Redistribute To The Little Guy But Not The Tiny One
What’s been happening regarding Obamacare is simple to understand. The Democrats got confused by the fact that Joe Sixpack voted for them and that Joe Sixpack was obviously opposed to Wall Street fat cat types.
To Joe, rich people are OK if they benefit him as well. But the minute that is not clear he is fine with the idea of penalizing them, especially if he thinks he may gain from those penalties. Conservatives try to explain to him that such penalties will hurt him as well in the long run but he is not convinced. So he votes Democratic.
But he didn’t do it for idealogic reasons. He did it for self interest reasons. Thus if you try to extrapolate the ideology to penalizing, if only slightly, the middle class who have no prexisting conditions, in order to help the poor or those with such conditions, Joe won’t go along.
Essentially those poor people are in the same category, to him, as the fat cats. People he doesn’t know personally who may be costing him money.
The above idea may have escaped the Obamaites but its actually simple once you accept a fact of life. Almost everyone is just out for themselves.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Alternatively, you could read “The Myth of the Rational Voter” by Bryan Caplan. In it, Caplan clearly demonstrates that people vote altruistically, and that is in fact the problem, not the other way around.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Well I actually agree with this. But I’ll take a step further, Obamacare is an entitlement aimed at benefiting the poor much more than the middle class. That square’s the anger factor.
February 12th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Would a public option be beneficial to the middle class?
February 17th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I agree with this, except for the fact that you are basing the backlash against HCR on pre-existing condition ban. That’s the single most popular aspect of HCR on both the left and right.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
The stock market rebounded and generated these large bonuses because of the government bailout of Wall Street after the derivatives market caused the financial meltdown. They got these bailouts because of insiders like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner among others who were part of the team that fought tooth and nail to prevent regulation of that market. They protected the obscene profits these financial institutions earned prior to the collapse and pushed to bail them out so they could continue to earn obscene money. The Free Market advocates said that the market would self regulate and it did when the meltdown occurred. Then they took care of their own with the bailout and millions of ordinary Americans are paying the price and will do so for years to come. Of course, Obama has these men in key economic positions in government today while simultaneously paying lip service to the effect that he is going to take steps to avoid another similar crisis. I find it hard to believe that anything will actually occur to substantively change the policies that these men help put in place. I hope their new Lamborghini’s, second and third homes and lavish vacations help to console their conscience as they drive by the millions of foreclosed homes, bread lines and homeless. The next crisis is just around the corner and another bailout may not be there to save them and us.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Wasn’t that money suppose to “recapitalize” the bank…good job bernanke? Funny how 70% went in bankers pockets. How about pass a law stripping them of all their bonuses for 3 years!