Senate votes down Paul Ryan budget plan, 57-40

With five Republicans joining Democrats in opposition, the Senate easily rejected a House-passed budget plan Wednesday calling for deep cuts in domestic appropriations and major restructuring of Medicare, the government-backed healthcare program for the elderly.

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While I am totally in favor of deficit reduction, there are items that I deem untouchable, such as medical care for our wounded soldiers, and medical care for our seniors. This GOP attempt to gut Medicare as we know it violates decency itself. Want to balance the budget? There are plenty of places to do that, beginning with the oil companies, the military industrial complex, and corporations such as GE, which did not pay a penny in taxes last year, and even got giveaways from the government to boot. These are your real welfare chiselers, not our senior citizens. And for those who loudly profess to the world to be Christians, I offer you this - Jesus himself said that whatever is done unto "the least of these" is done unto him. He never said to give money away to the rich, while telling the poor, disabled, and elderly to suck it up.

And, on a religious note, I happen to believe that Jesus will return, and I also believe that, as it says in the Bible, when he does return, some will gain everlasting life, while others will gain everlasting shame. Jesus has never been a personal cosmic gofer for the monied elites, who stand up in churches and wave, saying "look at how righteous I am", while at the same time, forcing only the poor, disabled, and elderly to bear the burden of balancing the budget. And Jesus has some words for them too, which they had better heed:

"Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

-Matthew 25:45-46

I bring the religious aspect of this up in order to expose the false teaching that Jesus makes people wealthy, and that the poor are poor because they do not have the love of God in their hearts. Now should the government force rich people to give all their money away? Of course not, but if the love of Jesus is truly in them, they would do it on their own. Their greed is their undoing. Why attempt to amass a fortune for one's own self, when a generation of life is no more than a speck of "forever"? But that is what the monied elite do, and that is what ultimately makes them such tragic and pathetic people. They would choose to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the disabled, and the elderly, and not ask GE or the oil companies to do their own fair share. And this, I am certain, is something that Jesus will remember, when the end of days finally arrives.

Article is here.

danarhea said:

While I am totally in favor of deficit reduction, there are items that I deem untouchable, such as medical care for our wounded soldiers, and medical care for our seniors. This GOP attempt to gut Medicare as we know it violates decency itself. Want to balance the budget? There are plenty of places to do that, beginning with the oil companies, the military industrial complex, and corporations such as GE, which did not pay a penny in taxes last year, and even got giveaways from the government to boot. These are your real welfare chiselers, not our senior citizens. And for those who loudly profess to the world to be Christians, I offer you this - Jesus himself said that whatever is done unto "the least of these" is done unto him. He never said to give money away to the rich, while telling the poor, disabled, and elderly to suck it up.

And, on a religious note, I happen to believe that Jesus will return, and I also believe that, as it says in the Bible, when he does return, some will gain everlasting life, while others will gain everlasting shame. Jesus has never been a personal cosmic gofer for the monied elites, who stand up in churches and wave, saying "look at how righteous I am", while at the same time, forcing only the poor, disabled, and elderly to bear the burden of balancing the budget. And Jesus has some words for them too, which they had better heed:

"Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

-Matthew 25:45-46

I bring the religious aspect of this up in order to expose the false teaching that Jesus makes people wealthy, and that the poor are poor because they do not have the love of God in their hearts. Now should the government force rich people to give all their money away? Of course not, but if the love of Jesus is truly in them, they would do it on their own. Their greed is their undoing. Why attempt to amass a fortune for one's own self, when a generation of life is no more than a speck of "forever"? But that is what the monied elite do, and that is what ultimately makes them such tragic and pathetic people. They would choose to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the disabled, and the elderly, and not ask GE or the oil companies to do their own fair share. And this, I am certain, is something that Jesus will remember, when the end of days finally arrives.

Article is here.

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Why didn't you report that the vote taken after Ryan's budget was the vote on President Obama's budget? That was quite a vote, 0-97. I would take Ryan's vote any day of the week as it showed he was attempting to rein in an out of control Federal Government.

As for religion and Jesus, did Jesus ever say that a government or anyone should ever take money from one person to give it to another?

LesGovt said:

Why didn't you report that the vote taken after Ryan's budget was the vote on President Obama's budget? That was quite a vote, 0-97. I would take Ryan's vote any day of the week as it showed he was attempting to rein in an out of control Federal Government.

As for religion and Jesus, did Jesus ever say that a government or anyone should ever take money from one person to give it to another?

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You should read my post again. I never said that. In fact, I said that the government should not, but if the monied elites truly believed in Jesus, they would do it on their own.

danarhea said:

...and that the poor are poor because they do not have the love of God in their hearts.

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only a complete moron would think poor people are poor because they haven't got the love of God in their hearts. Do you have examples of posters here espousing those sentiments?

LesGovt said:

Why didn't you report that the vote taken after Ryan's budget was the vote on President Obama's budget? That was quite a vote, 0-97. I would take Ryan's vote any day of the week as it showed he was attempting to rein in an out of control Federal Government.

As for religion and Jesus, did Jesus ever say that a government or anyone should ever take money from one person to give it to another?

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deflection?

danarhea said:

You should read my post again. I never said that. In fact, I said that the government should not, but if the monied elites truly believed in Jesus, they would do it on their own.

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Since I never said what you think I said that you said, I cannot respond to that. Coud you list those monied elites and advise us as to how little they give to charity. How about starting with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? If you need a few more names, just let me know.

Entitlements are unsustainable and nobody is coming close to balancing the budget. So what are we supposed do to? Keep spending into oblivion because we "can't" change these programs? They're not perfect and they're not untouchable. Creating distorted perceptions of the realities of bills to gain political points will hurt seniors faster than changing medicare.

:shrug: studies consistently show that Conservatives give more to Charity than Liberals.


as for the OP's ranting on Medicare, he is wrong on the math. We would need $89 Trillion to pay for Medicare without changing it. Currently we have negative $14.5 Trillion. Medicare will be reduced - the question becomes if we are able to do it in a way that we control, slowly shifting and tilting the program so as to cause least pain to the poorer elderly (as the Ryan plan does), or if we will try to ignore the problem and be forced to suddenly change Medicare in a manner that involves throwing seniors off the program en masse.

LesGovt said:

Since I never said what you think I said that you said, I cannot respond to that. Coud you list those monied elites and advise us as to how little they give to charity. How about starting with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? If you need a few more names, just let me know.

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Let's add to the list of wealthy who give to charity: Barry Diller, Ted Turner, Larry Ellison, George Lucas, T. Boone Pickens, Eli Broad, John Doerr, Gerry Lenfest, and John Morgridge.

LesGovt said:

Let's add to the list of wealthy who give to charity: Barry Diller, Ted Turner, Larry Ellison, George Lucas, T. Boone Pickens, Eli Broad, John Doerr, Gerry Lenfest, and John Morgridge.

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Pretty much any celebrity has at least one charitable cause they advocate for and donate too.

tessaesque said:

Pretty much any celebrity has at least one charitable cause they advocate for and donate too.

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Yes indeed; however, the people I listed are mostly business moguls and not celebrities. And, if you can imagine this, one is even an oil exec and we know how evil they are.

LesGovt said:

Yes indeed; however, the people I listed are mostly business moguls and not celebrities. And, if you can imagine this, one is even an oil exec and we know how evil they are.

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I know...I was just expounding upon your point...the rich often donate and behave charitably.

But you know...it'll never be enough. Until a billionaire lives next door and drives a Ford Focus nobody will be satisfied with their sacrifice (whether voluntary or forced)

There are plenty of important things to debate when it comes to the finer points of Medicare.

Jesus's everlasting love?

Not one of those things.

EDIT - By the way, you do know that Obamacare also contains significant cuts to the current Medicare structure as a deficit-reduction measure? So why call out the GOP specifically?

Jeezy said:

There are plenty of important things to debate when it comes to the finer points of Medicare.

Jesus's everlasting love?

Not one of those things.

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This kind of made me giggle.

danarhea said:

While I am totally in favor of deficit reduction, there are items that I deem untouchable, such as medical care for our wounded soldiers, and medical care for our seniors.

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So hopefully we never see you being someone who suggest in the future that nothing should be sacred when it comes to cuts, criticizing people as not “really” being for cuts if they make their own judgements of what should be sacred cows, or that we need to reduce it across the board.

For all your worry and hoopla over things like the Iraq War, medical care for seniors is far and away going to be more costly than that in the long run by staggering numbers. You’re willing to ride broken systems into the dirt out of nothing but an emotional appeal.

This GOP attempt to gut Medicare as we know it violates decency itself. Want to balance the budget? There are plenty of places to do that, beginning with the oil companies, the military industrial complex, and corporations such as GE, which did not pay a penny in taxes last year, and even got giveaways from the government to boot. These are your real welfare chiselers, not our senior citizens.

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Translation “Not Decent = Not Going “RICH PEOPLE ARE EVIL, ITS ALL A CORPORATE CONSPIRACY!”

Can you throw any other standard stock talking points out besides “oil companies” and “military industrial complex” Dana?

So you agree with the notion of taxing entities on money that has already been taxed? Wonderful, I’m exceedingly happy you changed your lean.

You’re railing about companies using loopholes while bashing a bill who in part had actions that closed said loopholes? This shows your pathetic transparency in this Dana by your attempt to ACT like this bill just did everything off the backs of medical care changes, while throwing out “other options” which are present. It DOES cut from the military. It DOES close a number of tax loopholes.

And for those who loudly profess to the world to be Christians, I offer you this - Jesus himself said that whatever is done unto "the least of these" is done unto him. He never said to give money away to the rich, while telling the poor, disabled, and elderly to suck it up.

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Oh give me a break. The Bible also suggests do not steal, but you’re all in favor of taking the earned money of other people away from them to give to someone else. The Bible suggest gluttony is a sin, yet you’re all in favor of the ever growing government that is shelling out entitlements faster than it can actually sustain it. I’m pretty sure the bible suggests one should teach a man to fish rather than give him fish…but you seem to buck that and are more than happy to force other people to supply the fishes.

Don’t stand up here preaching about Jesus and true Christians. Its ridiculous.

I bring the religious aspect of this up in order to expose the false teaching that Jesus makes people wealthy, and that the poor are poor because they do not have the love of God in their hearts.

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So you bring this up because of a strawman you interjected.

Wonderful, thanks. Very enlightening.

Now should the government force rich people to give all their money away? Of course not, but if the love of Jesus is truly in them, they would do it on their own. Their greed is their undoing.

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You’ve got to be kidding me. They should give “all their money away”.

Tell me Dana. How many guitars do you own? Do you need one, or any of them, to actually live? Do you need one, or multiple, to the quality you have to live? You don’t. What a greedy sinner you are. Do you ever go to movies? Buy music? Go out to the bar? My god, you horrible greedy man you, using your wealth for frivolous unneeded things rather than giving all your money way. Jesus must hate you.

:roll:

Perhaps if you didn’t speak in such hyperbolic enflamed rhetoric your point wouldn’t look so ridiculous.

danarhea said:

You should read my post again. I never said that. In fact, I said that the government should not, but if the monied elites truly believed in Jesus, they would do it on their own.

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And at the beginning of your post, you specifically DID say that the government should take peoples money to give it to other people by talking about taking money from people and continuing entitlement programs in their current form.

Whovian said:

only a complete moron would think poor people are poor because they haven't got the love of God in their hearts. Do you have examples of posters here espousing those sentiments?

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Sure. He's the poster that travels along with a Tin person, a less than brave feline, a poor girl from the midwest, and her small canine.

Jeezy said:

There are plenty of important things to debate when it comes to the finer points of Medicare.

Jesus's everlasting love?

Not one of those things.

EDIT - By the way, you do know that Obamacare also contains significant cuts to the current Medicare structure as a deficit-reduction measure? So why call out the GOP specifically?

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Because there's an election coming!