It's time for America to pick a direction: Healthcare or warfare.

[Union Yes]

Examples of wise government spending and/or public investment..

1. Unemployment benefits in times of high unemployment, like now.

2. Food assistance benefits.

3. Medical/health care assistance.

4. Infrastructure. Roads, streets, highways, rail, seaways, electrical, communications, etc.

The aforementioned generate $1.57's worth of economic activity for evey $1.00 invested/spent by our government.

BIG GOVERNMENT IS THE FOUNDATION OF A STRONG ECONOMY!

It can only make sense that health care reform including a strong public option to start with and a push to convert to single payer later will also have this same positive economic effect.

In fact, health care reform may outpace other public investments in regards to generating economic activity.

That's why I believe the President when he stated that health care reform with a PO will not add to the federal deficit. I wish the President would explain this in greater detail. He has explained it to a degree but it would help people to better understand the fact that a strong PO will not add to our debt.



Warfare..

Has a negative effect on economic activity. Many different opinions on this but many say .89 cents worth returned for evey dollar spent.

Our defense spending is largely responsible for our $12 Trillion national debt. Some say 75% of our nations debt is due to our defense spending.

Ray-gun and Bushco chose warfare instead of health care since Ray-gun's election in 1980.

The result..

1. A mountain of national debt.

2. Waning confidence in our currency causing our dollar to spiral downward. That waning confidence is a direct result of exploding debt and deficit spending.

3. It's cost the lives, the bodies, the minds of our soldiers and sailors.

4. The rest of the world looks at us and thinks.. "America, is your head up your ass?"

Choosing warfare turned out to be an epic mistake.

Health care reform is testing the morality of this nation. The world is watching.

Health care reform is patriotic!

:patriot:

[Norrin Radd]

1. kr

[lib_wit_it]

2. I've made my decision. Health care it is! Oh, darn. I don't have large sums of money to influence

anyone in power. Too bad for me and other patriots.

[Union Yes]

5. It can be incredibly frustrating but keep fighting the good fight and vote.

Not implying that you're giving up or anything like that.

Just sayin.

As frustrating as this topic is, I believe one day we will win this fight.

Hope is all I got left.

Peace

:hi:

[lib_wit_it]

10. I'm either going to find out that there's something more I can do than just vote, or I'm going to

have to stay away from Keith, Rachel, and DU. I just get stressed and frustrated and angry, and it's not good for my health. And since I'm worried about losing my health care, and my husband can no longer afford his, I must be very careful.

I guess I still have some hope left. too, but it's fading.

















i

[MattSh]

3. You don't think that choice has been made already?

Of course, not by you and not by America as a whole.

The that choice was made decades ago. That's why we're in the current mess.

[Union Yes]

4. Undoing the damage of those bad choices will take perhaps generations.

[Lagomorph]

6. The aforementioned generate $1.57's worth of economic activity for evey $1.00 invested/spent by ...

Does that include all the bribes and graft?

It could be much more!

[ThatsMyBarack]

7. Well freakin' put!

:hi:

[hfojvt]

8. "some say 75% of our nation's debt is due to defense spending"

I don't buy that at all. I figure that 70% of our debt is due to Reaganomics, as I wrote here

"Well, total debt in 2007 was almost $9 trillion, since something like $4 trillion is
owed to the baby boom generation for their retirement. More noteworthy is
that between George Washington and 1980, our nation accrued $909 billion in
debt. Then Reagan was elected, promising tax cuts that would increase
revenue. By 1990 our national debt had more than tripled, to $3,206 billion.

President Clinton and the Republican Congress "only" added $1.41 trillion to the
debt. Then JR Bush was elected, promising tax cuts that he said would use only
1/4 of the projected surplus. In the six years between 2001 and 2007, Bush and
the Republican Congress added almost $3.2 trillion to the debt.

So 72% of that $9 trillion in debt comes from Presidents Reagan, Bush and JR
Bush. Just 18 years of Reaganomics added more to the debt than WWI, WWII,
the Great Depression, the Great Society, the Vietnam war, the Apollo project,
the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana purchase, the Civil War and everything else
before 1980. Isn't it time for people like Jenkins to stop promoting the policy of
Reaganomics that got us into this mess?"

72% of our debt today (or more, since I only used 2007 figures) comes from Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Bush II. They were all warmongers to an extent, but war has been pretty constant throughout our history. There were plenty of wars before 1980, so that is not new. However, one thing that has changed is the pay. Wars used to be fought be ordinary citizens who were drafted and forced to fight and only paid $20 a day plus free cigarettes (okay, I am obviously guessing at the pay). Now they are fought first by soldiers who are paid above median wages, but since we cannot get enough people desperate enough to risk their lives for only halfway decent pay and because a draft would be political suicide, today's warmongers have relied on more highly paid contractors. That's sort of a double benefit since the warmongers pals are all in the war business and get to make hefty profits.

[ShadesOfGrey]

9. Big K&R! n/t