Comments for NYT on Future of Government Safety Net, Misses Growth and Health Care Stories at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.cepr.net Thu, 23 May 2013 06:26:46 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-on-future-of-government-safety-net-misses-growth-and-health-care-stories#comment-14771 Your second point on health care costs is buried, but it really is worth emphasizing. This all comes down to rising health care costs. Rising health care costs have raised costs in general, for both private and public health insurance. Increased spending on Medicare and Medicaid (and private health insurance) are a symptom. The core problem causing these federal deficits (as well as state deficits and much higher costs for employers) is growth of health care costs. It all is coming from the same core issue, rising health care costs. - Greg Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:54:50 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-on-future-of-government-safety-net-misses-growth-and-health-care-stories#comment-14732 There are two facets of this article that struck me. First it states, "When pressed to choose between paying more and taking less, many people interviewed here hemmed and hawed and said they could not decide. Some were reduced to tears." I don't want to belittle any of these people but I do not understand why when confronted with the inconsistency of their worldview, they cannot adjust their views to the reality of their own situations. Second, there is a constant refrain voiced against raising taxes. But nowhere in the debate on taxes is there a discussion of raising taxes for people earning $50,000 per year or less. The discussion is about trying to reverse the inequality fostered by two to three decades of lower tax rates on the upper income brackets. - Sam Adenbaum Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:16:27 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-on-future-of-government-safety-net-misses-growth-and-health-care-stories#comment-14728 Dean, how come you always give a pass to the Pentagon? Over the last 10 years we've seen an unprecedented expansion in military spending. I recently was reading Chalmers Johnson's book Blowback, and he comments (before 9/11) on how absurd it was that the White House was, at the time, projecting defends budgets of $250 billion 10 years into the future. Today, we spend nearly $800 billion per year, an enormous waste of money -- engaging in nation building in Afghanistan, and fighting terrorism with military might (which is not an effective solution because you have to continue spending huge amounts each year to keep the deterrant up; policing terrorism is a much more cost effective solution). If people want to know where the deficits are coming from today, enormous spending on pointless wars is a huge part of the story. - Brerr Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:54:04 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-on-future-of-government-safety-net-misses-growth-and-health-care-stories#comment-14717 The article caused me to wonder if hypocrisy hardwires in the brain and becomes the hard-to-escape norm. - fuller schmidt Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:57:17 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-on-future-of-government-safety-net-misses-growth-and-health-care-stories#comment-14712 [quote]If workers get their share of projected productivity growth ...[/quote] Any economist knows why wages are sticky downwards [i]and[/i] upwards - because owners - not workers - are expected to take risks. That's the essential difference between profit income and wage income that drives successful capitalism - workers don't get excess gains on the upside or bear excess losses on the downside - owners do. Workers already got their share, are getting their share and will continue to get their share going forward as long as the capitalist engine of profitable investment based on risk-taking is not interferred with by winner-take-all labor socialists. Stupid liberals. - izzatzo Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:50:38 +0100