General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The individual mandate: I and others warned that this was coming, too. [View all]Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)First, we know that businesses are greedy and only concerned about the bottom line. We know that. It is a truth that stares us in the face everywhere. When we increased the minimum wage, McDonald's created machines to replace workers. Now a machine selects a cup, fills it with ice, and then the premeasured amount of soda. Costs remained about the same, but the number of workers dropped. We have all seen examples of that, from the auto industry where machines replaced humans, to the local gas station where there is often one person to oversee all self service operations, from gas to soda.
So we KNOW that the businesses are merely concerned about the bottom line, which is why they hire tons of accountants to find every loophole possible to keep from paying taxes. They put up a Poster about carpooling, and then get a tax credit for it. So those same accountants are even now working the numbers. When they find that it is cheaper to pay the fine for not offering insurance, than it is to offer the insurance, what do we think they will do? They will drop the benefits, tell the employees that the times are tough, and we have to do this. The employees get the shaft, like that is new.
Some will quit, and still have to purchase insurance through the mandate. Others will purchase the insurance, but because the average citizen doesn't have an army of tax lawyers and accounts, won't know how to properly deduct the expenses from their taxes. So the rich get the benefits, while we poor slobs get the shaft, again.
Why do you think they almost never audit the rich people? Is it because we Democrats love them? No, its because when the rich guy shows up, it's with four tax attorneys, and three former agents of the IRS. They can argue the law, and win the argument a vast majority of the time. When we poor slobs get audited, what happens? We show up with a shoe box full of receipts, praying that we don't get screwed too badly. We don't know what rule 9867.5.j.3 says, and we have no idea what the heck all that means. The IRS agent smiles sadly as he pulls the gotcha form from his desk. The rich guys attorney calmly points to the book and tells the IRS auditor "True, but rule 8709.1.a.5 states that there is allowance for a one time deduction for the depreciation of the expendable item.
Do any of you think that all those additional IRS agents are going to be sent out to punish the rich? The rich are still going to have their attorneys and their accountants and the former IRS agents who know the laws. Those agents are coming after us. We will have more requirements to meet, and less money to do it with.
We were screwed by the blue dogs who were afraid of going home and running for re-election. Now we get to be screwed a lot more so that we will get angry enough to demand single payer. In the end, we suffer because our elected officials took the easy way out, and still lost those seats they were worried about. The Repugs still took the house, and we get the stinky end of the stick. If you have an opportunity to score a touchdown, go for it. Don't settle for a field goal. We settled for a field goal, and we had an open playing field, nobody else was on the field. We danced and declared the day of the republican was over. We may win this election, we may not. It depends on a number of things, but you can bet your ass if we lose, then the last four years will be wiped out in four months.