Misleading political ads make us want to scream
It’s silly season. The weather has cooled, the windows are open. It seemed prudent to inform my neighbor that angry words emanating from my window are directed at the computer or TV. “Liar! Do you think we’re stupid? Deceitful cur!” and sometimes something a bit stronger.
What provokes these outbursts? Political ads are the initiators. Elizabeth Dole’s ads in particular are negative and outrageously misleading. It appears that when incumbents have little to point to in the way of accomplishments, they resort to attacks that remove the focus from real issues. This results in an electorate that’s lost faith in the process.
To Dole, and all candidates, I would say, forget your opponent. What do you think? What will you do? If you convince us that you are the best choice, do what you say you will do. For Dole, that ship has already sailed. She has supported the failed Bush agenda, not the people who sent her to Washington.
I will support Kay Hagan. I am convinced that she has the best interests of North Carolinians at heart as well as the skill and experience to accomplish her goals on our behalf.
Diane Ilardi
High Point
Comments (7)
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You may want to check Hagan voting record and her tax and spend record. NC is facing a near 2 billion dollar budget short fall. Yet she has voted for ever PORK PROJECT that came along. She is called a team player. Basnight says crap, Hagan say how high. You can tell she sucks the NR endorse her. Diane talk about misleading? Killian a NR record writer, posted a cartoon implying that Palin does porno movies. Sad part is, liberals believe it.
Good part is the NR should fire him today. If they have any intrigued.
Posted on October 6, 2008 6:12 AM
Dog,
Bless your heart. You really don't understand it all, now do you.
You, a person who has yet to grasp command of the english language, will vote against your own self interest.... Why?
Because you think banning abortion will create new jobs?
Because you think, as Foxnews tells you, Barack Obama wants to take your guns?
Because you think Obama's wife is "uppity"? My guess is that all of the above play into your shallow measuring cup. Your posts are getting more caustic by the day---just waiting for you to go on a Michael Richards' rant, dropping the "N-bomb" as you do with your friends. (Confession will be good for your soul)
Posted on October 6, 2008 7:10 AM
Great article, for those who read and think:
Health Care Destruction
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 5, 2008
Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.
You see, when Reagan said this he wasn’t warning about Soviet aggression. He was warning against legislation that would guarantee health care for older Americans — the program now known as Medicare.
Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.
So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.
Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules. In particular, the same plan has to be available to all employees, regardless of the size of their paycheck or the state of their health.
This system does a fairly effective job of protecting those it reaches, but it leaves many Americans out in the cold. Workers whose employers don’t offer coverage are forced to seek individual health insurance, often in vain. For one thing, insurance companies offering “nongroup” coverage generally refuse to cover anyone with a pre-existing medical condition. And individual insurance is very expensive, because insurers spend large sums weeding out “high-risk” applicants — that is, anyone who seems likely to actually need the insurance.
So what should be done? Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.
Mr. McCain, on the other hand, wants to blow up the current system, by eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance. And he doesn’t offer a workable alternative.
Without the tax break, many employers would drop their current health plans. Several recent nonpartisan studies estimate that under the McCain plan around 20 million Americans currently covered by their employers would lose their health insurance.
As compensation, the McCain plan would give people a tax credit — $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family — that could be used to buy health insurance in the individual market. At the same time, Mr. McCain would deregulate insurance, leaving insurance companies free to deny coverage to those with health problems — and his proposal for a “high-risk pool” for hard cases would provide little help.
So what would happen?
The good news, such as it is, is that more people would buy individual insurance. Indeed, the total number of uninsured Americans might decline marginally under the McCain plan — although many more Americans would be without insurance than under the Obama plan.
But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, it’s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000).
Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.
And in the process of comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted, the McCain plan would also lead to a huge, expensive increase in bureaucracy: insurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.
In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”
I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.
*******************
Posted on October 6, 2008 7:25 AM
"Your posts are getting more caustic by the day."
Posted on October 6, 2008 8:39 AM
“Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules.”
Unspoken so far is that health insurance was added by employers after WWII .. when they were trying to attract workers and the payroll taxes were so progressive that it was significantly less expensive to provide health insurance – using the tax break – than it was to give the worker a pay-roll increase – subject to income tax - to purchase his own insurance.
Posted on October 6, 2008 7:26 PM
"to accomplish her goals "
Yep, that says it right. That's why she wants to be elected, to accomplish HER goals.
Posted on October 7, 2008 11:06 AM
`
McCain is in the unenviable position that George McGovern found himself in 1972.
The radical right is burying McCain and the radical left was responsible for McGovern's loss.
Tips for McCain to be more likeable:
Leave "Barbie" at home.
She stole drugs from a charity to feed her own addiction--and everyone knows it. She may be your money teat, but she looks like a new skin on a snare drum!
Get some Crest Whitestrips.
Puhleeze! Your teeth are YELLOW!
Have that Charisma Transplant.
You act like the old guy running kids off, saying "Get out of my yard"!
Dump Palin for Romney.
It was cute until the general population caught on that she's an empty vessel. Think how Romney would have given you some 'street cred' if you'd been "Mavericky" enough to do it!
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Posted on October 7, 2008 3:09 PM