The “Rationing” Switcheroo – NYTimes.com.

I agree with Paul here. If the Medicare system determines what it will or will not pay for – the basic medical care coverage – there should be nothing to preclude a patient from using their own money to get advanced or alternative medical care.

The Declaration of Independence did not declare that we have the right to life, liberty, and the all expenses paid pursuit of happiness.

I was just thinking about Corporate Taxes, don’t ask me why.

US corporate profit performance.

I’ve heard that the USA has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, 35%. So I am looking at these 2008 figures and see that Corporate profits are $1,360.4 Billion and they paid $292.2 Billion. That works out to 21.5%, not 35%.  I see from the 2008 federal budget that Corporate tax revenues come to $314.9 Billion. I don’t know why these numbers don’t agree, maybe different fiscal calendars, but the latter is still only 23%, not 35%.

If we really had a 35% tax rate we would be collecting $476 Billion instead of the paltry sum we are currently collecting. That would help pay for a few more months in Afghanistan.

I see that the US  corporate tax rate is listed as between 0% and 35%, so we don’t actually have a flat one-rate-for-all-corporations tax.  I guess the fun is in starting with 35% and seeing how quickly you can get it to 0%. Why don’t they make a flat 25% tax with no deductions and stop playing games? I would like for them to revise the corporate tax code such that any compensation paid to an executive in excess of the US presidents salary would be counted toward corporate profits and not an operating expense.

Blog – House GOP Spending Cuts.

Our government is broke and House Republicans are working to rein in wasteful government spending. Below is an initial list of 148 programs that will be terminated saving our country $100 billion.

Republican Congressional Committed is posting a list of 148 programs that will save us $100 Billion. I am not particularly  familiar with any of these programs – I think I have heard of a couple –  but I did notice if 148 programs were going to save us $100B they  would need to average about $675Million per program. I didn’t see that sort of average in a quick scan of the list, so I actually added up the savings of the 148 programs and came up with $14.3B.- average of $97M each. Now if these congress critters can’t even sum up their selected list of savings, what can we expect when they go after the big numbers?  More lies and obfuscation? (They’re politicians, it’s a rhetorical question)

$14.3B isn’t even a spit in the wind of a $3.7T budget, $100B barely is.  Come on guys, go where the money is – DoD.

There Is Still No Such Thing As Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid – NYTimes.com.

Krugman reiterates to need to keep Social Security budget discussions separate from Medicare, Medicaid and the other ‘entitlements’. They are  very different flavors of programs.

What I see is the biggest problem with the healthcare programs is that we aren’t funding them with enough payroll tax. Why don’t we just bump up the Medicare payroll tax up to 10%-15% and  make all Americans part of Medicare? from pre-birth to post-death?

Alternatively, we can just eliminate all government health-care programs – with a corresponding cut in the DoD budget. That should get our deficit down to 0 and maybe even start paying off the debt.   Then we will have millions of elderly dying in the streets much sooner that expected and this will save Social Security as well.

I have been wondering what the “Other Mandatory Programs” are. It shows up in the  federal budget under the “Mandatory Programs” section – its value somewhere between Social Security and Medicare. The 2012 budget allocates $598B for the other mandatory programs. But I googled for a while and found:

Other categories of mandatory spending:

• Unemployment compensation
• Supplemental Security Income
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps.)
• Other federal retirement and disability programs provide benefits to federal civilian employees, members of the military, and veterans
• Commodity Credit Corporation (Farm Subsidies)
• Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Fund (DoD health care plan)
• subsidy costs of federal student loan programs
• Universal Service Fund (which reduces the cost of telecommunications services for selected areas and individuals)
• Children’s Health Insurance Program
• Social Services Block Grant program

Individually, each of these programs don’t amount to much, but combined they are very big (as this CBO presentation shows).

via Avedon –An Irishman explains the financial problems of the modern world