Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Announces White House Bid

please provide proven research that makes you come to your conclusions, I looked at everythin you have but let me explain why I have come to the conclusions I have, i'm not a close minded individual and I'm sure I have come off as such by being so staunch in my support for fairtax but personally I just feel our system is abused and regressive for the individual. anything they do will not change the transparency in regards to our tax dollars and the loopholes and the special interest lobbyiest who hillary and all the other corrupt democrats and republicans have love affairs with.

1. our current system is broken and it needs to be replaced anything they do will only slow the inevitable, we are losing our competitive edge we had for decades in the global market and anything thing the politicans try to adjust in our current system will be only plugging a breaking dam.

here check out the comparisons, mind you this is bi-partisan.

fairtax.org...

fairtax.org...

2. social security and medicare, no other bill proposes to fund this in a less intrusive way but the fairtax, not onyl that fairtax is a more stable source of income to fund such programs.

3. we keep all of our checks without defunding the government, this alone would boost the economy especially because consumer prices dont rise.

4. transparent taxation, no more hidden games the politcans play with our lives.

5. the research done, vagabond this bill was being researched when I was 11 years old, it's the most heavily researched tax replacement bill in history, 22 million hard earned dollars went into this bi-partisan bill and the nations top economists agree with all of this.

the math does not lie and neither does the research. I'm assuming you're referencing lawerence vance and others from mises, well they also have been proven as frauds and you can find this anywhere you look, vance created his own version of HR25 just like the presidents tax panel. I have provided links that show the math and how mises manipulated the bill, vance refuses to answer questions also about his conclusions. every single prominent economists that attempted to debate fair tax got disproven, go look at the 'they said what rebuttals' it's on the links I provided. any other economists who may not agree has not invested 22 million dollars worth of research into his work.

honestly I have looked at every aspect of this system and it's certainly better than our current system. it's a policy that not only encourages business big and small it takes the burden off of the individual and they are better able to advance in life and better able to provide for their families. what I like about the up to the poverty level monthly prebate is that it's there to redistribute your own money that was yours to begin with, they arent taking away from one and giving to another, they are giving back which already belonged to one in a TRUE progressive manner hence not getting taxed on necessities. everyone has to consume in this society, when someone is making more money they will consume more and the fairtax enables one to better able afford consumption and investment. a perfect balance. take a good look at current consumer spending in our system, it's insane.

also kudos for what you do for a living, i commend anyone who works and contributes to our way of life and system but it is up to us to make sure these crooked politcians get voted out and exposed as the frauds they are. that goes across all party lines.

if hillary uses foreign contributions to make an attempt to ascend to the whitehouse she will get buried, she will use the exact same money her husband received to sell out this country to grab power in this country, thats dangerous.


[edit on 28-1-2007 by ape]

I'll start out by saying that you'll notice in this post a few things that I omitted last time- thats what I get for posting so late, I'm only human.

One area in which we have had difficulty communicating so far seems to be as to the nature of research and supporting arguments.

As is probably frustratingly apparent from my hesitance regarding fairtax, I really don't like taking a people's word for it, even if between them they've got more degrees than a baking thermometer (which the who's who of fairtax supporters have). So if what you ask of me is an impressive veritable library of abstracts on various studies hosted by a single organization and signed off on by a pantheon of professors, I won't pretend to have it. I don't have any clue who Lawrence Vance is, but if I had to guess, I'd say there's a good chance that I'm almost as smart as him, if not smarter. Afterall, we agree that Math doesn't lie, so I don't need Mr. Vance to tell me what's true or not.

I generally reconstruct the argument for myself to see that it works, and I've been encouraged in this recently since reading Freakonomics (yeah, sounds like an odd place to get your view of economics, but it's really a fun read and serves to demystify what exactly economists do). The heart of the discipline is basically just to ask a question, determine a few potential causes, and look at not only the answer but how it works with a little math and deductive logic. There are a great many known principles that aid this process, as well as competing schools of thought which, if vindicated, may also help, but they aren't always essential, and not being indoctrinated to any particular school of thought can have the benefit of freedom to pursue the answer that seems most reasonable.

In so many words, when practical I try to be my own economist. I may not have any laurels to rest on, but if my numbers and logic are sound, I don't see the lack of a degree as a major challenge.

I apologize for that lengthy intro to my evidence, but hopefully it will help us see the relevance, though not necessarily the correctness of eachother's reasoning.

In the way of evidence, I have begun with an examination of one of the hard-to-procure goods that is currently provided for in part by socialist means, namely healthcare. (I know what a dirty word socialism is in our country but I don't have any missiles in Cuba or a plan to shoot JFK- I'm just discussing the viability of consumer-organization carried out through the structure of government).

I took the average health insurance premium from the 2005 Report of America's Health Insurance Plans Center for Policy Research (PDF) (although I was working from memory from a different thread and undershot by about 200 dollars annually: it turns out that it's 4424 annually for the average family, not 4200 as I mistakenly said). Note that this survey was done by insurance providers and was from a large sample group, not the entire population, and so it's not a universal number to work from. It's a starting point and we can use other numbers to check the viability of any conclusion reached.

So I divided the American population into an equal number of standard families (300 million / 4.5), then multiplied the result by the premium for an average family, not as a perfect number but as a ballpark figure to start with- sort of a "sanity check" on current spending. The answer was if America really did consist of nothing but standard families, two parents, and either 2 or 3 kids, the 66.6 million families in America each paying 4500 a month would equal a nation-wide 100% insurance cost of $299,700,000,000. (up from 287.4 Billion when I misquoted the average premium).

Compare that, the ballpark cost of 100% insurance, to the cost medicaid in the 2007 budget proposal: 276.4 Billion. ( graph Proposal itself ) And of course that only pays for about half of the funding the states get to administer. The feds match state funds and provide grants. So roughly double that to 550 Billion and you're in the neighborhood of what Medicaid is actually spending to insure approximately 45 million Americans

So this leaves us with a very perplexing question. Why is Medicaid, which generally helps those below the Federal Poverty Level (about 42 million people) costing us more than the insurance industry says it should cost to ensure everyone? Medicaid is spending in the neighborhood of 13,000 annually PER PERSON (not per family!) compared to about 1,000 dollars a person privately according to my math with the numbers from AHIP.

Possibilities: 1. Medicaid is paying too much for its own internal structure. 2. The states are diverting funds. 3. Medicaid is being overcharged/defrauded either by doctors or patients. 4. AHIP rigged the numbers.

Let's start with number 4. I found a second source that gives different numbers- the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiative, a health-care oriented philanthropic group. Report (PDF)

Their numbers, found on page 8, focused on employer-provided healthcare and are a little over double. They average it at 4,000 for employee only and 11,000 for a family.

If we take their numbers, you would expect full health insurance to cost 732.6 billion dollars to cover 300 million Americans, compared to medicaid which is paying 550 Billion to ensure 42 million Americans. This would make Medicare 13,000 a person while employer provided insurance would be 2,450 a person.

Furthermore, this new source includes data on coverage, mentioning that about 15% of Americans were completely uninsured as of 2004. The vast majority of them are people making less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Line. This is very interesting because now we know that our insurance sollution doesn't have to address 100% coverage- 60% of people are covered by employer-provided plans, 15% are uninsured, about 15% are on public programs, and we can deduce that about 10% then are paying for private insurance. So we actually have 30-40% of the population to address here, meaning that if we fix medicaid, we're actually looking at a savings of 250 Billion annually before the costs of whatever reforms are calculated, but also before reduction in medicare needs, market forces of increased participation, and decreases in provider-absorbed costs for emergency care of the uninsured are calculated, so we have a strong chance of saving money and providing full health insurance if we can circumvent the problem with Medicaid.

We can protect against most possibilities- state diversion of funds and internal costs, simply by leaving that tax money with the employers on the condition they use it to provide health insurance. In so many words: what's better than using a consumption tax to make people able to get healthcare? Using no tax at all to help them get it. In your opinion, is that idea at least close to as non-intrusive as the fairtax? What you're doing is telling employers and employees "we're cutting payroll taxes big time. Get the best deal possible on your insurance and you can keep the savings, but we do expect you to act responsibly, because if you waste that money elsewhere and still expect free healthcare, we're taking it back".

Originally posted by ape
honestly I have looked at every aspect of this system and it's certainly better than our current system.

For the sake of being civil and giving you and the people who've put so much effort into the idea a fair shake, I'm not denying that it could be. But as I examined above, it is possible that there are other things better than our current system as well which might be more familiar to us, and as such more wieldy for us. Learning the little contingencies of a new idea can be a very rough experience.

Take capitalism itself. It's been refined and come to work pretty dang well for us, a few glitches aside, but it came with these little catch 22s that nobody would have thought of right away that required some hard lessons and subsequent regulation.

what I like about the up to the poverty level monthly prebate is that it's there to redistribute your own money that was yours to begin with, they arent taking away from one and giving to another, they are giving back which already belonged to one in a TRUE progressive manner hence not getting taxed on necessities.

Allow me to offer a second way of viewing this, which you are free to critique or simply disagree with, but which I think may appeal to your curiousity if I understand your principles correctly.
Taxes buy things. They are not a charity donation, but a purchase of things that we use, such as roads, police, unemployment insurance, social security, etc etc.
Now, if you're in poverty, and because of your prebate you effectively pay no taxes, since you don't have the money for anything but the bare necessities, then you're not paying for the things that you recieve. You are being provided certain necessities for free, such as police protection, and others are paying for it.
This is a necessary thing in any fair society. The poor should not be beneath the protection of the law- they deserve police protection. They are a part of our society- not the biggest part, but they do things that need doing. It's a very mild kind of socialism.
In that respect, I don't think it's very different from current income redistribution. Its just that instead of paying for poor people's food, now we're paying for their police. Agree?

it is up to us to make sure these crooked politcians get voted out and exposed as the frauds they are. that goes across all party lines.

Hear hear!


[edit on 28-1-2007 by The Vagabond]

an interesting proposal you put forward but IMO it will not solve the issues in this country, we have to understand some people cannot afford medical insurance in this country because of the prices, income and individual poverty, you're right on about medicaid. now with fairtax not only does medicaid get funded properly people can actually have the money to pay for it, more high paying jobs come into this country pay wages are predicted to increase and you keep everything you earn. consumer prices will not rise and infact will be forced lower due to competiton, doctors do not have to comply with the federal income tax code saving them massive amounts of money in compliance allowing them to lower what they charge letting natural competition drive down prices instead of government control and intrusion.


now about the prebate, i'm not sure how you can call it income redistribution thats practiced by our current tax policy and socialism? we are not taking away from ones earnings and giving to another or taking care of another, we are giving back to one what originally belonged to them. people below the poverty level that work minimum wage in this country still consume necessities, when you factor in that they keep 100% of their check, interest rates slashed on loans etc etc etc take into consideration that they will not be dependant on a monthly check from the government. the whjole point of the fairtax is to elevate the individual so they are better able to survive and better provide for their families in this country without having to go to the government. keep in mind the prebate is up to the poverty level, everyone above that line just gets the yearly rebate. with all of the opportunity that would present itself you would see people rapidly rising out of the poverty level, hence less monthly prebates and more yearly. you have to factor every benefit in because they are all links in the same chain.

i'm an independent think myself, however the research in the fairtax is not misleading and is very simple to understand, over 50,000 pages of tax code, is that not insane? wouldnt it seem wise to replace it with a 146 page document?



[edit on 28-1-2007 by ape]

Originally posted by ape
consumer prices will not rise and infact will be forced lower due to competiton,

I'll get back to you on that part, hopefully pretty soon. My initial reaction is that when you have more money going after the same amount of goods, prices generally inflate but I'll dig up the explanation from the website and see if it passes the smell test. I suspect the rationale will be that there will be new consumers coming out of poverty who are willing to spend on luxuries if the price is right. That rationale would be accurate for many industries but not for all, so I'll need to check the website for any additional explanations that might exist and see how they add up.

now about the prebate, i'm not sure how you can call it income redistribution thats practiced by our current tax policy and socialism?

What I'm basically saying is that the money they are getting, while it is their own, still has to be replaced.

Under the present system, a person gets services paid for at least in part with other people's money if he makes a low income. For instance his contribution to social security might be less than he will eventually draw from it, meaning that a guy making the kind of money that you and I make are giving some of our payroll taxes to him in the form of Social Security.

Under the prebate system as I understand it, there will still be people who get things they can't make an equal contribution to. For example, if a person earns 12,000 dollars a year, he presently pays about 1,422 dollars in taxes. Under the prebate system with fairtax he'd pay less than a thousand, assuming he qualified for a full prebate. So he's not getting our payroll taxes anymore, but now he's paying for a smaller share of things like schools and freeways and police. Since fairtax is to be revenue neutral, we know that the shortfall there must be made up for elsewhere. It will be made up, presumably, by those who can afford to consume more- guys like you and me.

Any way we slice it, the rather beguilling fact is that as long as there are people who cannot afford to pay an equal share of taxes for the things that we share as a society, somebody else is going to end up buying things for him.

we are not taking away from ones earnings and giving to another or taking care of another, we are giving back to one what originally belonged to them.

We are giving them back what belonged to them, that's true, but we are still giving him education, roads, etc, that he isn't paying for, and somebody must be paying for it. So instead of redistributing income by handing him a check, we're handing him goods and services.

If the cashier at the store gives me 20 dollars change for a 20 dollar bill by mistake, along with my groceries, he is giving me back my own money, true, but since I'm also getting goods, the store is incurring a negative balance that it will have to make up for somehow.


Anyhow, I'm glad we're getting our meanings through to one another now. I'll probably be on slightly less as a new semester is beginning tomorrow, but I'll be around so by all means keep going and I'll answer at some point. I do think that it might be a good idea if we just copied and pasted these quotes over to your fairtax thread so that people can continue with Hillary if they like. We can copy the quote boxes over to that thread and just carry on... it should be in both of our subscribed threads list already so no danger of not seeing eachother's responses.

Vagabond

For the sake of brevity.. Ape is right. And it is true if you read the thread entitled 'fairtax', a lot of your questions have already been answered. (I suggest everyone who wants to learn about the fairtax visit the thread here in the polotics section. By keeping it contained there, it will make it easier to answer your questions.)

Here is one part of what I already wrote in the fairtax thread. This pertains to the prices and the prebate.

Will the fairtax make prices higher then they are now? No. Why? Because the costs of complying with our current tax system adds 20 to 30 percent to the costs of goods and services that we purchase now. The average is 22 percent. When the FairTax passes, these hidden costs will go away. Competition will force prices down. When the FairTax, (which is 23%) is added on, total prices will be about the same as they are now. But workers will be taking home their gross pay and receive a monthly rebate. The rebate is intended to pay for the FairTax on purchases up to the poverty level. In other words the poor will pay ZERO federal taxes except for excise taxes. If they buy used items they will pay no FairTax on those items they purchase.

And instead of looking at these ideas in a stereotypical view (through either "lliberal" or "conservative") perhaps it's better to evaluate them on their own merits?

Lets continue this in the fairtax thread. All aboard?


[edit on 073131p://2801pm by semperfoo]

[edit on 073131p://3101pm by semperfoo]

I agree semper we need to take this into the fair tax thread, considering we both have already shown evidence in this thread on how hillary is against the fair tax there is nothing more worth saying about her, she is worthless.

My initial reaction is that when you have more money going after the same amount of goods, prices generally inflate

it's actually the exact opposite, when people have more money what do you think they will buy? walmarts tv's or circuit city's tv's if walmarts prices are 50 to 100 dollars cheaper and they can save some cash? natural market forces will always benefit the consumer.

anyone who purchases new goods and services in this country will be contributing to society and education and freeways and the list goes on, people who decide to consume more than others will be contributing more, is this not fair? is this not progressive for society? is this not the epitomy of the individuals impact on society? I think hillary needs to think whats best for the individual first rather than society, as the individual is what builds the society and enables it to prosper.

Under the prebate system as I understand it, there will still be people who get things they can't make an equal contribution to.

you have to understand that the fairtax lifts the individual, the more opportunity that is available to the individual to make more money and invest the more that person(s) is better able to make purchases and contribute to society. things will not stay stagnant, and you will see more and more people rise out of the poverty level.

there is no system that will make everyone pay the exact same amount in regards to education funding etc, it's impossible. however I do feel that when you have a system where everyone contributes to the development of society without punishing that individual that you cant ask for anymore than that, especially when you have more opportunity for the individual to make alot of money, afford medical and have a better life and consume more hence contributing more.

Under the prebate system as I understand it, there will still be people who get things they can't make an equal contribution to. For example, if a person earns 12,000 dollars a year, he presently pays about 1,422 dollars in taxes. Under the prebate system with fairtax he'd pay less than a thousand, assuming he qualified for a full prebate. So he's not getting our payroll taxes anymore, but now he's paying for a smaller share of things like schools and freeways and police. Since fairtax is to be revenue neutral, we know that the shortfall there must be made up for elsewhere. It will be made up, presumably, by those who can afford to consume more- guys like you and me.

that's class warfare, if i contribute money to order a pizza am I not entitled to a slice or two? I think you understand my logic, nobody can make equal contributions like that, it doesnt mean it's regressive and they dont deserve it. however I encourage any system that enables one especially the poor to be better able to contribute to society and pay for their medical etc, the more money one makes the more they are going to treat themselves also, this is how the majority operate in this country. I know I have my house decked out with all sorts of crap I dont need.






[edit on 29-1-2007 by ape]

[edit on 29-1-2007 by ape]

[edit on 30-1-2007 by ape]

posted by ape
prebate is up to the poverty level, everyone above that line just gets the yearly rebate

I would like to correct myself, the monthly prebate is up to poverty level spending ( necessitites ), anything above that line is taxed with no prebate. it's also monthly for everyone. people will consume in this country, how they consume is up to them. keep in mind they will have stronger purchasing power.

here are the charts

www.fairtax.org...

[edit on 1-2-2007 by ape]

Originally posted by ape
I agree semper we need to take this into the fair tax thread, considering we both have already shown evidence in this thread on how hillary is against the fair tax there is nothing more worth saying about her, she is worthless.

What candidate supports your platform?

duncan hunter I believe, I cant find info on giuliani but he stated on national TV he is for states rights and a smaller federal government.

[edit on 11-2-2007 by ape]

[edit on 11-2-2007 by ape]

Kucinich is the real Demacratic Choice kucinich.us

posted by ape
there is no system that will make everyone pay the exact same amount in regards to education funding etc

I would like to correct myself, everyone does infact pay the same amount with the 23% sales taxes across the boards, the only difference is people will be consuming in different amounts.. this is the epitomy of fairness... sorry for that typo.

Originally posted by KLSyesca
Kucinich is the real Demacratic Choice kucinich.us

kucinich? hahaha, this man kucinich is a fascist, he wants to opress freedom of speech and silence conservative talk radio and of course leave untouched the major liberal news and print media. what a clown kucinich is, he is indeed a good 'demacratic' choice because only a demacrat would vote for him.


[edit on 26-2-2007 by ape]

As a European I and most of Europe would like to see a democrat win, we don't really care who it is, so Hilary will do.
On a more selfish note, we don't much care either way. The US lost most of it's momentum as a political and economic power during Clinton, it's been slowing down since and the fact that you exist in a two party system where neither side plans to do anything particularly radical about it means the slow deteriation of the US is pretty much inevitable.

As far as Europe is concerned, due to our closer ties with the east and the perception of the rest of the world that we are ostensibly neutral / anti the US, Hilary or a republican, it doesn't really matter.

It sounds harsh but as a home owner the only way the US election affects me and most of the rest of Europe is in our wallets.

Poor over taxed Yanks ( and btw you pay less than we do ) means my pounds go alot further these days. I look forward to the next 8 years regardless of whose messing around in the white house.

I feel ya spuggy, so don't take this seriously, but do remember you said that next time the Germans wake up on the wrong side of the bed. (Not that Germany is honestly a problem anymore. If I had to guess I'd say they'll be some of the better friends to have in this world in the event of either of the two most likely wars that Europe might see in the next 100 years).

As far as Hillary, the sometimes topic of this thread, is concerned, I'd say she or any democrat could hardly be worse for the dollar than the Republican party is. Now if only we had a party of fiscal responsibility in this country. (and ape, before you say it, I know. I respect the idea, but to tell me again would just be shouting at the wind, no offense.)

With any luck at all, the Democrats will take the white house in 08 and then lose then lose the senate in '10, giving us a government that's too deadlocked to actively screw us.

The Tribulation force is ready for the up coming Apocalypse, when Satan accends to the thrown.