Obama and Clinton Big Government Economic Plans Need Debate

I graduated from high school in '68, so I remember gas lines, stagflation, and Viet Nam. Maybe you don't remember that way back then some of us said we'd have to quit consuming so much and spending so much. We weren't all Weathermen, we weren't all wrong. I am the recipient of government healthcare and it's better than what many people have through private insurers. I don't wait in line longer than I used to when I did have private insurance. Didn't some of the problems we have then stem from another war we were involved in? Wasn't the gas crunch back then enough to convince anybody to invest in alternative energy and mass transportation systems? I think you're not old enough to be writing an opinion on this subject!

Susan M Fowler of UT 12:45AM May 05, 2008

Conservative Snobs are the ones out of touch.

I decided to respond to your “liberal snobbery” article in U.S. news because of the petulant tone you presented in rehashing a stale 40 year old argument about so called “liberal elites”. Your article on the new political book “The Millennials ” is a perfect example of the condescending tone taken by Conservative elites that are still stuck in 1968 fighting phantom battles against the Weather Underground, the New Left, and bad old 60’s militants.

Your U.S. News blog article: “Uncle Sam Pays? Sure, Whatever” drips with arrogance. Young people today just don’t know how good they have got it do they. They don’t remember gas lines and have experienced inflation free economic growth 95% of the time. I was born in 1965, so I do remember the 1970’s. I suppose two oil embargos that both quadrupled the price of oil overnight in 1973 & 1979 & Nixon’s wage & price controls before the 1972 election had nothing to do with inflation and price shocks. It must have been that nasty old New Deal.

I guess the explosion in College tuition and student loan debt since the 90’s isn’t really inflation. Using the inflation calculator from http://inflationdata.com gives me an inflation multiplier of 110.66% since my freshman fall semester in 1983 at Texas A&M University. My dorm, meal plan and tuition/fees for 17 hrs as an Engineering student totaled $2422 in 2008 dollars. Today the same dorm, meal plan & 17 hours is $6404. That’s an increase above inflation of only 264%, but what do I know. It had nothing to do with Republican governor Rick Perry & the Republican legislature deregulating tuition and starving schools of funding and shifting the costs to student’s and their families, but hey, Governor Perry wears an American Flag lapel pin.

I graduated in 1988 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and zero debt. I did not like my first job so I went back to grad school and survived on a $1440/month research stipend in 2008 dollars for four semesters. Engineering, a regimen based on hard science isn’t nearly as challenging as being a right wing Fox News fantasy pundit that can spot liberal snobbery in Obama’s “Bitter” remarks however.

When I started work at a NASA contractor at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) after getting my M.S. in mechanical engineering in 1990, my company offered a defined benefit pension, fee for service health care with no employee payment required, a 3% of salary cash bonus paid to a 5 year vested savings plan & a 401K with a 4% match. Now 18 years later my salary has outstripped inflation. However, compared to the period of 1948 to 1973 where income of all Americans doubled (100%) in real terms, mine has only loped in at 50% or so despite high education, a good work ethic & no current outsourcing of the Space Program, but I’m not bitter. Did you know Fox News reported that Osama, oh, I mean Obama went to a Madrassa?

My benefits however have eroded. I now pay $50.00/month toward the premium on a “high deductible” heath care plan ($2500) and I have an HSA that pays 0.25% interest so I can make up the difference. The other kicker, our insurance company routinely rejects claims on a flimsy basis in the hopes that people will give up trying to obtain their benefit. My CEO told me that this increased my health care “choices”. I guess that’s true if the choice is Hobson’s. Under the old plan I could get an antibiotic prescription and a Physician Visit for a co-pay of $10.00. Now I can get the same for $350.00: same doctor, same clinic, increased choices in my health care plan. I am not bitter, however, just pissed-off. I have chosen to get sick less.

My defined benefit pension is gone along with the 5 year vested savings plan. We still have the 401K, but with only 3% matching, but the market has been wonderful lately due to the wonders of deregulation causing a credit crises, but hey we don’t need government regulation, just think of those gas lines. My coworker who postponed his retirement because of a 20% dip in his 401K over the last three months isn’t bitter either. He should have known better. Maybe he will get bailed out like Bear-Stearns.

I think young people are on to something with health care. Maybe a single payer system would work. We already have one for old people called Medicare. My 96 year old grandmother has spent the last 31 years of economic nirvana on Medicare that as you say is based on “Have Uncle Sam pay for healthcare? Hey, that's like, neat.” It is neat. She is healthy and spirited. Without Medicare medical bills would have bankrupted her years ago. She now would be living with one of her daughters in humiliation. Private insurance doesn’t offer a lot of affordable policies to senior citizens for some reason. Must be that market magic showing that old people get sick and are unprofitable. Of course this would never work for everyone else. Instead, we can all have high deductible plans with low wait times earned by kicking 45 million Americans out of line by lack of heath insurance. “Hey, that’s like, neat”.

But hey did you know that Obama’s Pastor is a black radical, but I suppose that Obama chose his Pastor. George W. Bush chose to speak at Bob Jones University where whites could not date blacks. John McCain chose not to support a MLK holiday in Arizona. Ronald Reagan chose to not support the Civil Rights acts of the 60’s, but hey the 60’s were a long time ago.

A long time ago in the 60’s is a problem that I think you share with many others on the Right. You are stuck in 1968. John McCain & Hillary Clinton are stuck in 1968 also. You are projecting your stale baby boomer battles on the problems and hopes of a 21st century world. Americans by huge margins are unhappy with the country’s direction. And since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 we have been living under a Conservative ascendancy. Cut taxes on rich people, deregulate, smash unions, outsource to China, but not Cuba (because Cuba is oppressive and China is not). That market will make China Democratic any day now, just ask those Tibet people.

Unfortunately for the Right, Movement Conservative ideology is in the same place as Liberalism was in 1980. The American People don’t like the economy, foreign policy & the country’s drift and the policies that have brought us to this point are Conservative. Hence it will not be long before you will be trying to explain how Obama got elected despite the fact that he was planting pipe bombs with the Weather Underground when he was 8 years old, or mimicking the black power salute from the 1968 Olympics in Church with Reverend Wright. You will wonder why Republican identification has collapsed among Americans under 30 or why the GOP is a regional party of the conservative white south.

I will give you a clue.

Thirty years of Republican economics has created a Global Gilded Age where fickle markets subject non-elite Americans to a drastic risk of income fluctuation while removing benefits like heath insurance, pensions & job security. I saw a tee-shirt recently that said; “Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway”. It struck me as funny initially until I thought of a rephrasing that captures Movement Conservative ideology perfectly; “Work Hard, Be Productive, Get Laid Off Anyway”. The broad based middle class country that you grew up in was not an accident. It was created by the New Deal. Movement Conservative ideology is incapable of such an achievement, instead it has created a plutocracy. The American People have figured this out and hence your party is doomed. Enjoy the political wilderness. "Its like neat".

Mark Dunn of TX 8:36AM April 23, 2008

The liberals have you believe that the government can do everything for you at no cost. Bull! If you had to wait in line at a private hospital or doctor's office, you would find a new one. If the government is in charge, you have no option, and the government has no incentive to improve service.

Liberals also want to implement Depression-causing trade policies that history has shown is a HUGE mistake. I thought they wanted us to have better world relations. How is that possible when you have telling Canada, Mexico, Columbia, and other free countries that the U.S. likes them as long as they don't do business with us?

The liberal news media is just like the Democrats. They play on people's emotions, rather than portraying the realities of these dangerous policies.

Kevin J of MN 12:37PM April 20, 2008

Big government won't help solve economic problems, and a larger healthcare system will probably make it worse. I am a young college student, and i try to stay aware, but unfortunately many other students I know would vote for how things sound, instead of how they really are. Healthcare for everyone sure does sound good--but whose paying for it? And why should Americans be forced to become so dependant on such a system, when many really aren't struggling that much. Of course many democrates would be horrified by such a statement, but believe it or not, Americans do NOT have it that hard. Our economy is a problem, but it's one I think we as a people are going to have to sacrifice--has horrid as the word is to most--in order to improve. As crazy as it sounds, Americans can live in smaller houses with less cars and less furniture. Taxes may be our option, but there's also nothing wrong with keeping doors open. And, there's definitely nothing wrong with choosing a candidate who will listen to other options besides their own......not that I know of any.

Katharine of KS 12:56PM April 15, 2008