skullkrusher: Requiring all Americans to buy health insurance is far more authoritarian than asking someone to prove their legal residency to get federal benefits. However, for all your hand-wringing over alleged authoritarianism I don't think you're opposed to the insurance mandate. a gift to the Health Care industry.

FTFY

jaerik: Really? When I spent many years in Japan as a kid, and again in college as recently as 2000-2001, my government insurance premium was no higher than it was for all my Japanese friends.

There might have been some reform - my info is from a book more than a decade old.

PhilMP: Yup, just immigrants. Because people like my parents and millions of other hard-working people who left their homes and families to help build this country are a bunch of fraudsters.

Pfft, you guys are nothing next to the ones who killed all the Natives.

Phil Herup: rastjr: That's just a human construct.


True.

So are taxes.

You think those are great.


Liberals love to pick and choose their constructs as they are convenient.

When you go to a party, do you bring just what you are going to drink? Maybe a 6 pack. I always a bottle of something for the host and a case of 24 beer because there are always a few people who didn't have enough money to bring much or any booze. No matter what I drink, I always leave whatever is left over at the party.

Some Conservatives (some mind you) remind me of the people driving the new fully loaded SUV to the party who bring a 6 pack of beer and a bag of chips for the host. They will likely drink all 6 beers and snag a glass of wine from someone else.

Taxes are like that. I like paying my taxes in the same way I like bringing beer to a party. I asked my HR to take additional taxes off each pay. At the end of the year, I get a huge refund. I like the feeling that I am able to contribute more to my countrymen. It makes me feel good. If you make enough money that you have to pay more than other people in taxes, you should count yourself lucky and quit your belly-aching.

You will say the beer analogy is false because it is voluntary. I say when I organize a party, I'm going to make the people with deeper pockets shell out a little more for beer than the people will less cash. In the end, everyone is going to have a better time and more of us will get laid. I've officially taken the analogy too far.

The_Six_Fingered_Man: Every little bit helps. And I don't know where you are getting your information, but the last foreign aid appropriation to Mexico was in the neighborhood of $500M.

Oh, actually yeah you're right, I'm sorry. I guess my google-fu failed me earlier. Well, anyway, it seems as if the money we're sending down south is going for some good things anyway, no?

With U.S. government support, international family planning programs have been successful. In fiscal year 2008, USAID programmed $457 million for family planning activities. Since the 1960s, the percentage of women and couples using contraceptives in the developing world has risen from less than 10 percent to more than 50 percent. The average number of children born to women in these countries has fallen from six to three. Repealing the Mexico City Policy will help improve the lives of mothers and children through increased access to family planning services and supplies. Global estimates indicate that by helping women space births and avoid unintended pregnancies, family planning could prevent 25 percent of maternal and child deaths in the developing world.

Link (new window)

kukukupo: I know, this is a radical idea - but why don't they go with some sort of amendment that provides medical care to keep from dying (ie - only life threatening care) and then put them in jail and deport immediately if they are illegal aliens?

I can see how might just end up making more illegal immigrants die in their homes or on the streets instead of risking getting deported by going to get care.

Is it just me?