Okay, bailing out after this post because I seriously have better things to do today (like sending emails asking to meet with professors, writing papers, and finalizing travel plans for next weekend).
You know just glancing back, the argument was that we were beginning to rebound
And beginning to rebound implies that indicators are actually, y'know, positive - something that was not the case until at least the second quarter of 2009. You don't say your weight's rebounding if you're losing it at a slower rate, because you're still losing weight.
it is oddly coincidental that just after the JGTRRA, the economy began to rebound
It's almost like some kind of bubble was inflating, perhaps inside some residential buildings. What's another word for those, again?
I am merely taking Obama's claim at face value
Right, which is why you're attacking this claim (about private sector job creation) for
public-sector jobs being slashed to the bone at the state level over the last four years, in spite of the fact that he isn't at all responsible for them, and for the temporary
public-sector Census jobs included in 2010's numbers.
I believe the negotiations stalled when Obama asked for the new tax revenue
I'm referring to the first segment of the debt ceiling fiasco **** show, when Cantor and McConnell started butting into the process in the first place. There's a reason it took until mid to late July for anything to get moving, and it sure wasn't because Boehner or Obama wanted to keep things stalled.
Aww testy. Did I hurt your widdle feelings?
Being that this is the 'Debate Forum', I should be reasonably able to expect competent debate - that includes citation of
reliable sources. Congratulations: you did this in that post for the first time I can remember, though...
Anyway lets look at France for example as they are experiencing the largest tax increase right now
...you probably shouldn't have tried to equalize the effects of a 34% marginal tax increase (on a bracket already paying 41%) with a 4.6% marginal increase on a bracket paying just 35%.
Around 30% or around "who the hell knows" percent, depending on who you believe.
I notice that you still have not addressed the main point
I'll get to that in about... right now.
by switching to Medicare Part C, it will overall save money
Oh, really?
One good blog deserves another.
And another.
To counteract the selection effect on Medicare Advantage plans, a risk-adjustment process is used. The system has improved over time, but evidence suggests it still does not work very well. The models used to adjust payments can account for only about 10 percent of subsequent cost variation; even the most optimistic estimates suggest they could account for only 20 percent to 25 percent of the variation. This gap allows plans that can better predict beneficiary costs to game the system by selecting beneficiaries who are expected to cost much less than their risk-adjusted payments. (Plans do not always want the least-expensive beneficiaries, but rather those who are the least expensive compared with their risk-adjusted payment. The implication is the same, though: Plans can beat the risk adjustment, and be overpaid.)
How big is this selection effect in Medicare Advantage? The evidence suggests it’s huge. The most careful analysis was reported in a
2011 National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Jason Brown of the Treasury Department, Mark Duggan of the University of Pennsylvania, Ilyana Kuziemko of Princeton and William Woolston of Stanford University.
In 2006, Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by more than $3,000 per beneficiary because they were able to select beneficiaries who cost less than their risk-adjusted payments. About $1,000 of that overpayment reflects what the plans were paid, rather than what they bid. So relative to their bids, the plans were overpaid by $2,000 per beneficiary -- or roughly 25 percent of the bid, on average.
Bear in mind that Part A also subsidizes tons of graduate education & costs of uninsured patients, in addition to not being able to select its membership (for example, I'll be automatically enrolled in Part A when my kidneys fail) - if anything, given its ability to self-select to minimize risk and cost to insurers, the MA cost advantage (if it exists) should be more significant than it is.
I would rather have Medicare cost more, than not to have it at all
I would rather give up a single-digit percentage of my AGI and have Medicare Part A with reforms that actually control the costs of health care than be forced to pay several thousand more per year out of pocket for Part C because someone who wasn't struggling economically didn't want a cent in extra taxes, but maybe that's just my big government socialism talking.
Speaking of which: the Medicare trust fund "running out" does not mean it won't exist at all, it means Part A will only be able to pay out 90% of current benefits with its revenue after 2026 assuming no further reforms are made (and assuming the underlying assumptions for the effects of current reforms are absolutely correct).
but if the Republicans were looking for pure compromise where they get everything, why did they choose Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats?
I agree, why'd they choose a group that barely used the filibuster while the GOP was in the majority (aside from the 108th, peace be upon them), capitulated on nearly every major bill aside from EGTRRA, and had a significant number of people ideologically in line with themselves? Truly, it boggles the mind.
I know this may be hard for you to understand, but there were the tax dollars they asked for and got
Irrelevant: you referred to the revenue collection in Boehner's offer as "new taxes", were told that even Boehner did not consider them "new", and promptly moved the goalpost to completely different taxes.
Getting butt hurt over a blog and not addressing the relevant information?
"Relevant information" that does not actually address how many taxpayers are in the top brackets, which is the point of contention here.
Problem is that not everyone follows that
Interesting to note that, given that the data used to produce that 3% figure explicitly looks at taxable income - and that
the data you cited in a previous post relies on a misleading definition of "business".
Reagan had a Tip O'Neil led Democratic majority in the House for most (all?) of his term. Bill Clinton had a Republican House and Senate for most of his administration starting in 1994. George W Bush had a 50-50 split early on in his administration in the Senate, and Dem majorities in both Houses starting in 2007.
What all three of those had in common, except for the final two years of W's administration: lower levels of Congressional polarization,
mostly on the GOP's side.
