"$75 billion a year to cut the estate tax is fine, but a similar amount for American families with no health coverage is not."

Cue the Talking Heads: "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. . ."

The sad truth is that some of us feel a responsibility for the welfare of others and some of us quite simply do not. To the second group even the idea of health care reform makes no sense at all. On the other hand, if any sort of tax cut is helpful to those in that second group, well, then it is a GOOD thing and they will fight for it.

As you said, Steve, it's all a question of priorities.

When are you all going to get it? The most serious crime in today's America, in a sense, the only one, is BEING POOR. And it must be and will be punished.

All else flow s from this.

This is what's truely tragic, that media doesn't hold Republicans accountable for not having NO vision for America's future. They should demand that the Republicans produce, in writing,
1. A healthcare plan
2. A climate plan
3. A deficit reduce plan
4. A job creation plan
5. A Bank/investor regulation plan
6. A Education plan
7. A military plan

These should be minimum requirements before a comparision can be made of what is being offered.
Without them it is an one sided accusation, not a debate. A time clock should be set at every media outlet, until the republicans have meet the minimum requirements, until then they shouldn't be allowed to come empty handed to the table, stop allowing this manipulation. This currently is not serving Americans well, it only causes people that trust media to be manipulated also. If republicans are not willing to do this, it shows that they are not qualified to speak on any issue!!!!!!

Lawmakers are willing to commit vast sums of taxpayer dollars all the time, just so long as they personally approve of the investment.

I have to take issue with the phrase "personally approve of" because I do not believe that most lawmakers have personal policy preferences. Instead, they take instructions from the people who gave them the money to get elected and who will give them more money to get re-elected. And who will not give it to any potential opponents.

So long as our lawmakers must garner millions in corporate contributions in order to be lawmakers, they will always always always always do the bidding of the corporate contributors.

And, too, so long as the American people are content to sit on their asses, learn nothing about how their government works, and believe whatever the corporate press/media tells them to believe, then we will continue with our faux-democracy.

The right kind of health care reform, would charge people a percentage of income just like medicare does: earn 10x the money, pay 10x more. (I think there shouldn't even be a cap.) No prob paying for the program, and still affordable to all but the most destitute. I'm even OK with adjusting down, say the general top rate, for comp.

Whenever someone says that we can't afford health care reform we should ask them what makes them so greedy and selfish.

What I can't figure out is this. Each year the US pays close to $7,000 per American, almost double other nations, yet 10% or 15% of Americans aren't even covered and our health outcomes (longevity, infant mortality, etc.) are worse than other nations

So, if we are paying twice what other nations pay, it seems as though we have plenty of money to spend on health care, compared to other countries. We just aren't doing a very good job managing our wealth.

No one DC reporter or pundit ever asked the "moderates" senators this question on why tax cuts for the few wealthy are okay but health care for everybody is not. My guess is the MSM types are among the few wealthy who benefit from these tax cuts.
So the only ones who can ask the "moderates" senators this question are either their colleagues in the Senate, the Senate presiding officer, or the POTOU. Will they???

Every Democrat who supports the estate tax cut but balks at health care investment should explain the disconnect. I'm guessing they can't.

I'm guessing that they don't give a damn. Nobody is going to question the value of giving money to rich people. (Nobody who's anybody, that is.)

Do you ever feel like you are writing the same post over and over again? Republicans are lying assholes. Democrats are cringers. They all work for the same people. (Hint: not us.)

It's useful to maintain an ongoing historical record of the details of various elaborations of those points but it's never really news.

There is something fundamentally different about legislators wanting to take $85B less of our money, and wanting to spend $30B more of our money. Likening the two is a fallacy.

Also, the federal government is not, and shouldn't be, a national mandatory charity. If you are concerned for the welfare of others, donate to a charity of your choosing, or start one that fills a need that you think needs filling. Don't force others to pay for what you think is important.

Don't force others to pay for what you think is important.

This is too stupid to be believed. Do you think a military is important? Do you think federal laws enforcement is important?

The fact is that you are willing to force me to pay for what you think is important. That I may or may not agree with your priorities is not relevant. Unless you hold the position that the Federal Government should be abolished, you aren't holding an intellectually consistent position, you are merely demanding that you be exempt from paying for things because you don't like them. But even you recognize that selfishness is not a position likely to win over converts so you dress it up and pretend it is a more noble argument.

It transparently is not.

And thank you for calling it an estate-tax cut, instead of Ezra's mealy-mouthed "reform". He really does seem to be becoming the compleat young villager.

BTW, we are also forced to subsidize the lower rates for capital gains, all those upper middle class kids with child tax credits, etc.

Don't force others to pay for what you think is important.

You know, much more of this and I'll be regretting being forced to pay for your public-school education, considering what a botch job you've made of it, and those roads that connect your house to the rest of civilization and the wires you use to plug in your computer. It's a shame all that money got invested in you and your family, considering that you're so wonderfully self-sufficient. You have benefited from government. Thank the rest of us, and pipe down.

Conservatives of both parties view health care as a priviledge and not a right. So it goes without saying that they are reflexively opposed to health care. Conservatives look at it as welfare by another name.

You are quite right about priorities. One should always dismiss, out of hand, arguments presented by conservatives that there isn't any money for health reform. Because the truth is, if they really valued it, they'd fund it. But they don't, so we will continue to hear the tired arguments that there isn't any money. At least until they discover a new tax cut they'd like to fund.

The point isn't that, say, $80 billion a year is nothing. Obviously, that's a considerable amount of taxpayer money. Rather, the point is, lawmakers don't hesitate to make that kind of investment when it suits their larger goals. In Ezra's example, conservatives -- from both parties -- think $75 billion a year to cut the estate tax is fine, but a similar amount for American families with no health coverage is not.

Your point only makes sense if you consider that all of the money belongs to the government in the first place. Estate taxes are the least bad taxes, perhaps, but they are taxes; letting people keep their own money is not the same as taking it away and spending it somewhere else, even if for a good cause.

I'd like to suggest that budget reconciliation now be the model for all legislation, and that we conduct a purge of any Democratic Senator who is unwilling to tax the well-to-do to pay for social programs. Any Democrat who talks of "class warfare" after so many years of the rich ripping this country off is not really a Democrat.

I am so fed up with all the back and forth machinations, manipulations, and mendacity as people in "power" somehow try to spin and push things in one direction of another as if we all aren't "one," we all aren't in this thing called "life" together, and we all aren't going to eventually die and have to leave all this stuff behind.

My father used to say that "finicky" eaters have never been hungry. I always took that to mean that those separated from their humanity will never understand the human condition - and as hard as it may be to understand, there are many humans on this earth who have somehow separated themselves from their humanity.

We see it over and over again, people changing their "political" views when humanity creeps into their lives. Even someone like Dick Cheney, for god's sake, had to change his political views toward gays when he allowed humanity, through his gay daughter, into his "awareness."

We all know why it is so difficult to get passed through Congress anything like health care reform, or financial reform, or tax cuts for the less than powerful, or NEA funding, or more funds for public eduction, or day-care centers for anyone who needs them, or lobbying reform, or election reform, or pollution limits, etc. etc. It is a "spirtual" crisis perpetrated by those who are out of touch with their humanity and act as if they are not spiritual beings here to learn and help their fellow man.

Eventually we all are humbled (life has a way of doing that) or as my father may have said - we all eventually will understand what it is to be hungry. For some of us it may take many lifetimes to get to that awareness. In the meantime huanity suffers and unfortunately it is those who seek power, influence, and sometimes wealth that tend to be those who most need to get in touch with their humanity. There never seems to be a lack of unaware people in positions of power and influence.

So, the choice for the rest of us seems clear. We can either choose to join the fray by directly confronting the forces of unawareness (something that sometimes feels so futile to me - re. the trecent town hall mattings on health care reform) or we can try to make this planet a better place for all by living a life in touch with humanity and hope to serve as an example to those less fortunate who go about the earth wreaking havoc upon human beings everywhere through their arrogant obtuseness and moral vacancy.