Economic plan

[xtc]

sorry for creating a new thread but I didn't want this question to get lost in all the other thread about the election.

Has an independent body/think tank evaluated Bush's and Kerry's economic plan and come up with an opinion. i.e. are there plans economically viable, are the able to pay for there plans without raising taxes? etc. Links would be appreciated

[Edited on 10-14-2004 by xtc]

[Wezas]

I've been looking and can't find anything yet.

Factcheck.org has some interesting info on taxes


The top 1% of the population pays a much higher rate -- 26.7% of their income goes to pay federal taxes, on average. That's 6.8 percentage points less than they would have paid under the tax rules in effect when Bush took office, so Kerry's ad is quite right to say "the wealthiest are paying less."

But as for how much that 6.8% means dollar wise (to cover Kerry's economic plan) - I haven't seen anything yet.

[Latrinsorm]

I'm nearly positive Kerry's plan is impossible, money-wise. Here's why: in the second debate, Bush said something like "We think he's going to raise 600 billion, he thinks he's going to raise 800 billion. His plan costs 2.2 Trillion." to which Kerry responded "2.2 trillion is a fuzzy math number" and didn't bother to actually say how much his plan was going to cost.

Naturally, the question is Why wouldn't he say?

[Wezas]

Only hard number I've seen:

Kerry's Health Plan - 895 billion over 10 years.

[TheRoseLady]

Originally posted by Latrinsorm
I'm nearly positive Kerry's plan is impossible, money-wise. Here's why: in the second debate, Bush said something like "We think he's going to raise 600 billion, he thinks he's going to raise 800 billion. His plan costs 2.2 Trillion." to which Kerry responded "2.2 trillion is a fuzzy math number" and didn't bother to actually say how much his plan was going to cost.

Naturally, the question is Why wouldn't he say?

Likely because he couldn't get it out coherently in the time provided. I don't even give a shit about these hypothetical numbers and voting records. My eyes glaze over when they start throwing out numbers because I think they both misrepresent - Bush way more than Kerry.

[Tsa`ah]

You have to examine the health care costs closer.

No where did Kerry say that the government is going to pay the premiums. He only said he would make the plan available, perhaps at reduced rates.

This effectively gives the provider a much larger customer base. As with all insurance companies, they bank on people not needing the healthcare and bargain with health care providers for lower rates, or fixed rates. This makes the federal provider a money making institution. Not exactly a bad idea.

My concern is in the cost of the coverage. A congressman or senator certainly can afford whatever the premium is, can the working poor? If it costs a family of 4 50 dollars a month for coverage, that's not bad ... but consider that a family earning less than 20k a year probably can't afford 600 bucks annually it becomes a useless fix.

So the big question is how much will this coverage cost and how much will it cover? These are the answers he isn't offering.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by TheRoseLady
Likely because he couldn't get it out coherently in the time provided. I don't even give a shit about these hypothetical numbers and voting records. My eyes glaze over when they start throwing out numbers because I think they both misrepresent - Bush way more than Kerry. I just timed myself. It takes exactly 2 seconds to say "the plan costs 1.3 trillion". I guess you'd have a point if he communicated in binary or something, but there's no reason he couldn't say how much it cost unless he plum forgot (which is acceptable) or he knew that it would cost more than the money he gets from rolling back the rich folks' cut. If all he did was forget, it's very not hard to come out and say "This is how much my plan costs".

Just checked his website, and no dice. :( However, I did notice he's decreased his promise from "no uninsured Americans" to "only 5% of Americans uninsured", which he still can't do, but hey, no biggie.

[GSTamral]

Kerry's healthcare plan can work with some minor changes. Socialized medicine in general can work. But he must first put a limit on lawsuits, to get the insurance companies out of everyone's pockets, and he must also put pressure on HMO's to open their networks up. People keep forgetting that lawyers and insurance companies, as well as HMO providers are each taking a whopping cut out of the system. 22 cents on the dollar is the take for an HMO. I wish I knew the number for the lawyers and insurance companies, but I'd bet in the end, only 50 cents on the dollar spent on healthcare actually goes towards paying for actual healthcare.

I'm more concerned where Kerry will invent the 10 million jobs from. Because they simply don't exist. I'm also concerned with finding out who the stupid fuck was that told Kerry that reducing the corporate tax by 5% to companies that hire american workers would work. Companies are saving a shitload more than that to move the work abroad.

Raising the top tax bracket as it stands is extremely fiscally irresponsible. We may need to possibly add another tax bracket, something that would be much more sustainable. The top tax bracket has been at 200,000 for more than 25 years now. 25 years ago, that was a lot of money. Worth about 650-700,000 in today's market. That bracket hasn't moved. People who earn 200,000 in a year are well off, but by no means rich.
We should instead have a sixth bracket at 500,000 and up, at which point a higher tax rate would make more sense.

Not to mention even by raising it, it will not raise nearly enough money to pay for all the things they want to pay for.

Education in this country is abysmal. Teachers in this country by and large are terrible. In fact, worse than that. If another country can spend less than a quarter of what we do per capita and have much better schooling, we should focus efforts on figuring out how they do it, not simply adding more beaurocracy and adding to the powers of the teachers union by pouring more and more money into the system.

They work 9 months a year, and half days at that. They earn as much as 55-60,000 a year for their (lack of) efforts. Bush's no child left behind may have been a retarded plan, but it was a step in the right direction. We need to put pressure on educators, because they fucking suck.

People wonder why so many foreigners can come up here and take away our jobs, the reason is simple. Our children are stupid compared to many other countries. They have poor basic skills, and in many more technical and managerial type positions, they lack the same qualities that built the nation's industry in the 1950's.

This nation has no electricity to spare, and SCR projects and boiler fabrication are so far behind in this country that it defies belief. One hot summer in the northeast will kill more Americans than Osama and the Iraqi insurgents have done in all their years. Neither candidate has even remotely an intelligent plan to resolve this.

There are many such issues that need immediate addressing yet no candidate wants to touch any of them. Instead, this election will again fall to swing voters who are so smart, they vote on such issues as abortion, gay rights, and the death penalty, none of which, in the grand scheme of things, really matters at all.

If the foundation of the country is not there, and we don't strengthen it, those things really don't matter all that much. You can't build a house without doors and then focus on the locks.