It’s down to the wire.
The House of Representatives is voting on historic health care legislation within the next couple days (word is that it’ll happen on Saturday) and we need to lob in calls to make sure they know their constituents care about reform.
To connect with your member of Congress in support of reform just call 1-888-743-4385 and say ‘I support reform and I want you too as well.’
I know that it seems like health care reform has been going on for a while, but the end is near. We’re on step one of the homestretch – see our handy graph to the right. This is the furthest health care reform has ever gotten in Congress and we need to get this bill passed in the House and keep the march to reform moving.
The legislation does a number of really important things for young people:
- A public option that will compete against private insurance companies;
- Helps make health care affordable with subsidies for low-income people;
- Contains costs with caps on deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses and co-pays;
- Ends discriminatory and abusive practices by the insurance companies;
- Allows young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance policy until the age of 27.
Call your member of Congress today and urge the swift passage of the House bill: 1-888-743-4385.
~Mary
Tags: Congress, health care
Don’t forget the provision contained in the bill requiring all tax payers to pay a premium to the government to fund elective abortions. Line 17, page 110 under section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions. A monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan (line 16, page 96, section 213) under “Insurance Rating Rules.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.
Pete Wentz? Really? What is his position on malpractice reform? Health-savings accounts? How will this healthcare affect the deficit?
What a bunch of idiots, if you don’t know how a bill becomes a law, you’re much better off watching True Life reruns.
y’all trolls
i’m ticked off because they took OUT coverage for abortions
nobody should have to explain why they need an abortion when you need it you just need it people aren’t animals they don’t do it for fun
i thought y’all were like ‘get government out of my health care’ why are the republicans in here trying to tell people what’s right and what’s wrong
actually animals don’t do that for fun either now that i think about it
and it sucks that rich girls always get whatever care they need but poor girls don’t it’s unfair and it sucks
Piznim,
I am actually pro choice, if you would like to have an abortion I am not questioning your motives or reasoning. I am just not going to pay for it. It is about personal accountability, if you choose to have unprotected sex and get pregnant, you can choose to pay for your own abortion and not fleece responsible tax payers.
And you really shouldn’t play the rich/poor card as it debases your arguement. This has nothing to do with wealth.
absolutely does have to do with wealth
regular doctors don’t do abortions anymore and free clinics/charity care can’t do them if they want federal funds. in many states it is functionally illegal to do low-cost abortions for low income people (remember the abortion pill? cheap and effective, but almost impossible to get in the us)
so you have to go to planned parenthood god rest their souls, if you even know about it (because they don’t have the money to advertise)
but where’s planned parenthood
oh crap it’s a two hour drive and you’re seventeen and you’ve got no car
it’s not some kind of scam nobody is conning you this is not an expensive procedure these are kids with no resources and lots of complicated problems not people who wake up one day and think ‘man i’d love to force michael to fund my abortion’. not paying for it doesn’t make the problem go away
and you want them to have to legally prove that they’re incest or rape victims before you let their own insurance pay for an abortion are you even imagining what that day in court looks like how hard that is
invest in your society for chrissake. I don’t stop paying for roads when my car breaks down
The last time I checked a 6 pack of condoms was cheaper then an abortion. I am not going to subsidize anyone’s poor choices when prevention costs $4 and a 5 minute walk to the drug store (Or do they only sell condoms is rich white neighborhoods?)
Let’s say you do need to go to planned parenthood anyway though, I supposed to pay for your elective abortion instead of forcing you to take the bus to a place two hours away? Your sense of entitlement is astonishing.
Enabling and reinforcing bad behavior doesn’t make the problem go away either.
I also don’t consider tax payer dollars used to fund elective abortions as investing in my society. Do you have a prospectus for that investment? And roads are funded through the gasoline tax so if you don’t buy gas/drive you are not paying for the roads.
have you ever been to the freaking city
you can’t get a bus for a two hour distance and you can’t take the damn bus home after you have an abortion. i’d like to cut your nuts off, sew you up and see how you can do taking a cab to greyhound, greyhound to the long distance eight and then the crosstown 312 you ignorant jerkwad
nobody sneers at the rich girls and says you should have used a condom. they have money = they have rights.
it’s not ‘bad behavior’ its mistakes and everybody makes mistakes
these are young people we’re talking about not freaking hardened criminals
interstate and state highways are funded through the gasoline tax. city roads are funded through sales taxes and property taxes, so you’re pretty much 100% wrong about that
your problem is that you don’t give one about people who aren’t like you government helps you with your problems because you’re white middle class and whenever anyone else runs into trouble you think, well, why aren’t you more like me
also i’m not a woman and i can afford an abortion (i’m not rich but i’m not broke). this isn’t entitlement its humanism i’m not saying you’re legally bound to support this policy i’m saying youre morally and ethically required to do so
Where to start….
First, I live in the city, 75th and 2nd to be specific so your powers of perception, or rather presumption leave much to be desired.
Your idle threats to “cut my nuts off” are ridiculous and speak volumes about your ability to have a rational discussion. The only reason I am continuing to engage in this discourse, if you can call it that, would be to expose the flaws in your reasoning.
I am not sneering at poor girls. I am saying if you are too lazy/stupid to use a condom (for both pregnancy reasons and disease reasons) I am not funding the repercussions of your poor decision. These girls have rights as do I, they have a right to have unprotected sex, I have the right not to pick up the tab the next morning. Tax payer funded abortion is not an acceptable form of birth control.
I do agree that it is a mistake. I also make mistakes. I got a speeding ticket in North Carolina, that was a mistake. My insurance went up and I paid a fine. I don’t think tax payers should foot the bill for my mistake just as I will not foot the bill for their mistake since both mistakes were voluntary (I chose to speed).
I care for people but I also believe in personal accountability and not rewarding poor decision making. I am in no way morally or ethically bound to assist someone in terminating a pregnancy when there are alternatives such condoms, adoption & abstinence.
It is always easier to spend money you didn’t earn (One of the big problems with government spending). My question would be when does it stop? Should the tax payer pay for my speeding ticket? Should they pay for my dental bill if I forget to floss and have 4 cavities? Should they subsidize my car insurance making it more affordable if I get 4 DUI’s in the same year?
The bottom line is that these are all examples of personal decisions that would have adverse consequences for me. The tax payer is not expected or obligated to pay for, or assist me in paying for them.
While I deeply regret the anguish they have to go through in dealing with their choice, I am not paying the tab so that they do not have to be inconvenienced by arranging travel to the doctor.
This is not humanism, this is learning the difficult life lesson that your actions have consequences, and it is those consequences that are supposed to deter you from making poor choices. If you remove the consequences you are enabling that behavior.
my lord living in the upper east side of Manhattan does not mean you live ‘in the city’ you live in the most expensive neighborhood in the entire united states period you are the top 1% of income earners
you do not take the bus you do not worry if you have the money to get health care you are not under 30 you do not have the worries of the vast majority of Americans or of anybody else on RTV
you lead a life of privilege that depends on the labor of literally thousands of your fellow citizens don’t you pretend like you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps alone without any help
some of those citizens — people who work for you and enrich you, the reason you can drop 750Gs on a condo — have children and those children have unplanned pregnancies and they SUFFER. SUFFER while you look out over central park east with the Trump Tower glittering nearby
humanism is the humility to realize it’s not your place to teach ‘the difficult life lesson that your actions have consequences’ regular people know this better than you ever will you sanctimonious cream puff
you’re right that what you believe is not humanism it’s not humane and in a perfect world it wouldn’t even be human
wish I could forward this conversation to the baristas, waiters, waitresses, caterers and cooks that feed you
you’d have ingested about a half gallon of spit inside of a week
Apologies that I did not choose Harlem or the Bronx, I picked my apartment based on proximity to my job, I will look for a crappy place next time so I can keep it real. Just because my apartment is not poor enough for your liking does not mean it is not in the city. I am in the top 1% of income earners because I work 16 hour days and because I worked my ass off in school getting a legitimate degree so I could reap the benfits of my labor.
I do not take the bus, I ride the subway or walk to work depending on the weather. While you are correct in that I am not under 30, being 32 does not vastly change the point of view I had when I was 29. My life of “privledge” was brought about by hard work and dedication, not fleecing my fellow man because I didn’t want to do the work. And I hardly consider a 400 square foot, one bedroom on the 7th floor of a walk up living the life of privledge.
You are correct again in that it is not my place to teach life lessons, people have to learn them for themselves. If I fund the “solution” to their poor choices, thereby negating the consequences, I am not letting them learn it on their own and doing them a diservice.
I also really enjoy your ridiculous assumptions that just because I am not in the same position you are in that I somehow received all of the breaks that you didn’t get but are oddly entitled to receive.
The difference between you and I is that I believe the way to get ahead is through hard work and through the art of applying the back seat of one’s pants to the back seat of a chair where as I imagine you wait for it to be handed to you. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who gripe about their circumstances and those who do something to change them. I believe you will always be the former which would explain your vitriol and disdain for the latter.
you think i’ve never worked a sixteen hour day
you think there aren’t people who work twice as hard as you for a tiny fraction of the amount
then you’re blind. wanting equity and being lazy are different.
there are soldiers out there getting shot at 24/7 for a fraction — probably less than 10% — of what you make. that’s hard work, what you do is a luxury
do you think they lack gumption? lack get-up-and-go? If a homeless vet goes on welfare, does he need a kick in the seat of the pants? Will you do the kicking, eastside? tell ‘em they lack dedication? let ‘em sit on the street for their own good?
and your ‘back seat of one’s pants waiting’ bit is hilarious I work on my feet I hustle all day you’re the one who doubtlessly has an office job
the easiest way for you to wash your hands of the awful things our society does to people is to claim it’s their fault. a 400 sq ft apartment in your neighborhood costs $400,000, and you whine because it’s so small and you claim to have earned every bit of it did you pay your way through college did you do it all without help or did mommy and daddy chip in or maybe uncle sam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
Since you like to make assumptions I will as well and I would surmise that you probably have not worked a 16 hour day in a long time.
Of course there are people that work just as hard, all of my coworkers are here for the same amount of time as are my colleagues across the globe that I interact with on a daily basis.
As far as equality goes (I assume you meant that and not equity), you do have equality of opportunity. I see a large group of diverse people working with me on a regular basis. What equality of opportunity does not give you is equality of results. This is largely determined by skill and what you do or do not do with said opportunity.
I did enjoy how you switched the topic from personal accountability of girls getting pregnant to me accusing troops of being lazy. There will always be a career for you in literary fiction.
I do work an office job because that is where my skill set is the most lucrative. I could be a laborer like my father but I majored in mathematics and chose a route less traveled in order to make more money and to make better use of the gifts/talents that were bestowed upon me.
And yes, I did pay (Still paying actually) my own way through college what was not covered through scholarship. Believe it or not there are still people out there that do not believe in the government being there to “help” from cradle to grave.
Everything is there for the taking, you just have to go out and get it and stop waiting for someone to hand it to you. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. That is what makes capitalism and a meritocracy work.
You need to seriously brush the chip off your shoulder and lose the rich people have it so easy attitude. Statistically, the majority of rich people in this country are the first generation of wealth in their family (This means it wasn’t given to them and they went out and earned it).
No one owes you anything in this world, the sooner you realize that, the sooner you will get ahead.
Regarding your article on income inequality, efforts to depict all the prosperity and progress in the U.S. as being monopolized by “the rich” have led to statistical partisan poop (Trying to be polite on a public site), such as comparing the changing ratios between statistical categories over time and ignoring the fact that most people move from one category to another over the years.
Studies that actually follow individuals over time show the exact opposite. Most of the working people in the bottom fifth of the income distribution rise into the top half, and the rate of increase of their incomes is greater than that of most of the people initially in the top fifth.
Those individuals in the top 1 percent, as of a given time, actually have an absolute decline in income over time. As they drop out of the top 1 percent, they are replaced by others, so the statistical category can be doing great, while the flesh-and- blood people who pass in and out of that category are by no means gaining on those further down the income distribution.
None of this is rocket science. But most people still insist on using statistics based on the fate of abstract categories over time – households, families, income brackets – even when other statistics, based on following specific individuals over time, are available.
Households and families vary in size and are generally declining in size over time, but an individual always means one person. Income per household or family can be stagnant, or even declining, while income per person is rising.
That has, in fact, been a general pattern in recent decades, which may be why the nay-sayers are forever citing household and family income statistics, while ignoring statistics on income per person.
nope last week pulled a double and closed but you keep on thinking that poor = lazy
if you are still paying for your college education that means LOAN and a loan is HELP. you think you did it on your own, but you didn’t your society supports you do you support your society
you think that you work an office job because of your ’skillset’ but really what we need is high school math teachers. you work your job because it pays through the nose not for anyone else’s benefit
i understand your objections to the fact that the american rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, it must put a damper on your feelings of individual superiority and entitlement to the best of everything
i’ve seen the right-wing blogs do their best to cook the numbers, but I’d think that a gifted and hardworking mathematician like yourself would grace us with a little evidence to answer what he calls a “nay-saying” wikipedia entry
fact of the matter is that 15% of your fine country went hungry at some point last year
http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/15_hungry_in_america
fact of the matter is that there’s a girl out there in rural indiana pregnant from an abusive sexual relationship she’s never reported who wants and deserves an abortion but can’t get one
fact of the matter is that you probably walk by a homeless veteran who GOT SHOT AT FOR YOU every single day on your way to work “when the weather is nice”
fact is that people have bigger problems than the tininess of their 400 square foot apartments in the most exclusive neighborhood in America
and the fact is that in the middle of all this, you keep your mind on your money and you make mad dollars
keep telling yourself you’re a good man, keep priding yourself on your ability to say ‘poop’ instead of ’shit’ while you pull down paychecks big enough to feed a neighborhood
and please keep calling the rest of us lazy. your pompousness sends us to the voting booth
Again, you miss the forest for the trees. Poor does not equal lazy. A sense of entitlement and not doing anything about your situation because you feel you are owed something does.
As far as receiving help via loans, your misguided opinion lacks basic financial knowledge. A loan is not help, a loan is an investment. The government, or in my case private lenders, didn’t loan me money out of the goodness of their heart. They loaned me money to make a rate of return higher then keeping their money in the bank. This is the same way banks make money with their excess reserves. By your definition, every bond holder of General Electric, or any company for that matter, is solely lending a helping a hand and not making money but more giving back. If you want to believe this so you can have another talking point by all means do so as it is your choice but it is incorrect non the less.
My skill set is exactly why I work my job. I agree that we do need more/better teachers, especially in math and science which is why I also tutor children in basic math. But please don’t kid yourself, you work a double so you can make more money and that is the most direct route in which you can use your skill set to make additional revenue. It is not for anyone else’s benefit but your own or your landlord’s who, by you working a double, is assured to receive his rent check on time.
You missed the whole point of my previous postings. The rich are getting richer as a group but the dynamic of the group is changing. People are ascending and descending through the income brackets (Income mobility) and it is not the same 2000 people just rolling in cash. America rewards calculated risk taking, hard work and innovation. It is all there for the taking.
If you would like numbers supporting my claim I can provide them. Since are not really reading my posts I wasn’t going to waste the web space but if you like reading statistics from the CBO and census bureau I will oblige.
I am still trying to figure out where the homeless veteran diatribe comes in on our discussion about tax payer funded abortion. Did I miss something in the orignal article? You seem to be the only one bringing this up as if I called our troops lazy or made references to the homeless. I never take for granted what the military has done for both me or this country. God bless every service man and woman.
I am not calling the rest of you lazy. I am calling you bitter and misguided. As long as you go through life thinking that everyone owes you something vs. doing it on your own you will continue to encounter people like me. Some of the people I work with came to this country with nothing but the drive and determination to make it. They didn’t whine about how the government needs to help them. They have a sense of pride and self worth to ask what can I do to better myself and how do I move ahead? They make it happen and they, not entitlement seekers, make this country great.
Yeah go ahead and provide your statistics you lazy fuck. are you even trying to have an argument here or do you just think your punctuation’s going to carry you through?
‘god bless’ blah blah blah. you think people that are poor deserve to be so and your money should remain yours, because you are somehow superior or particularly hard working (sixteen hour days!). you refuse to share your incredible, unspendably large amounts of wealth (wait I take that back I’m sure you found a way to spend almost all of it and that you’re ‘just getting by’) while two hundred and sixty thousand veterans were on the street at some point last year
http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm
and for the record I am fine I make all the money I need I take no poverty-based government services. NONE. I pay taxes just like you I’m not in this for myself I am in this for the people in my neighborhood and in my country who work as hard as they can but still can’t get ahead because the upper classes are convinced that we have social mobility in America
http://inside.org.au/american-dreams/
the fact that you somehow think that you earned your college loan is perfect proof of your blindness who put up the collateral who signed the papers who was really responsible was it you
it wasn’t you
you are not John Galt you are a pencil pusher in the upper east side
you did not pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you say so you become a fraud
and now you’re defrauding the country of the money you’ve been given for a job that ten thousand people would kill for and would perform with distinction
check with your immigrant friends
how many of them came from exceptionally well-funded government schools in their home countries how many of them were educated and raised by a community of people that cared about each other and supported each other
Your assumptions are mind numbing. As is typical with someone who cannot have a rational debate, you rely on emotions and have to resort to insults as opposed to intellectual discourse. I hate to be the person to break this to you but unless you change the attitude you will never get anywhere and will continue working doubles “for the neighborhood”.
Again with the veterans, you have turned this conversation into your own personal ADD diatribe. You make presumptions about me and my motives as I imagine you do with anyone who doesn’t agree with your points or your ridiculous and sometimes laughable reasoning.
Keep thinking that no one earned anything and that everyone is in the position they are because of luck or having connections. We will see how far that gets you in life. I am betting that I already know. Keep it real dawg.
I think you’re threatened more by my evidence than my attitude
when I say momma and pawpaw put up some of their nicey nicey goods to guarantee your college loan, you say I’m ‘making assumptions’ but I’ve been there. no collateral no loan, unless it’s from the government (which is why I care about RTV and you find it unnecessary and odious). go ahead let’s hear you tell the truth I’ll believe you if you say you did it on your own all you have to do is say it
but if you’d like to fall silent that’s okay too. stay in your office. stop thinking. There are 3 million of you in this country and 150 million of me
I am not threatened by anything you have said, least of all your “evidence”, if you call links to wikepdia legitimate evidence. I am actually saddened by your attitude because you’re right, unfortunately for the US, there are more of you (see entittlement seekers) then there are of me.
Yes, my father was able to save so so much working as a day laborer… Again, I am continually astounded by not only your arrogance but your lack of common sense. I went to college on a scholarship and took out loans for the remaining amounts that I could not cover through my income. My parents were unable to lend a helping hand with my college tuition. So, private lenders, seeking to make a better return on their cash reserves, lend money to viable prospects with a high liklihood of being able to repay the loan. They, the private lenders, then package all of these loans and sell them as a pool (see securitization) and are paid back immediately. You might want to consider adding a finance or economic class to your workload if you still go to school. I think it will help your understanding of how this works immensely.
I could really care less at this point what you do and do not believe. You continue to think the world owes it to you while working doubles at the car wash for the neighborhood. I will continue to believe it is there for the taking for anyone who puts in the time, hard work and has the right attitude.
i am sure you will parlay that statement into me calling the troops lazy or spitting in a veteran’s face. Good luck in your future endeavors.
so wait let me just put you on the record
you are telling me that you got a college loan with no collateral whatsoever
poppa didn’t sign anything
this is your statement before god and your country, that you walked into a finaid office/bank and because they decided you were a ‘viable prospect’ because they liked the cut of your jib you got a loan for all your non-scholarship costs
that’s your thing that’s your story
what bank was it because damn i want to make some calls
also bonus points for explaining securitization to me as if it didn’t just bankrupt the housing industry. it’s a magical financial tool that eliminates risk! everybody’s using it! the banks get paid RIGHT AWAY!
but don’t stop (organ music) believing that everybody gets a fair shake and in the superiority of the rich over the poor man just keep seeing a country full of lazy good-for-nothings every time you leave the upper east side
and by no means should you even notice the many links i left you there is nobody behind the curtain you are not inventing a set of beliefs that are morally convenient for you and your excessively posh lifestyle
That is correct, my parents had zero collateral. Most of my college tuition was paid for via scholarship the rest was paid by loans. I imagine the lack of collateral needed was positively correlated with the small amount I borrowed. If you must know the loan originator, it was ACS and Discover as they had the lowest origination fees.
Also, my jib is quite impressive, that always helps.
Also, your assumption that securitization bankrupted the housing market is incorrect. It was a combination of a myriad of factors and cannot be attributed to any one thing.
No, not everyone gets a fair shake. Just by being born in this country your are already ahead of 90% of the rest of the world. People forget that which is where some of the entitlement comes from in my opinion. You cannot control the cards you are dealt but you can control how you play them. Some people will invariably have better cards then another. What are you doing with your cards?
If you choose to believe my life is posh due to my zip code, that is your choice, I just feel bad that someone can go through life with this many misconceptions about how other people live. I believe this initially was a debate about abortion no?
You may also want to look at either Prosper.com or lendingclub.com for personal loans. These are funds lent (unsecured loans) by individuals, not banks, to other individuals. Assuming you have a decent credit score, you should be able to obtain funding through those as well.
if your loan was so small and your scholarship so impressive, why are you still paying it off ten years later even though you make probably waaaay upwards of $60K/year? lazy? greedy?
and are you sure your parents didn’t cosign your loan? Are you sure the government didn’t step in and help fund your education? Discover requires a credit check, like every loan company I’ve ever seen, and ACS only services loans after federal loan maximums are met
there is more or less no way that an 18 year old without a full ride pays his own way through a 4-year BA after 1985. you get help from your parents or you get it from the government, either way somebody else helped you out
i basically think you like to make crap up to make yourself feel better and it’s the feeling better that you care about rather than the crap you make up
both the person-to-person loan services you point out give max 3 year loans now how is that a way to do anything but drop out of school junior year they basically admit that it’s a program designed for trucking school
and what kind of kid has a minimum credit score of 640 lendingclub.com requires 660
the vibe i get from you is that you drank the libertarian kool-aid and you think you’re some kind of lion of commerce, Ayn Rand style
but you’re not a lion you’re not better you’re not special you’re not even that smart you’re just another member of society you feed off your fellow citizens and you have responsibilities to them
responsibilities to the broke teenage girl who’s two months pregnant, responsibilities to the homeless, to veterans, to the elderly, to the education of the next generation
you keep talking about me as if i’m asking you for something specifically i don’t need anything from you i work my job i make my money i support my parents i pay my taxes
pawning your responsibility to your community off on the free market and then blaming the poor when they don’t all become rich is real cowardice
telling a fourteen-year old bleeding from the crotch to jump on the bus is ignorant and cowardly
do you get it
i’m not angry at you because i’m poor i’m not even that poor if i got a big fat windfall and went off to yale i would feel how i do now
i’m angry at you because you are a bad person
My loan was small in relation to the total tuition paid. I could have paid it off by now but I refinanced at a much lower rate as would prefer to save and invest the money at a higher rate of return then I am paying so it makes more fiscal sense to invest my additional funds vs. overpay on a low rate loan. That and the interest is tax deductible so yet another incentive not to over pay. I don’t make these rules I just know how to play by them. It is not lazy or greedy, it is just smarter.
And no, my parents did not cosign for the loan. I had a decent credit score going into college because I had a car payment and a credit card with a good payment history. I also started college later then usual, this helped as well. I used ACS for the refinance.
Where you and diverge is on the definition of “help”. I don’t “help” my employer by coming into to work everyday. I am here to make money and they are here to benefit from the skills I bring with me. When lenders lend money, they are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it because they have excess cash reserves to which their loans should return. They are doing it to make money and keeping their best interests in mind.
It matters not to me whether you think I am making the facts up surrounding my situation. Lying to an anonymous person online is like lying to a dead man so to speak.
I wasn’t saying use only those borrowing sites, the point you are missing is that there are funds available assuming you have good credit. Good credit being the operative word as most people will not lend money to people with poor credit scores and I don’t blame them. If you have bad credit, then I agree, you are shit out of luck sir and may want to consider community college as opposed to the more expensive institutions.
To your question of what kid has a credit score of 640 or higher, I would say one that has a loan history and pays his bills on time. You dont have a lot of time to build a credit history so it is of the utmost importance that you pay what bills you do have on time.
I am actually a registered independent but I do lean more towards the libertarian side, Kudos to you for picking up on that one.
I never said I was a lion or better then anyone else. You and I just dissagree on this particular topic, the role of government and standards of personal accountability (humanism to you). You know as much of my intelligence as I do of yours sir.
I do not feel I have the same responsibilty to the broke teenage girl who got pregnant on her own volition as you feel you do. I look at is a personal choice that has repercussions. Rape and incest are separate issues that complicate anyone taking a black or white position on this matter. I am referring the general trend of ending pregnancies because they are inconvenient. We should do more for our veterans and elderly, this we agree on. If you have ever been to a VA hospital you would understand why I don’t want a government take over of our healthcare system. We also agree that education is paramount to the success of this nation. But that is not what this debate was about, we can discuss that separately if you wish.
No one is blaming the poor, this wasn’t about wealth. This was about the tax payer being on the hook for elective procedures. The majority of which could be preventable if people took the proper precautions. Rape and incest are a different story but it is also very difficult to produce legitimate statistics on the number of occurences vs. the total number of abortions. I surmise it would be very low but that is my guess (It is a guess).
Anger also has nothing to do with it. Emotions rarily produce applicable arguements. I try my best to leave the emotion out of debates and use rationale. I am not angry at you, we dissagree, I leave it at that. You and I see the world differently, I just don’t resort to name calling and idle threats. Also, I take back my comments about you working at the car wash. I don’t know you, what you do or how hard you work. For those comments/implications, I apologize.
Hope you have a happy thanksgiving.
“Rape and incest are a different story but it is also very difficult to produce legitimate statistics on the number of occurences vs. the total number of abortions.”
excellent now you are making headway
so how is it that you decide that certain procedures are “elective” “preventable” and that people have failed to take “the proper precautions,” especially now that we’ve established that you do not know these people do not live near them or speak to them? do you get to decide because you are wealthy?
how is it that you could without knowing the specifics SURMISE that most of these people are willful mistake makers? and then use that assumption to prevent reproductive health from being part of US health insurance coverage for the poor? is your supposition worth more because you have wealth?
is it some experience of the hard facts that motivates you to hold this position? or is it your own self-image that really motivates you? perhaps that’s where you should be thinking critically. for example, you had credit to get your college loan because you made your car payments on time. good Michael!
WHO COSIGNED YOUR FUCKING CAR LOAN, YOU HYPOCRITE?
at some point you are ignoring a level of factual suffering and honest-to-god evidence that the only recourse is anger. if nobody else has told you that you have the economic policy and social responsibility of a weasel, let me be the first
How did we establish that I do not live near them or speak to them? I also fail to see the validity of using my proximity to theirs as a way to somehow debunk my statements. Again with the wealth aspect. You don’t seem to get it that one has very little to do with the other. It is like debating a brick wall, you have your blinders on class warfare and cannot seem to separate the issues.
If you would like, we could come up with a mathematical formula to estimate the number of unwanted pregnancies from incest or rape. The problem with doing that is that there are both unreported cases of both and false accusations of both which would make it more difficult to find an accurate answer. I did google some rape statistics and found this:
About half of all rape victims are in the lowest third of income distribution; half are in the upper two-thirds.
About 81% of rape victims are white; 18% are black; 1% are of other races.
The adult pregnancy rate associated with rape is estimated to be 4.7%.
Let’s assume these statistics are fairly accurate. Based on these assumptions, 1/2 of the rape victims are wealthy, 80% are white and only 5% lead to a pregnancy. Still want to make this a wealth/class issue? Still want to subsidize abortions when most of the people getting them are upper class white women that were not raped? Kind of derails your argument.
http://www.paralumun.com/issuesrapestats.htm
I want reproductive health to be a part of any health plan. And if by calling it “reproductive health” you are attempting to whitewash what we are really talking about (Aborting a fetus/baby) you are missing your mark. Let’s call a spade a spade and leave it as abortion. Reproductive health would be more directed at protecting both the health of the mother and the child during the pregnancy.
And you are not addressing the main crux of my point (This does not surprise me). It is far cheaper to work towards prevention then it is to pay for abortion. I would hand out free condoms all day long before I would subsidize an abortion. The waiting list to adopt a child in the United States is obscene. We have other more humane and effective ways to address this problem (unwanted teen pregnancy).
Also, you may want to update your definition of wealth. I am by no means wealthy in my early thirties. And even if I was wealthy, that does not take away from the validity of my arguments anymore then you being poor takes away from yours. If you feel you have some kind of moral authority to speak on the issue because of your socioeconomic status you would be incorrect.
It is life experience and education that lead me to form my opinion (you simply must try this at some point in time, I promise it will be worth the wait). Your life experiences are obviously different from mine leading you to have a different opinion, which is perfectly fine, neither gives any more credibility to either of our stances.
Yes, you finally got me. I am so ashamed. My father, the laborer, helped me to get a 1979 Volkswagen Scirocco for roughly 5k. Not all of us start out with zero help right from the womb as I am sure you no doubt did. I am sure you started working your doubles, for the neighborhood of course, at the age of 6 with zero help from anyone for your entire life. How silly of me. If you are going to hold my that against me so be it. I don’t need to apologize for my father helping me with my first car when I just turned 16 so I could drive to school and drive to work.
Anger is the only recourse when you no longer have the mental capability to debate topics in a sane manner. Not everyone has agreed with the way I see things either economically or socially, which is fine by me. Opinions are like a$$holes, everybody has one. You would certainly be the first who has been almost immediately reduced to name calling and ridiculous threats within the first 2 posts which speaks volumes to your abilities.
I do not have any anger towards you. I believe you are wrong, arrogant and naive but that is my right. I wish you no ill will and hope you have a happy thanksgiving. You have a lot to be thankful for just living in this great country.