I just found out that the income from my rental properties will now have a Medicare payroll tax put on it. Great... Anyone who calls being a landlord "unearned income" has never owned a rental property.
Is that a trick question? When did the GOP start standing for limited government? Yes... remember when the healthcare bill passed the senate? It had 60 votes. If and when we get around to nationalizing our healthcare system, maybe that would make sense. Polls say 50% of the public are happy the bill passed. Strange definition of "deeply unpopular". barfo
They rediscovered what their constituency wanted. It's not too late to come back home. The Senate version had 60 votes. The ability to vote on the changes the House would like made have not. Where was the conference to reconcile the House and Senate bills? I think somebody needs to go back and watch the Schoolhouse Rock video "I'm Just A Bill". It's de-facto nationalization. If you don't realize that, then you should look at the constraints of the bill. Aw, I think someone read a headline and not the substance of the ONE poll. Note how Gallup overweighted Democrats and underweighted independents and republicans. The result is a 2 point swing in the positive direction for each of the columns "enthusiastic" and "pleased" and a 2 point swing in each of the columns "disappointed" and "angry". That changes it to 46% who are "enthusiastic" or "pleased". Again, the question was not that it's law, but it passed. I'm sure plenty of people were tired of the debate and "pleased" the non-stop debate was behind them. Here are some other polls you may find interesting: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001117-503544.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html Ouch. You'll note that Gallup was only second to Public Policy Polling--which is a Democratic polling firm--in terms of favorability for health care. You can craft these polls to massage the results of these polls. It's deeply unpopular.
so now that we're essentially a european country, will all you fucking blowhards not call me a communist traitor when I move to europe? thanks.
I would never call you a traitor for moving to Europe. Besides, I think you're more of a Social Democrat than a communist.
honestly, i hardly know what these labels mean. growing up in the 1990's, "democrat" to me meant bill clinton. coming of age during Bush's eight years, "democrat" meant anything not Bush. now, "democrat" only appears to be a title someone gives themselves because republicans are assholes. what makes someone a "social democrat?" that sounds like the most limp wristed namby pamby liberal you can get
The second link is all to old polls - polls taken before the bill was law. The first link shows a 42/46 approve/disapprove ratio. Hardly "deeply unpopular". barfo
Obama's victory was considered a "landslide" and a "mandate". Opposition to the healthcare legislation polled today at 55% against, which is a wider margin than Sen. Obama's presidential victory. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...arch_2010/55_favor_repeal_of_health_care_bill It's deeply unpopular.
So you agree that Obama's victory was a landslide and a mandate? Or are you just using that definition because it suits your purpose here? barfo
That's what his side claimed. Shouldn't they also acknowledge that this legislation is less popular than McCain/Palin in November, 2008 and behave accordingly?
And the other side claimed it wasn't that big a disparity. Shouldn't they also acknowledge that the disparity between approve/disapprove on this law isn't that big and behave accordingly? And the answer, for both sides, is of course not. That's not how politics works. I'm not endorsing it, but obviously neither side is benefited from deviating from spin. It's a variation on the prisoner's dilemma. If both sides were willing to dispense with spin, that would be ideal for everyone...but since each side knows that the other is going to spin, they'd be suicidal not to do the same.
John McCain has commented on more than one occasion that he was beaten and beaten soundly. He didn't look at the numbers, say "I won!" and showed up on January 20th to be inaugurated. If he were sworn in with 46% of the vote, should the majority who voted for Obama just accept it?
I'm not saying (and I don't think barfo is saying) that the new law is popular. Just that "deeply unpopular" is very much an opinion, as much so as Obama having won a landslide election and won a mandate. It appears to me that the law is currently slightly unpopular, but close enough to 50/50 that I'd characterize it as "the American people are split on the issue and lean slightly against it." And, for the record, I don't think Obama won a mandate.
Semantics. When you have 62% of the American people who want the Republicans to continue to work to repeal it and the percentage of people AFTER it passed even more against it, when you had almost 80% of people who wanted the Congress to start over or drop it altogether, you have a bill where opinion isn't just split, it's not only a deep unpopularity but wide as well.
Yes, that was my point. You're engaging in semantic fights. The fact that you think the same about me doesn't really contradict my point. Averaging the four organizations that conducted polls after the health care bill passed (Gallup, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac and CBS), it comes out to 43% for and 46% against. Split, lean against.
When one uses words, semantics are at play. You can't average dissimilar items. You can't take two oranges, three trucks and a condom and arrive at an average. As I mentioned before, Democrats were overweighted by two percentage points while Republicans and independents were underweighted by two percentage points in the Gallup poll. The questions among all four are also different. Gallup asked how you felt about the health care legislation being passed, not about the healthcare itself. Many were "pleased" because it was over. The Rasmussen poll asked people about what they thought about the health care legislation directly. Yes or no. The Quinnipiac poll asked again what voters thought about health care reform, and end up with a nine percentage point deficit. Now that's an improvement from before, but still not close to evenly split. The CBS poll asked if people wanted the GOP to continue to fight for repeal, and 62% said they did. It would be nice to average them, but not all polls are created equal or ask the same things.
I don't really see how it being unpopular among 45, 50, or 55% of Americans really matters at this point. Even most conservatives acknowledge that history shows these kind of programs inevitably grow in popularity, both in the US and abroad. A couple of years from now when people are really used to not being dropped by insurers/insuring their kids to the age of 26/all the subsidies, there's a pretty good chance it'll be "deeply popular." Will fiscal conservatives suddenly think it's a swell idea because it's a popular idea? I doubt it. Nor should they. The real (and pretty valid) complaint among fiscal conservatives is the other stuff. It's unaffordable, it's anti-capitalist, etc etc. Whether it polls well right now is kind of besides the point. (Except, of course, in the coming fall elections.) Maybe the polls would matter if, say, 60-70% of voters hated it. Beyond the spin, that's what "deeply unpopular" really means. At that point there'd be a pretty good chance Democrats would repeal it to try to save their asses. But nobody foresees that happening any time soon.
