If you closely investigate what the Romney/Ryan plan is for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, you will find a shifting of these programs from the government to the private sector. They come in the form of vouchers for insurance and some sort of government “grant” for Social Security to be invested as one would wish.
Of course “government” to conservatives is a dirty word over the past four years. With the entitlement programs--Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—the government for the most part has adequately provided Americans with this assistance. Now ask yourself if you can trust insurance companies to perform as well, guarantee coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, or even accept your voucher at all? And would you trust financial institutions and/or stock brokerages to totally protect your Social Security retirement funds and have your financial interests as a top priority? I think the crash of 2008 and the Republicans’ penchant for little or no regulations to protect consumers answers those questions.
The choice of Ryan as Romney’s running mate takes the presidential campaign to a different level. No longer is it about likeability or political loyalties; it is about trust in the face of what has happened not over the past four years but the past 12. It is about whether our president and legislature are to care about all Americans or only a certain segment. Is government to govern, or are we to put our trust in a “free-market economy” based on a supply-side theory that in 30 years has yet to fulfill any of its promises?
Greg Williams
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I will put my trust in the free market over government - less waste, more incentive, and far less corruption. (But not crony capitalism which is just government and large corporations working together on taxpayer money.)
Using Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are bad examples - they're broke and are bankrupting us - and what makes it worse, is that we taxpayers paid into them with our own money. Want a bad investment? Give your money to Social Security. Most people will get a negative return on their investment - if they get any return at all.
See GM for another fabulously run government company - taxpayers have lost $24 billion so far - mostly because of poor decisions at the top - and non union employees and bond holders personally lost big.
Government by its nature is completely inefficient. Let the federal government do what its founders intended it to do when they wrote the Constitution.
Gregg Juster
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The problem with supply side economics was not that it didn't work. It did. Tax cuts instigated entrepreneurship and job growth, doubled government tax revenue by the end of Reagan's presidency, lowered inflation to a crawl, and witnessed the greatest period of across the board wealth creation in history.
The problem was what the government did with all that revenue. Instead of paying it toward the debt, or balancing the budget, Congress spent it. As tax revenue came pouring in, Congressional spending increased twofold. In order to fully reap the benefit of a free market supply-side economy, you have to bring government spending under control. We have yet to put these two together.
Bill McGee