Help! I'll Be Debating the Tea Party Pt. II

[OneAngryDemocrat]

I'll be debating the leader of the local Tea Party at our public library in July. We have agreed to to answer up to 10 questions, each, into a hat, and pool them for the event. The topic is Paul Ryan's budget. Can you DU'ers think of some responses to the questions they want answered?

PS: That is DEBATING as in DEBATE, not DE-BAT. I don't think anyone can de-bat the Tea Party.

1. In whole what are each of your impressions of the Ryan plan?

2. an aspect of the Ryan plan includes increased domestic energy production and exploration to combat high energy prices, is that the way to go or should we be doing other things when it comes to national energy policy?

3. President Obama has called for increased taxes to help ease the Federal budget problems, the Ryan plan cuts spending, which one is the right thing to do?

4. With the national unemployment rate at 9% job creation is an imparative for the people, the Ryan plan indicates that by lowering taxes and other measures job creation will follow, why would these measures create or not create jobs?

5. The Medicare accutuary estimates the program will go bankrupt in 13 years as it is currently structured, the Ryan plan calls for changing Medicare into a voucher system, would such a reform be of benefit to the folks?

6. The Congressional Budget Office projects the 2011 budget deficit is going to be $1.65 trillion, The Ryan plan calls for reducing Federal spending by trillions of dollars over the coming years, is cutting trillions of dollars in spending the right way to go?

6a. Does Federal spending need to be reduced?

7. critics of the Ryan Medicare reforms call it the "end of" or "destruction" of Medicare, are those critics right?

8. Part of the Ryan plan calls for the repeal and defunding of President Obama's health care law and replaces it with "patient-centered" changes to the health care system, is this prudent/wise?

9. How do you create a job?

10. The national debt stands at $14.3 trillion, the Ryan plan in outlaying years pays off the debt, isn't that reason enough to support the Ryan plan?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

1. I have until...

I have until July 9th to prepare for the event, and these are the questions my Tea Party opposition wants answers to. We agreed on having one another's questions beforehand to prep.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Number 10:

No, that's not reason enough. The Ryan plan will cost individuals far more in social costs, paid by individuals.

Better to be proactive, better to maintain the social contracts made in the past, and then better to pay down the debt by returning to Nixon era tax rates.

yada yada...

[Angry Dragon]

3. #9

You create jobs by increasing demand for product
If no one has money to spend there is no demand
so it is hard to create any demand for more workers

[Angry Dragon]

4. #10

I have read on Du that the Ryan plan will actually increase the debt over the years
not sure where to find this information

[Angry Dragon]

5. #6 and #6a

Always good to reduce spending where one can.
Priorities need to be set
Do we really need to have corporate welfare such as for the oil industries where the profits are at all time highs??
Do we need to spend over half of our spending on war, terrorist detection??
Note: Within the Ryan plan he wants to keep welfare for corporations that will benefit him personally

[ChrisBorg]

6. Who is he running to for answers? Then we could see his input

and cater ours to counter it.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

15. Assume...

Cato and Mises.

[Mister Ed]

7. #2: "increased domestic energy production and exploration"?

Is Ryan's "increased domestic energy production and exploration" a euphemism for "tax breaks and federal subsidies to oil companies"? Perhaps DU'ers more familiar with the details of the Ryan proposal could weigh in.

Teabaggers seem to believe that oil drilled in the U.S. is oil reserved for the U.S. Nothing could be further from the truth. Oil drilled in the U.S. is sold on the global market to the highest bidder, just like oil drilled anywhere else.

[ejpoeta]

10. right. is this guy supporting nationalization of the oil reserves in this country?

because that would be against their beliefs and ideals wouldn't it?

[Mister Ed]

8. #4: "by lowering taxes and other measures job creation will follow"?

Simply ask him to show you the jobs created by the Bush tax cuts.

[Mister Ed]

9. #5: "changing Medicare into a voucher system" beneficial?

How can we possibly save money by inserting a profit-hungry middleman (the insurance companies) where there was no middleman before?

One big reason Medicare is going broke is that the Republican Medicare reforms pushed through in 2003 actually make it illegal for Medicare to use its huge volume purchasing as leverage to negotiate price breaks from drug companies. Wal-Mart is not legally barred from negotiating with its vendors on price - why the hell should Medicare be?

The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate with vendors, typically pays 30-40% of retail for medicine. Medicare, in contrast, is required by law to pay full retail. This 2003 Republican law was a staggering gift to Big Pharma at taxpayer expense. I personally believe that it was intended to drive Medicare to insolvency, in order to provide the excuse for this next round of corporate giveaways being proposed.

[ehrnst]

11. #8 - Patients aren't the doctors. Making patients make decisions about what health care

they get on financial grounds is not good health policy. That's why physicians go to school for years and years.

[ehrnst]

12. 6a - Yes, but you don't start by cutting the programs that are most needed during recession.

any more than you balance the family budget by eliminating by cutting back on your child's asthma while making payments on a sports care.

[CTyankee]

13. On #4, if Tea Partiers were logical, they would see that lowering taxes on the wealthy

has simply NOT created jobs. We've been down this road. It hasn't worked. In fact, we're worse off.

That said, I must sadly tell you that no matter what you say on this issue, some folks simply won't face the reality of what actually happened during W's presidency and how he took this country's biggest surplus and turned it into its biggest deficit and a big part of it was lowering taxes on the wealthy. The Tea Baggers will simply stick their fingers in their ears...

[xchrom]

14. Recommend

[OneAngryDemocrat]

16. Need more input...

One can never have too much information...

Only too little brain to assimilate it all.

[mwooldri]

17. My answers:

1) The Ryan Plan to me is misleading, and is not addressing the real problems with the US budget.

2) Increased GREEN energy production is the way to go. Fossil fuel exploration and extraction can be a short term gap and if done in an environmentally safe and sound way may be acceptable.

3) Both are correct. We have a revenue problem right now. When you have the likes of General Electric who are able to work it out so that they pay no federal tax, then obviously we have individuals and companies who are not paying their fair share. However when we have a Department of Defense that has a budget of about 4.2% of GDP a year, cuts can be made there to bring it into line with the rest of the world, where 2-3% of GDP on defense spending is more normal.

4) Lower taxes in themselves will not solve unemployment. There already is an extremely wide gap in earnings for the top 1% of the country vs the bottom 50%. Plus the top 1% find ways to lower their own tax bills anyway through creative accounting. Basically non-employment can be reduced by finding a demand for something, and supplying that demand - and to supply the demand typically needs people.

5) Medicare Board of Trustees says something different. They say *if* health care reform is enacted as written, Medicare would be funded for another 12 years beyond the 13 years that Medicare is supposed to "run out" of money. Plus Part A was always designed to "run out" of money but Congress somehow manages to keep funding Part A.

6) Some spending cuts are in order but the Ryan Plan cuts them in the wrong places, by reducing funds to those who need it the most.

6a) If Federal revenues are going to be more than spending, then spending does not need to be reduced. Again, it needs to be a two-pronged affair: we need to increase revenue and we need to cut spending in the areas that warrant cuts.

7) Short answer: yes. Medical costs are increasing faster than general inflation. Ryan's plan calls that the insurance subsidy for our senior citizens would get increased over time by however much general inflation is increasing. However since medical costs are rising faster than general inflation it doesn't take a genius to figure out that somewhere along the line that the poorest people will not be able to fill the hole created by inflated medical costs.

8) Being a proponent of universal health care and a single payer system, I think that Obama's plan and Ryan's plan are both flawed, though Obama's plan is more in the correct direction. However care needs to be a patient-doctor partnership.

9) Create a job? it's a supply and demand issue. There needs to be a demand for a good or service, and that supply has to be filled - and that almost always requires human labour to ensure this supply.

10) Obama's budget also works on paying off the national debt, although not as aggressively. Because the Ryan plan cuts in the wrong areas - i.e. defunding programs for people who need it the most - I cannot support it. Obama's plan is better but it is not all the way there. The problem as far as government is concerned is that we are spending too much and not getting enough revenue in. Part of the revenue and spending problem is non-employment of too many people. If we can get the jobs then the spending will go down and the revenue will go up. But then we need the jobs.