No pollution, safe (regardless of the fears), affordable energy... What's not to love about nuclear power? Well sure, the nuclear waste... but that's to be expected and we have many ways of dealing with that in safe and reliable ways (not just putting it all in Yucca mountain). I hate to quote them as I don't know how legit this is, but according to Fox News we import about 90% of our uranium from Russia to power our nuclear power plants (and uranium isn't cheap these days). And we have found uranium deposits in the Grand Canyon just waiting to be mined. I understand that environmentalists are worried about the Canyon, and I agree we should save as much of our national parks as possible... but look how dang big the G.C. is! If a precious resource was found at Yellow Stone park I'd be against mining for that, but this place is freaking huge! Is it that big of a deal if we take advantage of this opportunity to really get nuclear power going in the U.S. and help save money for future generations, not to mention help save the planet (and us as a human race)? I don't think I'm going to miss a few miles worth of the 250+ mile long, 4 to 15+ mile wide Canyon.


At about 17 minutes into the video, it talks a bit about Trade in the U.S. This is what scares the shit out of me. The fact that we are importing more than we're exporting. Doesn't sound that scary if you don't know much about it... but this is a very serious problem. We either need to export more or import less or we will quickly lose our status as the "richest nation".


In order to achieve all these goals of lowering health care costs, energy costs and to pull the U.S. out of this situation we're in we need engineers, scientists, doctors, biologists, chemists, physicists, trained workers, etc. so we can improve the lives of our current generations and future generations. We need more people getting their High School Diplomas. We need more people going to college. We need more jobs, but more importantly we need more technology to help create these jobs. How are industry jobs supposed to be formed without creative ideas and creative people behind them? How will we design the energy efficient cars, plastics, gadgets, spacecrafts, solar power panels, computers and other technologies of tomorrow without people to create them? We need innovations people! And you could be the one to invent/discover those innovations. Hopefully math and science become cool in elementary, middle and high school again soon.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

This is false. Regardless of how out of control our government has gotten, it isn't impossible to pay off our debt in a reasonable period of time. The problem is that people don't really want to make the cuts that are necessary. In 2007 the government took in $2,674,007,818,000 in federal income taxes.

If we really wanted to pay this debt down we could return the scale of government back to a constitutional level and slash the budget by at least 50%. Cutting the budget by only 50% would allow us to pay off 1.34 Trillion dollars a year. Just imagine if they employed real cuts and returned us back to a 100% constitutional government, which in turn would reduced federal taxes by about 90 - 95%.

It isn't too late to save this country, but people would rather force us into a socialist/communist distopian society than actually embrace freedom and salvage it. Their current plan is to gut the country and the constitution until it is bankrupt in order to force a constitutional convention that will embrace a North American Union. Call me crazy, but I honestly believe that this, or something close to it, is their end goal.

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"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." -- Thomas A. Edison

Jewbutca

You have to see this video. We need a hell of a lot more money to pay for Medicare, Madicaid, and Social Securities (for baby boomers). The debt to other countries is a fraction of how much money we need to solve our fiscal challenges.

Watch from 8:45 and on. And 26:15 and on.

According to the video we need:
$11 trillion in liabilities (debt and interest)
$7 trillion (Social Security)
$26 trillion (Medicare A, B)
$8 trillion (Medicare D)
+$1 trillion (Miscellaneous)
$53 TRILLION dollars

We need $53 trillion dollars in the upcoming years to solve our fiscal problems. This is why we need Health Care reform and Social Security reform NOW


The problem with solar power is they only work if they are getting sunlight. And in places like Alaska where they have large periods of darkness, solar power wouldn't work there. Not to mention it's hella expensive. If the prices could be brought down, I'm sure we would be seeing a huge jump in people having solar panel roofs. I'd be all for that instead of nuclear power.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

I said to eliminate all unconstitutional programs and last I checked, no where in the constitution does it authorize social security or medicare. 12 Trillion is do able if you slash the government back to constitutional levels.

Texas Toker

I totally agree.

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You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas. -Davy Crockett
I hate Obama and Pelosi as much as you hate Bush.

Texas Toker

Mexicanadamerica

Darkflan

Why nuclear or coal? Both produce waste and radiation. How bout wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal? All renewable and have no waste.

Oh yeah, did you know a coal plant puts out more radioactive material than a nuclear one. And that Coal is currently the reason why alot of upstate new york lakes have no fish? Coal plants produce a ton of sulfur which causes acid rain and kills fish.

Yes, it sucks that if coal were to go away so would lots of peoples jobs. But that's why you get those people working on renewable energy.

People just don't want to go through the hardships required to make real changes about the way we live and handle our envirement.

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[darkflan] Old friend from a printshop I work at, he owns his own business now and was talking about hiring me
[darkflan] then i asked him if he knew where to get some good buds

toker8109

I'm pro medicare, ss, etc. I have seizures that stops me from getting a sustainable job. How the hell do you expect me to live on my own when I move out if I cant get some financial aid?

I also believe in government regulation. Stop outsourcing and start bringing jobs back here to the U.S. Most people cringe at the thought of socialism, historically speaking, democracy isn't a model that lasts very long and I believe we need to adopt just a few socialist principles such as universal health care and taxing based upon income. We can still keep our "freedom".

Texas Toker

wow . I just took a test in Microeconomics for extra credit on this movie. was a good read . Basically we have 2 choices raise taxes of dont spend as much. i vote don't spend as much.

subs1000w

funny subject i love talking about but just about everyone i try to talk to about it dont understand and just try change the subject

im on the side of SHRINKING the gov back to a constitutional size and ending the income tax completely along with the fed reserve both the fed and the income tax come about in the same year 1913 thats not a cawincidence we did fine before 1913 without these programs and we will do much better again by eliminating them

im very torn on where heathcare should be taken i just want it to be afordable and right now its not (my parents spend about 1k a month to insure our fam my parents both in there 50s and 3 kids 20-26) so somthing has to be done about this and ive heard both sides of the argument but i think universal is inevidable i just hope its fare

im not planning on ss to be around when im older so i dont even acknowledge it any more and tell my parents not to count on it either besides im selfemployed and therefore pay very little taxes so i dont feel to bad about not getting any of it back

when it comes to power im a 100% renewable guy solar wind and or geothermal proboly a good mixture of all 3 for dependability, coal is dirty no matter what and we should not rely on the russans for uranium and again its dirty. i still live at home and in the next year im planning on begining a offgrid solar/wind setup at my house starting off small to power my room and slowly growing as $ come in then when i move out i might try to go off grid completly so i dont have to worry about increasing energy costs because we arent going to have cheap power forever and solar panels basicly last forever

oil is another subject i like to touch apon since we got a taste of high oil prices here in the us and just because its cheap now rest assured they are going to go back up and the sky is the limit, im currently researching converting a vehicle to all elctric since this could be charged with my offgrid power and i could drive for free but currently batteries that provide decent range are expensive but prices have been falling slowly be surly

north american union can you say bye to the dollar hello to the amero kinda like the EU and the euro i told this to my dad and he doesnt beleive it but he soon will

heres my prediction basicly we need to come to terms that the US has had ONEHELLAVA run on top but in the next 5-10 years its all going to come crashing down and were in the very begining of it right now and the gov is just digging the hole deeper and deeper (i dont like to piont fingers at obama because bush was just as bad but regardless of which party dem or rep is in power the gov grows along with the spending) but eventually the dollar will collapse and then it will all stop i just hope everyone is prepared thats what im doing because were all about to be royally F***ed

my plan is to buy a small plot of land not to far from civalization just far enough so i can live self saficiently grow my own food and mybe have a cow or 2 cause i dont want to eat geneticly moded food or drink flouridated water i think 1 in 3 males my age are expected to get some form of cancer in there life and i already know a few who have and i dont want to be next