bmdrocks21

"It'll be different this time".

Let us not waste money and lives on people who hate us.

We had a little bit of fighting. I'd rather take that as a sunk cost than spend more than 15 years over there like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Example of what? If we stay there, it will end up like the other little experiments we had in the Middle East. Libya is doing great with their slave trade. Good thing we got rid of Gaddafi, right?

And what good is there to staying in the Middle East? Outside of having a concrete deal saying the Turks won't kill the Kurds, I would have done nothing different. Trump should take most troops out of the Middle East. From what I have heard, he just moved them from northern Syria to Iraq and sent troops to Saudi Arabia.

I saw a great comment relating to the regime change wars that went something like this: War hawks are just like socialists, they all say 'it'll be different this time'.

Going to an event with people with an obvious stance on the issues would be problematic. They didn't set it up on a site for self-made millionaires. This would be more comparable to an opinion poll. Not necessarily accurate, but it brings up general trends. 

We agree that rich should pay more. You just believe in making it disproportionately more. I don't feel like we will get past that part. Just because someone is successful doesn't mean they got a bunch of help from the government. There are failing businesses with hundreds of publicly educated employees and millionaire proprietors with a few or no employees. You then, are taxing success, rather than actual use of the system.

I would like to know where you got the idea that the rich don't work hard just out of curiosity. I don't care if there are statistics.

Ok, but when the rich businesses use the roads, their vehicles use gas, right? Well, gas taxes go towards maintaining roads. So, therefore, they pay more as they use more. No need to tax them disproportionately more, as they pay proportionately as they use it. And the rich have better houses, so they pay proportionately more in land taxes. These land taxes pay for education. You say that the rich benefit from the education of others. But you must keep in mind the initiative and skill that takes, and by taxing them more, you are increasing their risk. By hiring these people, they are paying payroll taxes. They are once again, paying proportionally. The rich have already funded the education and healthcare, so they shouldn't pay again for hiring the beneficiaries.

And IKEA left because of high taxes in Sweden. I bet the Swedes aren't too happy about that. 

Ok, so teens should have a separate minimum wage. That is better. Are you for a national minimum wage? I like the current system. States and cities can pass laws if they want because they would be more accustomed to the local cost of living. They don't have to pass these laws if they don't want to. That is how it should be.

I don't find unions, at least the way they work now, to be conducive to job creation. The UAW strike was disgusting. People wonder why American cars are performing so poorly that GM needs bailouts. Teachers unions hold our children hostage whenever they want something and are completely against merit based pay. Tenure makes it nearly impossible to fire bad workers. 

Well, men and women are different. They go to the bathroom differently, and they are therefore best served using different facilities. I saw you mention segregation. That is bad when based on arbitrary differences such as race or when it is done to put a group at a disadvantage. Women and men are not in any way negatively affected by these different bathrooms. This is not an arbitrary difference: they have different genitals, which function differently when expelling waste.

I do see misconduct being a potential result of putting them in the same bathroom, especially at high school age.

For these reasons, I support different bathrooms for men and women.

I will look into the Republicans later. Haven't heard much about them yet.

For the Democrats, probably Tulsi.

She has really good foreign policy. I want our troops home.

She respects our 2nd Amendment. Not to the extent I do, but she is pretty good as far as Democrats go.

She likes Medicare Choice rather than just a government-run plan. I have much different plans on how I would do it, but no Dems are close to that. Of the choices, her plan would likely have the best outcomes because we desperately need reform.

She wants to stop criminalizing drug use while still punishing drug dealers. I could see myself supporting that. Although hopefully this won't empower gangs by creating more demand through legalization. I do see drug use as more of a health issue than a criminal one, and she agrees.

Because a bias does skew the statistics, I'm not denying that, but doesn't make them worthless. It was a fairly large sample size.

Perhaps we were having different conversations. I was talking about how millionaires work hard, and they don't just inherit their wealth. I never saw mention of Bernie and Warren taxes. 

You said  "If you worked hard your whole life, saved up, invested well and managed to have 1 million in assets, then you are wealthy." By saying this, you are acknowledging that hard work, saving, and investing allow you to become wealthy. I'm glad we can agree. Perhaps you thought by "rich" I meant billionaire, which I didn't.

Ok, well you are making some claim about them not working. Just because it does happen every once in a while doesn't make it the norm. So, without statistics, I don't see any value in making that claim. Where did you initially get the idea that the rich not working is the norm?

Here is the outline of a report on the "success sequence" https://www.aei.org/research-products/working-paper/millennials-and-the-success-sequence-how-do-education-work-and-marriage-affect-poverty-and-financial-success-among-millennials/     Here is the full report with sources. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IFS-MillennialSuccessSequence-Final.pdf

I would say that living is a bigger benefit than working the employee. I would say that being educated and therefore marketable to a lot of companies is more valuable than the company's benefit. It is nearly impossible to put a value on these secondary effects of welfare programs, and I have shown how the rich already pay for almost all of them before raising their income taxes. I don't appreciate you trying to use abstract concepts as the basis for an arbitrary increase in taxes on the successful people.

I've heard those Nordic countries you guys love so much tax the poor quite aggressively. Just because these "wealthy" people will still be able to eat when you take their hard-earned income doesn't mean you should. If you want less tax burden, lessen government spending.

This is not a horrifying answer. Some jobs aren't worth $15 an hour. If you make businesses pay $15 an hour, you will either get huge price increases or they will all go out of business. If you think restaurants are a bad business model and are fine with them all failing, that's on you. But restaurants are a great place for TEENS to work. Should there be no jobs for teens?

And you also didn't mention if this wage hike would bring jobs in or ship them out. I'd like your opinion.

If you are going to keep up with this ruckus, I shall cite another source. It is a book called "The Millionaire Next Door". He says 80% of millionaires didn't inherit their wealth. More than half never received inheritance. They used a formula based on age and pre-tax income. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/millionairenextdoor.htm 

The calculation works very well for middle-ages individuals and above. However, the young age bias is negligible because only 1% of millionaires are under 35 years old. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0411/why-many-millionaires-dont-feel-rich.aspx

Well, you made a generalization utterly unbased in facts, and when I called you out, you said you had no statistics. You're making some outlandish generalization about rich people not working. You have the burden of proof if you say that the poor work hard and that the rich don't work because that is contrary to all available evidence.

The Brookings Institute has decent credibility ratings. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/brookings-institute/ Can a group not do research itself?

Well, I pointed out a few good examples there. You mentioned how employees have helathcare provided by the government and government schooling. I proved that they already pay for both of those. Then you have roads, which they equally benefit from. SNAP, which rich don't benefit from. Most social programs, rich never get anything from, while the poor get all of the benefit. Then you want to tax the poor more???

Why does it matter how much they can afford? Why is that a good system to follow? Just because they can still eat when you take their money doesn't mean you should, or that they will continue to work their ass off when you take more of it.

So you want to get rid of restaurants is what I am hearing. If there was a cheaper way to do things, they would want to do that anyway. If you want to start a family, DON'T FLIP BURGERS! Do you expect any teenager to ever get a job at $15/hour without ANY experience??? You get paid based on the value of your labor, not how much you want to force the company to pay you. With $7.25 minimum wage, companies have been outsourcing jobs to China for cheaper labor. I ask you: will this further that or will making labor more expensive keep jobs here? Your solution is either pay everyone how much a "living wage" is, or export the entire job. I, for one, wouldn't like millions of Americans to get unemployed and live off of welfare because you refuse to let them find a job.

I don't think a viable way to run the economy is to f*ck over companies and tell them to adapt. That doesn't work. I have yet to see evidence of massive minimum wage hikes helping anyone. Please provide some if possible, because Seattle doesn't seem like its minimum wage has done very well for workers. 

I made a thread discussing union reform. You mind checking out my first post?

Taken directly from Wikipedia:

This is how you get expensive and underachieving schools.

I hate unions -_-

Well, I am a bit late to the party.

Are you still under the impression that different bathrooms are bad?

If so, what are your main arguments.

I am a peasant. I can only buy 22 yachts! ;(

I  gave the example of rent control. When you get rid of the incentive to maintain property and incentive of good profits, you get decrepit housing and housing shortages.

It sounds nice, giving cheap housing to poor people, but in practice it is rather terrible.

It is true that children have an influence on the political opinions of their children. I would say that has more to do with selectively mentioning the facts. Like if your parents watch Fox, the kids will hear their parents complain about some liberal policy.

I don't think that most people are as informed as the people on this site. People outside of debate sites are usually informed about 3 topics that matter most to them in my experience.

Centrism really isn't an ideology. It just consists of the super moderates like the liberal wing of Republicans and conservative Democrats.

I don't know too many right-wingers that base policy on religion. Perhaps some of their social views are influenced by religious ways of thinking?

I could make generalizations about how Democrats base their policies on feelings, rather than common sense. Then, when someone disagrees, they label people as "racist" "homophobe", etc. I don't see that furthering the conversation, though.

Probably because we try to adhere to the laws of economics. Price fixing, minimum wage laws, rent control, etc are very problematic.

They don't have no value, sir. I agree, take them with a grain of salt, but this survey was done by a third party company. Therefore, the survey wasn't connected with the main site, which could have influenced the results. They also asked basic questions about their investing, the leading question wasn't how much money did your parents give you. Finally, they didn't frame it in a condescending manner. It was asking if more than 10% of their wealth was from inheritance. So, obviously the results aren't worthless. Just give it a larger standard deviation.

I agree, some people get easy jobs because of connections. I'm saying it is rather rare, while you are making a generalization.

If you finish high school, work full-time, and wait until at least 21 to get married and have children, you are very unlikely to be poor. 2% of adults that followed that advice are in poverty. 75% of people that followed that are in the middle class. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

We will switch to Medicaid instead of Medicare because that is more applicable. Rich people pay a ton into Medicaid, but they don't get a dime out of it. They have to get private insurance. So, they are already paying for that Medicaid for their employees. Why should they pay more? Rich people have less kids, so their land taxes are already paying for the public schooling of local children a lot more than their own. Again, why should they have to pay EVEN more from their income, when they already do that in land taxes???

Well, under my flat tax system, some poor people would still be exempt if they couldn't afford it. That is fair that you pay an equal percentage of your sandwiches. You should be able to enjoy the fruits of your sandwich making labor as much as the less productive people. Also, the rich wouldn't get out of taxes, because as a general rule, I am against deductions. They should pay taxes.

No, that 50% owned by large firms is still divided up among thousands of "large companies". So, they have some power because they employ a lot of people. But they don't have some absolute, market-shifting power. What is your solution to companies having a lot of employees? Do you want to break them up and force them to lay off a bunch of workers?

Wal-Mart doesn't pay just above minimum wage. Its average wage is $12.17. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Wal-Mart_Stores%2C_Inc/Hourly_Rate

Also, restaurants can't afford to pay much above minimum wage. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell jobs, except for sometimes manager positions, are made for teenagers. That is why they can afford to have cheap food. They would need to significantly increase prices and/or cut hours/fire employees in order to adjust for $15/hour. 

There is competition for labor by companies and competition for jobs. When you let in a million new workers every year with our f'd up immigration system, there will be more competition for jobs, which means employers can pay employees less. Would you support smaller quotas on immigration? That could help with wage stagnation.

How do you restructure the economy to accommodate all of those trucking jobs lost? As far as I know, he hasn't revealed a plan on that.

Capitalism is about the free market forces dictating things. Minimum wage laws create inefficiencies. I don't think you have experience at restaurants. The fast food industry as a whole has a profit margin of 2.4%. https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/profit-margins/ How can they afford to double wages?

You stop and think. If a fry cook earns the company $10 of profit an hour. What will happen when the minimum wage goes up to $15? Should the company take a loss of $5 an hour to pay a "living wage" to their employees and go out of business?

By setting a floor, you are manipulating the wages. 

I would like job creation, especially jobs that pay a lot. Tell me, will raising taxes on successful businessmen and creating huge compliance costs through regulations lead to job creation or destruction?

Oh, you are just condensing them. I see.

Where would forums in the deleted categories go?

Yes, anything other than death threats or telling people to kill themselves should be allowed imo

"You do not make sense" kinda sticks out lol

Well, that survey was open to everyone. It wasn't concentrated and advertised to target people who made their own money.

Well, if you have no way of proving that rich people only get rich through connections, then I suggest that you stop pretending that it is a known fact.

If you invest in yourself and practice financial responsibility, I can't guarantee that you will become rich. I can guarantee that you can be decently successful. Living comfortably would be the result.

But I thought a progressive tax was about how much you benefit from the system. And what about medicare and social security? Rich people pay more money into those, but for medicare they get the same benefit. From social security, they lose money, while the poor gain. How is that fair? Should that be a regressive tax to make it fair?

I don't see why it matters what percent they spend on what. They could be spending wastefully for all I know. Just because they are bad at making a budget doesn't excuse them from paying taxes. They are benefiting from roads after all, aren't they? ;)

Your comment was "business is run by a small number of extremely rich people". I showed how about half the time, that isn't the case. Additionally, that fifty percent accounts for millions of workers, which are hired by firms that have 500 or more employees. There are thousands of those. There is no huge concentration of power that you pretended there was. My point stands.

Those are mostly democrat controlled areas with high costs of living. Those high taxes and regulations on housing manufacture these homeless crises. California subsidizing homelessness doesn't help, either. And minimum wages aren't even meant to be lived on. Minimum wage jobs are for teenagers to get some real job experience. Your comment was "It doesn't matter how many jobs are available, if they all pay minimum wage you are still going to be barely above the poverty line." I showed how almost every single wage job in the country is above minimum wage. Don't shift the goalpost.

Son of a b*tch. "If it isn't valuable enough to pay a living wage, try to find another way to do things"? Two horrendous things about that argument: (1) liberals flip shit when any job gets automated. That is Yang's entire shtick. (2) you will get every restaurant either shut down or have them excessively increase prices. Increasing the minimum wage to whatever you define as a "living wage" helps no one. Except for maybe the rich, skilled, and connected you have been complaining about??? Jobs pay little when the skill required to do it is little. Fry cooks don't make the company enough money to earn a living wage. How about, if you want to have enough money, you do something valuable instead of a job that anyone over the age of 12 could do?

Any job that doesn't pay enough to live on (frugally) is meant for teenagers. And if we don't have enough jobs in the US, what is your bright idea on bringing them back? Taxing the shit out of people for succeeding? I highly doubt it.

Sorry for the moodiness, but c'mon. You can't just manipulate wages and expect there to be no decrease in hours worked or jobs available.

My point was that some people are just lazy and take advantage of it.

I completely agree that socialistic politicians have policies with very perverse incentives. Subsidizing fatherless homes would be one. If the father dies, fine, give them some assistance. But if you were never married or perhaps even got a divorce, why should we pay you?

Yeah, there are definitely welfare queens out there, but I find it unfair to characterize all or most poor people/jobless people like that. 

No, not everyone would get paid minimum wage. 2.3% of all wage earners get minimum wage or below minimum wage rates. That means 97.7% of all wage earners are making ABOVE the federally mandate wage. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

You are not supposed to raise a family at minimum wage. You have people who work at McDonald's for 15 years and complain about not making a living wage. Is it my fault that they refuse to make the effort to apply for other jobs or apply for manager positions? No.

You're not too wrong. But this is all of the data we have on the matter. If the result was 88%, I doubt that the actual population parameter would be anything radically different.

Rich people mostly defend themselves with security systems. Police patrols are mostly in poor areas because they are crime-ridden areas. But yes, we can move on.

I have heard enough. I am going to have to ask for statistics proving your claims of rich people getting easy jobs that pay a ton of money. Prove they don't work for their money. I know it happens sometimes, but you are making some crazy generalizations here.

You don't have to start out rich, you just have to make good life decisions. If you wait to have kids until you're married, finish high school, and work full time, your chances of being impoverished go down astronomically. Then, you just have to save and invest that money instead of buying new cares, the newest iPhone, the newest Jordans, etc.

I see no reason that you wouldn't support a flat tax. If they make more money, they pay more into the system. By taxing at a higher rate, you are saying they have less right to that money, although it is equally valuable to the economy.

Ok, you are wrong. Business isn't run by a few individuals. 47.5% of private sector jobs are employed by small businesses. Most of those companies have fewer than 100 employees. https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/2018-Small-Business-Profiles-US.pdf

Yeah, from what I have seen, most people don't want to be welfare queens. They want to work, and for that, they need opportunity. Opportunity won't come by crowding out small businesses with high taxes and expensive regulation compliance costs.

Most people choose policy positions that are based on evidence. Are you saying that I will pick a policy position that Republicans propose just because the party I like said to support it? I don't think most Democrats nor Republicans do that. We both have evidence for our ideas, sir.

That comment was incredibly self-gratifying.

Well, what Bsh1 did can be a whole different discussion.

Again, as far as I am aware, the CoC doesn't offer rules about this thread locking. I also was not aware that mods were given this "discretion". 

If individuals are breaking rules, they are to be held accountable, not the thread(since it wasn't a callout thread).

"A moderator (mod) is a person granted authority by the site owner(s) to enforce the rules of the site, primarily, the voting policy and the code of conduct policy."

As far as I am aware, there is no rule regarding locking a thread because of personal attacks among members. 

Lol, was typing that. I will look around real quick. I was citing memory.

If there were indeed personal attacks and threats, the makers of the threats and personal attacks are to be held responsible. This, as far as I can tell, wasn't a callout thread, so I am not aware of any CoC rules that would require it to be locked.

I concur. This is an absurd abuse of power. 

This is what the online study was: "The study was focused onunderstanding affluent investors’ attitudes, goals, behaviors and preferences related to investing, wealth management, and advice." It was asking a variety of questions over twenty minutes from a third-party firm. I don't know why a millionaire that inherited money is less likely to agree to an interview than someone who wasn't. It you have statistics proving this 88% number wrong, I encourage you to post them.

The poor would benefit more for a huge variety of reasons for police patrols. It prevents crime. It also costs more. So, for that added benefit, they should have to pay more for police because they benefit more.

Who you know can have some bearing on getting a job. But you also have to be qualified. A company won't take some idiot just because he has a hard-working parent. I would like to see statistics claiming otherwise. Poor people can have connections, too.

They also work a shit-ton harder than me. I don't have the know-how to invest like them. So, because I don't have that kind of mentality and work that hard, I'm not gonna complain that they have a lot more than me.

That is why I said the nominal tax rate was 90%, not the effective. So, the fact that someone would call for that 90% tax wasn't a strawman. We live in the real world and assume that deductions will make the effective rate smaller. 69% is still absurdly high. If I invest and make a dollar, why should the government get over 2/3 of that profit? Just having more income doesn't make that investment any less valuable for the economy, so why should it be less valuable to the investor?

You see, this is why I am against lobbying and large campaign donations. I don't want the poor to be powerless and the rich to be powerful. I want equality of opportunity, so then the rich cannot manipulate the game and make it unequal. At that point, hard workers will succeed. I don't care to subsidize drug addicts' lifestyles nor those of people who work at McDonald's and have eight kids.

88% of millionaires are self-made. So yes, when I talk about the rich working harder, that is because most of them do. What I mean by effort is being smart and willing to put in 80 hours of work. Being able to make a business plan, hire workers, and fight to make a profit is a lot more admirable than working 9-5 on week days.

Ok, and when the police patrol poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods more often, the poor should pay more of that tax, right? They are certainly benefiting more. The problem with your assumption is that this cannot be quantified. 

Our economy is generated as a meritocracy. If you don't finish high school, I don't care how much lumber you cut. Sure it might be stressful on your body. But any able-bodied person can do that. Accountants make significantly more because it is more specialized and a lot of people can't do that. Not everyone has the know-how to start a business and be innovative. Again, 88% of millionaires are self-made. So, it is more or less a strawman to define the rich as kids who inherited wealth.

I don't care about the effective tax rate. They pay hundreds of thousands more in taxes. 

Sure, 90% could be considered a strawman. But under FDR, the nominal tax rate was 94% https://flaglerlive.com/26685/gc-fdr-and-taxes/

So, it isn't that far-fetched, and it was meant as hyperbole to prove a point. I wouldn't put $10 million dollars of work in if I only got a small percentage of it.

The other mentality is get the government out of our lives and let us succeed or fail based on merit.

So, your point is that they are benefiting more from public funds. That is a very broad statement. First off, these rich people are putting in a lot more effort than the average person. Second, you have no guarantee that their workers received public education, and more likely they didn't because our public school system is pitiful compared to private schools.

So, I support a flat tax. I say that, no matter how successful a person is, they have an equal right to their income. If they put in more work, they get to keep as much of it as anyone else. If they make more(and according to you, they receive more benefit), they pay more. But to at some point say that the government has the right to take 50% of every dollar you make just because you're an entrepreneur that works 80 hours a week, while someone who works a part time job and refuses to finish high school lives tax free, that is quite ridiculous.

Rich is a completely relative term. If you take 90% of their income, they may be slightly more "rich" than other people. But at that point, you have to wonder if it is worth it to take years off of your life working 80 hours a week to just be moderately wealthy. 

It isn't even that the poor person would starve to death. It is the mentality. That you think it is okay to take more from people just because they are successful. 

Taxation is by definition theft. Let us say you are in a room with five people. You have $100. They vote to rob you of your money. They give you a gum wrapper for your "benefit". That is what the government does. Just because people vote to steal your money doesn't make it okay to steal from them. There is no guarantee that this money will work in your benefit, either. If it is an investment for you, say making a road that you need to get to work, sure.

Their income tax rate is higher. The capital gains tax is low, which makes it "lower". But as I said in a previous thread, these are after tax dollars. Even if they pay a lower tax rate, the 1% pay I believe 36% of total taxes, while the bottom 50% pay almost nothing. I would say the poor people are getting the good end of this deal with free food, housing, healthcare, education, etc without paying a dime.

Yes, I agree that billionaires shouldn't have some inordinate amount of power over our politicians. I think that grass roots funding of campaigns are the way to go. I don't think unions or businesses should be able to donate like they do. Now, people who are rich also have a lot of power outside of contributions. They have the ability to take away tons of jobs. So, punishing them isn't the way to go. Give them a good environment to do business. That means no excessive taxes and regulations.

They are attacked because (1) they have a lot of money, so they can fund things. (2) because people are spiteful and jealous of the rich. If you took 90% of a rich person's income vs a poor person's, your reaction would be very different. Yet the amount you stole from the rich was significantly larger.

And I am against lobbying. Some of your dem candidates are as well, but they still propose higher taxes on them.

Yes, I see no good in attacking people just because they are wealthier than me. They are a popular target because they are a minority that many people aren't sympathetic towards.

We will see how well politicians attacking them works when they stop investing in venture capital and other investments because success is punished.

Eh. We Americans are shite at saving. That is partially a result of social security. It reduced retirement saving.

Although, I'm 19 and have a Roth IRA already. If 48% of American don't have any stocks at all, I would be super disappointed.

Ok, your comment said you blocked me and nihilist. 

We can respectfully disagree :)

You have me blocked?

Can I be a baron?

And how would said subsidized program operate?

Lifting teams? What in the world.....

Well, I believe in using the proceeds from the junk food tax to subsidize healthy food options. It is a pretty good way to fight obesity. 

Supposedly, in Britain, a 10% discount in healthy foods like vegetables would decrease the rate of overweight people from 57% to 13%.

It is a much more effective policy than the tax on junk food, but that still works decently. So, when making junk food more expensive and healthy food cheaper, you can deter consumption of fatty foods quite well.

It would cost just under $1 billion Pounds for them, but it would save $7 billion in the long run for their health care system.

Yeah, but it would be more expensive to treat people with awful health conditions caused by substance abuse. It is a tradeoff and an incentive not to do drugs.

Well, our intake of fast food, soda, sugar, etc is quite large here. Making these products more expensive through taxes would prevent people from using them and getting fat. That would lower costs quite a bit. 

I believe in taking these measures mainly because of how taxes work. I hate paying taxes. So, if I have to pay for another person's healthcare, there is no way I will accept having to pay higher taxes because they do drugs and eat artery-clogging junk.

I could see myself supporting single payer under a bunch of conditions. (It would not be my first choice, but, like you said, anything would be an improvement at this point).

They will do random drug tests and if you are found to be using any illegal substance, you lose all privileges. (potentially for life) Some liberals support decriminalizing drugs, which I could be okay with if they don't get "free" health insurance. Those drugs cause a plethora of health issues, which I shouldn't have to pay for.

Massive junk food taxes. Obesity is a huge reason for increased costs. That is part of the reason that we have huge costs currently- we eat like crap.

Essentially tax or remove coverage for any excessively unhealthy items.

Anyway, ideally I would support nationwide insurance competition to break up the oligopolies state insurance companies currently have. Less regulation. Some states force insurance companies to cover things, such as hearing aids. That drives up costs for everyone, and it includes something many people may never need. Private companies have more incentives and more accountability to drive down costs and cover new desirable treatments. 

Of course they get breadlines. Then they know who to vote for if they want to keep living....

"It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing!...."

-Bernie Sanders

Yeah, it really disgusts me that fools like Bernie Sanders are trying to push for a $15 minimum wage just because it is popular. They get some pseudo-moral argument out of it to get elected. He doesn't even believe it. He wasn't paying his staff that wage, and when he did, he cut their hours!

I worked at a restaurant. I'd say about 90% of people working there didn't do $15/hour worth of work. I can't imagine how the next generation would get jobs after their "free" college when they have zero applicable work experience....

Well, this is a bit of a shocker. Good luck in whatever you choose to do, my good sir.