Job and taxes and Medicare

People all over the place are going after Obama on the jobs front:

Dan Gerstein at Forbes.com

Bruce Bartlett

Michael Maiello at Forbes.com


Economix.com looks at how much taxes we pay and surprise! Rich people pay more than super rich people.

David Frum sums up how the Washington Republican's strategy of 'no no no' to Democrats is hurting the party. The article is good but the comments section of the article is even better. I disagree with most of the comments, but it just shows how broken Republicans are.

Since the Senate has a tentative deal on health care reform that kills the public option in favor of letting people age 55-64 buy into Medicare, there is debate as to whether this is good or bad. As noted above, Mr. Frum thinks this is a bad deal, since Medicare is unsustainable. Ezra Klein thinks the deal is a good thing. My take: I think the deal is a good thing, too. Letting folks buy into medicare will force more hospitals to take Medicare, which they don't like because they don't make as much money. But if you think that making lots of money in healthcare is a bad thing as I do, then this is good. I also think that taxes will increase sometime so that we can pay for our entitlements. This increase should make forming commissions to actually do cost reduction (which this is not) in Medicare more politically feasible as people will want to make sure their taxes are being spent wisely. These commissions should lower the costs of Medicare by cutting out the waste and going after all the fraud that is in Medicare. There is a lot of fat in our government that should be cut out. The neat thing about the Medicare buy in is that it could turn into a sneak single-payer ideal. The more people in Medicare, the more single payer will gain traction as a good idea. David Vitter is arguing for single payer right now on the floor of the Senate, using the facts that single payer will reduce costs.

Supply siders won't die! They are still peddling their 'what ifs' as economic facts. At least the people who left comments on this farce have common sense and call out the author for his delusion.