War with Iraq was never on the table during Clinton's presidency. There is a tremendous amount of revisionism occurring here. Gore clearly stated that the focus should be on fighting terrorism. He also stated that the rationale for fighting Iraq was different than in 1991.

That war was produced in the minds of a group of neoconservatives and promoted for a variety of reasons. Gore was an outspoken critic of that war from the beginning. He was against it at a time when it wasn't fashionable to do so.

It is a big leap to suggest that he would have fought a war against Saddam when the focus should have been on Afghanistan.

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Yes, TPA's are the proper way to describe the situation. I have thought a lot about what a well designed system would look like, if we wanted to keep it private. Since every other major country has some form of public health insurance that may not be possible. I'd say the majority consider health care access to be a right, so as a public policy matter, the government has to provide health care for all.

The first problem our system has is the legacy of employer provided health care, which originated during WWII price controls. Employers offered it as a way to attract employees since they couldn't offer higher pay. Employer provided health insurance makes no sense. No other insurance is provided this way. When someone loses a job, they lose their income stream and health insurance at the same time.

By having employers subsidize the costs, the users are protected from the true cost of health care. It has led to the over use of services, the lack of price competition, and unhealthy lifestyles. The fat diabetic slob in your office pays the exact same rate as the salad eating marathon runner. Where else in life do you consume services where you don't know the cost and don't see the bill for 30 days? Heck even in a car repair shop, they give a cost estimate before they do the work.

If people acquired health insurance the way they bought auto insurance, you would be more careful with your health. You would have to pay first dollar expenses until you had a chronic or catastrophic situation. You would ask about the cost of services because it's coming directly out of your pocket and will effect next years premiums. After an auto accident, I think the natural reaction is, "crap my rates are going to go up.".

Now the question you might wonder, is what do we do with the sick/pre- existing conditions? The P&C markets already address this state by state. Some states have an insurer of last resort (residual market) that is state administered and funded by premiums and the industry. Other states have a take all comers model. There are market based solutions to this problem. For poor people that can't pay, then you either have a Medicaid set-up or provide them with a pot of money to acquire private insurance.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

No he was far from an outspoken critic of the war and it's a disservice to the people who actually protested any kind of invasion, rather than just the "wrong" kind, to paint him as such. Here he is in a separate speech emphasizing the unique evil of Iraq and insisting it's not a question of whether to invade but only how to do so:

Further, those neoconservatives you are suggesting cooked up the war with Iraq would have been part of a Gore administration as well. That was precisely Midget's original point. Lieberman never met a war he didn't like. Gore's close friend Marty Peretz never met a war in the Middle East he didn't like and used his reign at The New Republic to try to purge Democrats of anti-war voices. Gore's foreign policy election team included plenty of Iraq War supporters, most notably Ashton Carter who was a full on supporter of Bush's axis of evil claptrap. The mere fact that Wolfowitz wouldn't have been part of a Gore administration does not mean he wouldn't have been surrounded by people likewise pushing for invasion.

You have zero idea if Gore would have invaded Iraq. That was truly a unique circumstance. You don't even know if the 9/11 attacked would have occurred had Gore been president.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I agree on the foreign policy point. As a pseudo isolationist, I am disturbed by this.

By NeoLiberal Economic policy, do you mean the general belief in capitalism and free trade/globalization?. If you do, I agree with that asessment. However, I do think the two parties have a very different view on the role of markets, government intervention, tax, and regulation. The additional regulation created by Dodd Frank is a great example- Durbin Amendment, CFPB, Volcker Rule, Financial Stability Oversight Council (too big to fail), Derivatives regulation, Say on Pay. No Republican agrees with any of that stuff. Another example, no Republican administration would ever use the Treasury Dept to re-write IRS tax code (three times in this case) to make it harder for U.S. companies to invert by selling themselves to foreign companies. Obama has literally done a dozen things through executive action that no Republican would ever want or try. Block two major pipeline projects? Double the salary wage for exempt workers to require overtime pay? NLRB ruling on joint employer liability? Just a few things off the top of my head.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It wasn't just Wolfowitz though. Who in Gore's administration would have had the heft of Cheney or Rumsfeld? Which person would have had the financial incentive which existed with Cheney Rumsfeld etc.

Lieberman and Ashton Carter weren't Cheney and Rumsfeld. For Cheney and Rumsfeld the Iraq War of 91 never ended. Which person had the personal incentive incurred by Bush? Hussein plotted to have his father assassinated after all.

Advocating for regime change and fighting a war to bring it about are totally separate things.

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Why do you preface every comment with this? As a Libertarian, I blah blah blah.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

You are right about the first sentence. I am not sure about the other. Without looking it up wouldn't the pilot training that went on for 9/11 have to have started before Bush was president?

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Elections have consequences.

I can speculate. My speculation is based upon the facts as they existed at the time.

I do think 9/11 would have occurred though. That gad nothing to do with who the President happened to be.

In addition. If Gore was so hell bent on regime change then why didn't they make the attempt during Clinton's administration?

My bad. Addressed the wrong guy.

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Uh why are you directing this at me and not ltg, who started this discussion by being the person who stated most directly and definitely that Gore would not have invaded Iraq?

No Republican believes in any of that stuff? Hmm. I would call that a stretch at best. And derivative regulation is a bad thing now? How quickly we forget. I am guessing you are one of the types who blames the housing crises on poor black people being given loans.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

If you want to debate semantics then that is fine. I could simply change it to unlikely. Could I say definitely? No but highly unlikely for the reasons stated.

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I guess so my position is clear. I like to separate my Republican voting history from my underlying beliefs because the Republican Party of today is pretty far from my core beliefs on the role of government. I wonder if everyone here knows that Libertarians are isolationist? Hell Gary Johnson can't even name foreign leaders or cities.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Don't do the "Someguy". You're bigger than that.

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Yeah the thing is you haven't really given many reasons. To repeat Tall Midget's original point, the foreign policy consensus in Washington is neoconservative through and through. You manufacturing personal motives as being the driving force in Iraq when Gore himself would have been surrounded by the same sorts of ideologues is not particularly compelling. And as I've shown you repeatedly, Gore was not an outspoken opponent of the war but merely the way Bush was going about doing it.

Further, if you recall, Gore ran as the more interventionist candidate against George "I don't believe in nation building" Bush. Given how frequently the Democrats have just had to pass awful policy to avoid appearing weak (see also Hillary's vote for the very same war!), I think it's quite plausible to see a President Gore supporting invasion for the same reason the administration he served under pursued welfare reform and the crime bill.

When you say things like this, it comes off that you just fall into a line of thinking just because. I am X, so i believe Y.

Not trying to pick on you, just an observation.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I wouldn't even say that Libertarians are isolationists. Its more being anti-interventionist. We need to have a place in the world, we don't need to continually go in to country after country making regime changes.

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IDK, was just the way the quote worked out to keep it a short post. Anyone, can answer.

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Elections have consequences.

1) The vote on Dodd Frank was
House: Passed 223-202. All 175 Republicans voted against (note two didn't vote at all).
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll968.xml
Senate: Passed 59-39. All but Three Republicans voted against it. ME and MA republicans liked it.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/r ... vote=00162

2) They forced all derivatives onto exchanges. Previously there were a lot of bespoke OTC derivatives, and the system worked very well. There was more than enough regulation. AIG was dumb, should have been allowed to fail, and it would have taught the crooked counter parties, Goldman et al a lesson about picking on a stupid enterprise like AIG. But yeah people love their regulation. It makes them feel good until the next crisis. Like how the S&L's got the OTS after their late 80's crisis, and then the OTS was dissolved after the subprime crisis. Next banking crisis, the OCC will get whacked in favor the Fed.

3) The housing crisis shares a lot of blame. The largest blame goes to the FHLB banking system. That system gives out money to large banks, think WaMu and Countrywide, to make home loans. Countrywide alone had $47B in debt from its FHLB bank to make mortgage loans. That system used money raised at Treasury Rates through the Office of Finance to then be rolled in a vast mortgage banking enterprise. This was multiplied across the thrift space- IndyMac and the like.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I provided plenty of reasons why I thought he wouldn't one of which were his own words. You chose to twist his words in order to fit your own narrative.

Afghanistan was the battleground for war in 02. Everyone knew it. Bush used the capital existent in that war to loop Iraq in. He even trumped up the bogus charge that Iraq was a hotbed for terrorism too.

It is also presumptuous to assume that guys Like Lieberman and Ashton Carter would have had enough influence to take this country to war. They surely would not have had the sort of influence afforded Cheney, who was possibly the most influential VEEP in history.

Gore clearly stated that he didn't believe that the U.S. should have gone to war.

This is how it was interpreted at the time.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nat ... gore_x.htm

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Oh gotcha, I see what you mean. No that's not it at all. I have very firm beliefs on a range of issues, and I found that Ron Paul was the best match for those beliefs, thus I call myself a Ron Paul Republican (his bad abortion stance aside). But if you line up my liberal social beliefs with my small government bent, the Libertarians are my closest home politically.

I don't believe in non-intervention (Hank's term) because I describe myself as a Libertarian. It is the other way around.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

No he didn't. He stated he didn't think Bush should pursue war unilaterally and that he should try to get a coalition of nations and that he should be mindful of the aftermath, but he never disagreed with principle of invasion itself. Trying to dress him up as some loud anti-war voice is what is revisionist in this conversation, as is the notion that he'd clearly be unlikely to go to war when he'd have surrounded himself with the same pro-military industrial complex partisans the way every contemporary President has.

I didn't read this whole thread, so it may have been covered, but why does Hillary keep saying she won't add a penny to the national debt? I thought she was the "most qualified candidate ever" and Trump was the idiot who didn't know how the government worked.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

1. I just do not think the word Republican is as narrowly defined as you. There are many people in the Republican Party who are there for religious reasons rather than this strict economic dogma.

2. Glass-Steagall worked just fine for years. I love that regulations are a bad thing argument. Best to let companies sell diseased food otherwise it will hold back innovation. The market will "figure it out" means letting an informed select few control industries, but it's better to have zero regulations otherwise it will hold back business. Better to have zero standards because you know, the "market."

3. There is one reason why the housing market crash was so damaging. They were slicing up the mortgages and selling them as securities. It was a classic case of creating money out of nothing and trying to stick someone else with the bill. It compounded bad financial transactions many times over. The libertarian go to is always well if the government were not there. It's a hypothesis that cannot be proven. It's like saying well you can't disprove God exists.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

Trump is the idiot that doesn't know how govt works. If you'd listened to his economic plan it would become very apparent. His advisory team are the same supply side tax cutters that every Republican candidate trots out. Whenever you see Stephen Moore and Art Laffer it puts you in a time warp.

She plans to raise taxes on the people making over $250,000 and cut spending. Haven't figured out which programs she plans to cut but if she adds anything from Sanders platform cutting is going to be difficult.

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As a karate expert,

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She's saying her spending won't because she offsets it with tax increases.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Every politician claims that their economic plan will bring X% of growth, which would then pay for all the new spending. It's like you or me saying that that we're sure we'll get a 5% raise every year, so we can spend an additional 5% every year and not add to our debt. Of course, there are no guarantees of raises, or growth.

And, as Nas mentioned, she promises to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay their "fair share."

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I understand that. I hope you guys realize how wildly unrealistic this is and how dumb she sounds saying such a thing.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

No people do not understand this. Regardless of party or candidate people never hold them to either their projected increases in revenue or their proposed (sometimes not even formally proposed) cuts. Presidential candidates promise a lot of shit they know will never get through congress.

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Elections have consequences.