$901B Deficit...where do you cut?

[MagicHero3]

This is completely false. If the police is able to focus on actual crime (as opposed to people using drugs), actual crime will go down. Cops are forced to meet drug ticket quotas, which obviously is a terrible policy.

Legalization will have a greatly positive effect on crime stats.

I think drug-related crimes will continue to happen if you legalize them completely. This is what I mean... think about if drugs are legalized, there will be a complete gold rush type of run to the streets for these drugs. Gangs and drug dealers wont have to hide in the dark when distributing these drugs, the amount of competition for territory will increase. Itll be a free for all. And when you have highly addictive drugs like crack or heroine, you need ppl to have incentives to stay away from them. Are we to regulate the sale of these items? Thats just crazy. These drugs can and do ruin peoples families every day. Teenagers, who's wills are half the strength of an adult, will be very easily baited to try these drugs and in turn become addicted much easier. Especially with the types of drugs and their potency these days. its not the 60s or 70s anymore, these chemicals are ridiculously scary now. We should legalize the less harmful drugs, i.e. marijuana. We should definitley get rid of the quota nonsense, hand out fines for the serious drug possesions, etc... but I think completely legalizing them would backfire. I understand its a large part of the budget that needs to be addressed, but cutting it completely is not wise.

[MagicHero3]

Easy answer. YOU DON'T CUT ANYTHING!!!!! There is ZERO need to cut anything, and ABSOLUTELY ZERO need to cut social spending.

The problem with the budget long term isn't a spending problem at all, it's a healthcare problem.

What you do is change our current private health care system to one like every other industrialized country (which have longer life expectancies than we do) has. If the U.S. adopted a healthcare system like any other industrialized country with longer life expectancies (meaning Western and Northern Europe, Australia, or Japan), then we wouldn't have a deficit, we'd have a surplus.

The following is a calculator that can show you how much of a surplus we'd have if we adopted a healthcare system like any other industrialized country in the world:

http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.html

If you play with it, you'll see that in every scenario, we'd have a surplus if we adopted the healthcare of those other countries. This is plain arithmetic folks.

Our private healthcare system will eventually cause bad budget problems in the future, NOT our current government programs and NOT Social Security. If we fix our healthcare system, we face no problems with the budget for the long term.

I think using life expecancy as an reference isnt relevant here. Most of those countries have higher life expectancies bc of the culture, lifestyles and diets. America is the fattest, most unhealthy country in the world. Regardless of what our healthcare system is, nothing will change that.

[GGGGG-Men]

I'm just gonna keep spamming this video since I subscribe to nerdfighteria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ugDU2qNcyg

[dbroncos78087]

I think drug-related crimes will continue to happen if you legalize them completely. This is what I mean... think about if drugs are legalized, there will be a complete gold rush type of run to the streets for these drugs. Gangs and drug dealers wont have to hide in the dark when distributing these drugs, the amount of competition for territory will increase. Itll be a free for all. And when you have highly addictive drugs like crack or heroine, you need ppl to have incentives to stay away from them. Are we to regulate the sale of these items? Thats just crazy. These drugs can and do ruin peoples families every day. Teenagers, who's wills are half the strength of an adult, will be very easily baited to try these drugs and in turn become addicted much easier. Especially with the types of drugs and their potency these days. its not the 60s or 70s anymore, these chemicals are ridiculously scary now. We should legalize the less harmful drugs, i.e. marijuana. We should definitley get rid of the quota nonsense, hand out fines for the serious drug possesions, etc... but I think completely legalizing them would backfire. I understand its a large part of the budget that needs to be addressed, but cutting it completely is not wise.

I think the case study in alcohol should dispel any myths that this is true. When you stop allowing the law enforcement to take out all the competitors the cartels will lose the massive profit margin that prohibition provides and legitimate sellers can enter into the market place. Hell, look at medical marijuana for a direct example.

[MagicHero3]

I think the case study in alcohol should dispel any myths that this is true. When you stop allowing the law enforcement to take out all the competitors the cartels will lose the massive profit margin that prohibition provides and legitimate sellers can enter into the market place. Hell, look at medical marijuana for a direct example.

Yes but do you think its realistic that we would have a market for heroin and crack? would that not be a huge moral hazard? These drugs are very very highly addictive, 100x more addictive than alcohol.

[stephkyle7]

Ponzi scheme? You sound rediculous......

Social Security does not borrow money, but the government borrows money from it, 2.7 trillion. Because government has borrowed money from it is why it holds against our debt, because the government borrowed from it and it holds government backed securities. It doesnt count against our debt because it cant pay its bills, thats false. You say we need to make Social Security self sufficient (which it already is) but yet you argue that we need to end it? Doesnt make sense.....

On the Medicare part, thats why I said set up a Medicare for all program where people pay into Medicare out of their taxes just like Social Security. I said this in my other post in this thread. Yes, people would have a lighter check, but they would recieve full medical coverage. We would have far less uninsured ER visits, which means money is saved.

The States would not pay for Medicaid, the states dont even want to set up the health care exchanges that wouldnt even cost that much. The idea that the states should run Medicaid is dumb. But if we make a Medicare for all program where people pay into Medicare then Medicaid costs would go down as well.

Social Security and Medicare are not just things you get rid of as you are suggesting......

Tyler, your going to get a migraine debating with longhorn,Its best to interact with him on matters of opinion becauase there are no right or wrong answers, on stuff like this he just repeats whatever nonsense he gets from Rush, or hannity ,it never makes any sense,and its never based in reality,or facts.

[stephkyle7]

I think drug-related crimes will continue to happen if you legalize them completely. This is what I mean... think about if drugs are legalized, there will be a complete gold rush type of run to the streets for these drugs. Gangs and drug dealers wont have to hide in the dark when distributing these drugs, the amount of competition for territory will increase. Itll be a free for all. And when you have highly addictive drugs like crack or heroine, you need ppl to have incentives to stay away from them. Are we to regulate the sale of these items? Thats just crazy. These drugs can and do ruin peoples families every day. Teenagers, who's wills are half the strength of an adult, will be very easily baited to try these drugs and in turn become addicted much easier. Especially with the types of drugs and their potency these days. its not the 60s or 70s anymore, these chemicals are ridiculously scary now. We should legalize the less harmful drugs, i.e. marijuana. We should definitley get rid of the quota nonsense, hand out fines for the serious drug possesions, etc... but I think completely legalizing them would backfire. I understand its a large part of the budget that needs to be addressed, but cutting it completely is not wise.

Magic,while I appreciate your objection to substance abuse,you really should research your ideas.While they seem well thought out and resonable they have already been disproved, many countries have decriminalized heroin and crack and seen no increase in crime or addiction, further more, even with studies with rats they find that enviorment plays a significant role in increased drug seeking behaviour, rats that were given toys and companions tended to "put the pipe down" in favor of other activities.
Drug addiction is a disease of the mind that has very little to do with the drug itself, 80% of drug users are not categorized as problematic users.There is a whole litany of realities that your perspective doesnt support, the "war on Drugs" was a slogan without any real policy and the stereotyping and criminalization of drug crimes is one of the biggest failures in our countries history.

[MagicHero3]

Magic,while I appreciate your objection to substance abuse,you really should research your ideas.While they seem well thought out and resonable they have already been disproved, many countries have decriminalized heroin and crack and seen no increase in crime or addiction, further more, even with studies with rats they find that enviorment plays a significant role in increased drug seeking behaviour, rats that were given toys and companions tended to "put the pipe down" in favor of other activities.
Drug addiction is a disease of the mind that has very little to do with the drug itself, 80% of drug users are not categorized as problematic users.There is a whole litany of realities that your perspective doesnt support, the "war on Drugs" was a slogan without any real policy and the stereotyping and criminalization of drug crimes is one of the biggest failures in our countries history.

I dont think its fully accurate to compare the other countries' decriminalization of the drugs bc the culture in America is very very different. The other countries have access to fast food chains, but they arent the fattest country in the world. They have access to water and power, but they arent consuming the most fossill fuels out of any country in the world. America the Indulgent I would call it. Your citation of the "rats and their environment" supports this argument, seeing as its the environment (the US) that will decide whether the rats stick with the addictive drug or move on to other activities.
Your also comparing rats to human beings, where for biological purposes it would make sense but for behavioral purposes, especially addictions, its not that accurate.

please, enlighten me on the "litany of realities" my perspective doesnt support. the U.S. practically has the highest drug-related death rate in the world. You think that it wouldnt change if we legalized the harmful ones?

you say "80% of drug users are not problematic"...
do you think every single hardcore drug user just called your resource "hey, im a problematic user, can you add me to that study?". You cant know how serious or problematic every single user is or how many there are.

the "war on Drugs" was a slogan without any real policy and the stereotyping and criminalization of drug crimes is one of the biggest failures in our countries history

this I can generally agree with. Im just taking the stance that legalizing harmful, highly addictive drugs will not have a positive effect in any way.

[Labgrownmangoat]

I think using life expecancy as an reference isnt relevant here. Most of those countries have higher life expectancies bc of the culture, lifestyles and diets. America is the fattest, most unhealthy country in the world. Regardless of what our healthcare system is, nothing will change that.

Spending a tiny fraction of our healthcare resources could and would change our being the fattest and most unhealthy country in the world. Take a peek at smoking statistics if you'd like to see an example of an effective and lifesaving public health campaign. Take note, however, that it is extremely profitable for those running our current healthcare system, insurers mostly, for people to be unhealthy -- higher premiums cause higher profits, as long as you factor in the risks associated properly. Thus public health education campaigns and preventative care are very, very low on their To Do list. That is very unfortunate, and stands in stark contrast with pretty much every other first-world country. They honestly acknowledge that the health of their citizens is a shared responsibility, and making it as good as possible is a shared asset. We pretend it's an individual issue when it clearly isn't.

[MagicHero3]

Spending a tiny fraction of our healthcare resources could and would change our being the fattest and most unhealthy country in the world. Take a peek at smoking statistics if you'd like to see an example of an effective and lifesaving public health campaign. Take note, however, that it is extremely profitable for those running our current healthcare system, insurers mostly, for people to be unhealthy -- higher premiums cause higher profits, as long as you factor in the risks associated properly. Thus public health education campaigns and preventative care are very, very low on their To Do list. That is very unfortunate, and stands in stark contrast with pretty much every other first-world country. They honestly acknowledge that the health of their citizens is a shared responsibility, and making it as good as possible is a shared asset. We pretend it's an individual issue when it clearly isn't.

I completely disagree with the bolded. How long did it take til people started to actually change their lifestyle when it came to smoking? They figured out it was bad for you decades ago... and it took until now for the effect to actually START to take place.
The remaining part of your post actually supports the fact that it would take ALOT more than just "spending a tiny fraction of healthcare resources" to change the health of this country. We would need to have big corps and fast food restaurants alter their ingredients, jobs to encourage walking around and not sitting all day, Insurance companies will have to adjust their requirements for premiums, larger subsidies on healthy foods as opposed to corn and the other BS things the govt funds, etc... To change the lifestyle/food culture of this country would take years and cost plenty. Everyone in the U.S. thinks theres always a shortcut, a "quick fix", like "spending a tiny fraction of our healthcare resources", but the reality is that it would take immense time and resources to change something like that.

To the original point, the life expectancies of those countries isnt bc of their healthcare systems, its bc their diets. Saying that the healthcare system would make our country healthier is innaccurate as it would take ALOT more than that.