If You Can Afford Cell Phones, iPads, Video Games, Nike Shoes, Netflix, Then Under The ACA...

[MADem]

56. It didn't bother me, personally. I kind of saw what you were doing.

Throw out a discussion point, see who bites, see who agrees, see who refutes, etc. It makes for lively chat. I didn't take your remarks as accusatory or condescending--I saw them as conversation-provoking.

I have (not stinking rich, but well-enough-off) friends in UK who come to NYC and Boston during the Christmas season, with empty suitcases, to fill them up with holiday presents. The savings over what they would pay in UK is greater than the cost of a round trip ticket and a few days in a hotel!

In MA, we've 'enjoyed' a sales tax for as long as I can remember, and some towns add on a bit here and there (meals taxes, mostly), but we're talking five, six and a half percent or so. Some places I've been to in USA have eight and nine percent taxes, even more on some things, like hotels, but that is nothing compared to an effective surcharge that really comes down to a sixty or seventy percent tax by the time all is said and done, as we see with VAT.

I don't like those kinds of taxes because five to ten percent is one thing, but an effective fifty to seventy five percent tax on pretty much everything really does screw the poor and working class, and discomfits the middle class to no small extent.

Of course, everything always looks lovelier from the other side of the pond. Many people here is USA have a romantic vision of what UK health care is and isn't, and they don't realize what sacrifices in living standards at the "middle class" and below strata occur as a consequence of the scheme. There really is no such thing as a free lunch!