If the GOP wasn't so stupid THEY should have pressed for true universal health care

[TheBigotBasher]

The economy is in a horrid position after 10 years of no real growth, people easily remember the last two years of recession, the consequences are still hitting people now, but no real growth was achieved over the last decade. This is why both the GOP and Conservadems are out of touch with reality.

Barack Obama is not a tax raising President. Whatever Tea Party protesters may have said, Barack Obama has not increased taxes, in fact, through the stimulus, Barack Obama introduced $282 billion of tax cuts. The largest ever in history. Beating the Reagan and Bush tax cuts in cash terms and GDP terms. The difference. Where they are targeted.

Reagan cut taxes on all levels but as Republicans fail to remember - only after massively increasing them. Bush targeted tax cuts towards the richest. Obama cut taxes for the ordinary worker. The economic importance of this is crucial. Tax cuts for the rich boost savings levels. The lower paid you are the higher propensity to spend. The key to ending a recession is spending.

Boosting demand was critical to staving off what could have been a depression of unheard of levels. Demand was simply only one key factor.

Cost has been killing off US Industry, (especially the Car Industry), is not the productivity level of US employees, American workers are the most productive in the World (in many ways over productive because they have some of the lowest levels of holiday leave in the World); It is the failure of the US Government to provide for the basic needs of ordinary Americans. Those costs are therefore picked up by American employers.

The GOP claims to be Anti Government but defence spending has sky rocketed, the US has a prison system larger than that of China. Reagan while claiming to be a monetarist, created one of the biggest increases in Government expenditure ever as a result of his Arms Race with Russia.

All of these elements have bloated the cost of Government and NO GOP President would ever tackle these issues. Despite the growth of Government, education for many remains poor, there is no decent health care system and pensioners have had their federal Social Security funds stolen to pay for GOP deficits.

Universal Health Care would remove the direct cost from the employer, allowing American companies to compete better in the World. It would allow American consumers to worry less and spend more as they need not worry about personal bankruptcy if things go wrong. It re-involves the un-insured in America, whose population group represents the size of a reasonably large economy. Most importantly it will truly give the average American worker the feeling that the Government works for them.

Universal health care could have been paid out of post cost profits. This would have meant in many cases a massive reduction in the cost of employing American workers.

The GOP could have involved everyone in a capitalist revival. They failed. Their failure to push for real reform means that timid costly reform is what is being provided. The consumer, when buying an American product will need to carry on paying for the cost of the employee and their health care, when they buy a European product, all they pay for is their wage rate.

Not having real health care reform will cost Americans jobs, the GOP managed to frame the debate around "socialized health", when in fact they should have looked at cost. For that they should always be remembered as failing America.

[cutlassmama]

1. They'll be looked at as failing America for the past decade irregardless.

[TheBigotBasher]

6. Well they did fail America and the World.

The banking collapse took the rest of the World with them. It is no wonder that the UK which benefited so much from being the Anglo/American center of finance is still officially in recession.

This crisis should have woken people up. One of the key factors to that is the cost of employing someone in the US. It is made far more expensive because the employer has to pick up the costs of healthcare. No other Country has to do that. The costs are paid out of post cost profits.

The Rethugs could have pushed this issue, but they failed. They listened to teabaggers, who were driven by who knows what.

[Betsy Ross]

2. Well said. k&r

[dflprincess]

3. If the Democrats, especially the DLCers and Blue Dogs weren't so stupid, they would have pushed it

and in doing so, secured their majority for years.

But had they done that they would have lost all those campaign "donations" and any chance of a lucrative lobbying job when they leave "public" service.

[TheBigotBasher]

7. Indeed

but what could have happened if the Republican Party had actually been true to themselves and worried about how thwy could have controlled the costs of employing someone in America.

Wage cuts are certainly not always the answer. Reductions in holidays are not either.

[rpannier]

4. You could have stopped at

If the GOP wasn't so stupid

It pretty much sums up that Party

[provis99]

5. the Republican attitude is that America failed them.

sick, sick group of people.

[TheBigotBasher]

8. If they were a decent opposition party,

actually if they were a decent party, they would have supported single payer. It gets Government "off the backs" of employers because they would no longer need to pay to supplement what the Government should already do.

The Democratic Party moving ever further towards the right as a result of GOP stupidity is a crime.