There Will be Blood

[Ryft]

What is "no unemployment extensions for those unable to find jobs in this recession and no spending on jobs programs but let's not worry about where we're going to find 700 billion for tax cuts for the rich" anything but "fuck em".

Because the unemployed do not want unemployment benefits in the first place. They want jobs. Politicians are elected to Capitol Hill to do what they can to encourage employment, not unemployment (which is part of the reason the electorate painted the political map red in the last election cycle). And the jobs programs cooked up by the Democrats made as much sense as taking water from one part of the lake and pouring it into another and pretending to have accomplished something meaningful. And the Bush tax cuts were for nearly all taxpayers, not this ad hoc category of "the rich."

(P.S. If Pelosi is right, that unemployment benefits "create jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name," then why does the lame duck Congress not simply extend unemployment benefits with unused stimulus money, rather than legislating further deficit increases?)

My wife would be dead now but for the fact that she's covered by my plan. She's uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions.

The law in the employment-based health insurance market prior to Obamacare already specified that your spouse cannot be subjected to pre-existing condition exclusions (q.v. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 [P.L.104-191]). As it stood, that exclusion could "only be applied to those without prior coverage, or to those who wait until they need medical care to enroll in their employer’s plan. ... A modest and sensible reform would be to simply apply the same set of rules to the individual health insurance market" (Haislmaier, E. & Blase, B., 2010).

What is the conservative plan to fix our broken health care system? Or are they living in denial that a problem exists?

See for example Cannon (2009), Haislmaier & Blase (2010), O'Brien (2009), Owcharenko (2010), Ryan (2010), and Tanner (2010) as just the beginning of a political discourse on entitlement reform. Moreover, the fact that you do not already know the answer reveals an unwillingness to conceive seriously the alternative to your favoured position; a responsible electorate is informed by the strongest arguments of both sides on political issues, not indoctrinated by the talking points of one side and rhetorical straw men of its opposition.

Just put in its proper role of regulating my bedroom instead of the financial markets.

No, the Tea Party movement is opposed to that, too. It wants the federal government to be as uninvolved in the private lives of "we the people" as possible, limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution—none of which regard anything about the bedrooms of Americans. It is becoming difficult to take your criticisms seriously.

Letting states regulate health insurance and removing interstate purchase of health care insurance will result in all health insurance companies relocating to the state with the fewest regulations so they can screw us all more.

First, as Owcharenko points out, "[eliminating] barriers to individuals purchasing health care coverage that best suits their personal needs across state lines" is one of the things that many conservatives champion. Second, if onerous state regulation drives health insurance providers to other states, then that state will suffer the consequences of its own actions. And private sector business is not the only thing that can "vote with its feet"; so can the people. When a state loses businesses and people, it might rethink its legislations and policies. But when it is elevated illegally to the level of federal government, where can businesses and people go? Businesses begin reducing their costs by outsourcing or cutting overhead, the American people suffer economic and job losses, and the government loses tax revenues. The entire nation suffers as a whole, instead of this or that particular state. If the federal government could be reduced to its constitutional scope and authority, leaving all else to the states or the people, the amount of federal tax revenue it needs to conduct itself would be astronomically reduced, enriching the American public tremendously.

Like it or not, we don't use goose quill pens and horse and buggies anymore. Federal regulation is both necessary and appropriate in the modern age.

No, we use computers and minivans now. Regulation is necessary and appropriate, yes, but the vast majority of it should be reserved to the states. The Constitution, the contract by which the people grant powers and rights to the federal government, places limits on what it is called upon to regulate (e.g., currency, postal services, interstate commerce, etc.).

[As a Reagan conservative], I don't remember being so detached from reality. I never spent so much time arguing what the facts were.

Obviously you did not spend much time arguing with liberals, then, who seem to constantly forget what the facts are. Their arguments also seem incapable of avoiding fallacies—like the one you committed here, when you said, "When Reagan deregulated the financial industry, that's when we started having meltdowns." This is the logical fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc, where two things are said to have a cause-and-effect relationship by virtue of occuring together. The historical point I am not sure you have questioned is 'why' Congress thought it necessary to deregulate the savings and loan industry. Hint? Because it was already in collapse: "By 1980, the savings and loan industry was technically insolvent because the market value of its mortgage loan portfolio was less than the value of the deposits financing it. Congress belatedly responded by reducing the regulatory burden on the industry. Yet it was too late" (Utt, 2008).

Republicans stripped away the regulations that prevented the mergers that allowed so many eggs to be put in so few baskets.

Yeah, the Republicans of the 1990s and 2000s who were Democrat Lite in their spending orgy—which Democrats supported and the Clinton administration signed off on—the sort of Republicans that gave rise to the very Tea Party we are talking about, a movement that reached a boiling point during the Bush administration and voted many of those incumbents out.

REFERENCES:

• Cannon, M. F. (2009). "Yes, Mr. President: A free market can fix health care." Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 650. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org (PDF).
  
• Haislmaier, E. & Blase, B. (2010). "Obamacare: Impact on states." Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2433. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org
  
• O'Brien, P. (2009). "Representative Paul Ryan gets it right on entitlement reform." Heritage Foundation Foundry. Retrieved from http://blog.heritage.org.
  
• Owcharenko, N. (2010). "Repealing Obamacare and getting health care right." Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 3053. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org.
  
• Ryan, P. D. (2010). "A Roadmap for America's Future 2.0." Tax Policy Center Tax Reform 2.0 forum. Retrieved from http://www.americanroadmap.org.
  
• Tanner, M. D. (2010). "The coming entitlement tsunami." The Daily Caller. Retrieved from http://dailycaller.com.
  
• Utt, R. D. (2008). "The Subprime Mortgage Market Collapse: A primer on the causes and possible solutions." Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2127. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org
  

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Our Constitution was never written in stone. Why do you think it can be amended?

Who the heck suggested that the Constitution couldn't be changed via the amendment process?

You want to blame those less economically fortunate for the financial meltdown ...

Uh, no. I want to blame "the federal government manipulating the banking and housing industries with ideological legislation" for the financial meltdown—which I said.

Do you want to start with the newest Orwellian program of blaming the unemployed for being unemployed ... [snip rest]

The unemployed are not being blamed for their unemployment. And your entire screed, couched in terms promoting class warfare, never answered my point about entitlement programs plummetting toward insolvency. Thank you.