Now, if you think that they wealthy are going to be taxed out of existence: it didn’t happen in earlier years, when the marginal tax rates were much higher than they are now, so why would it happen if they’re raised only a little?

Obama’s proposal does not prevent anyone from donating to a church and then deducting that from taxable income. It just caps the AMOUNT of that deduction at the level that the only kind of wealthy people get to deduct as opposed to the higher limits that the really wealthy people pay.

I suppose there are people out there who generously support their churches because they can deduct 37% of that from their taxable income who would simply stop if that deduction was lowered to 33%. But they would show themselves to be not so good Christians. Why should the ultra wealthy get a discount on their giving?

No they don’t. You just made that number up out of nowhere. The CBO scores the ten year cost of getting to 97% coverage at $1.042 trillion, but scores savings in the House Tri-Committee bill at $219 billion plus additional revenues of $563 billion for a total net cost of $239 billion over ten years. Numbers you can see from this table from the July 17th CBO score:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fjW7…..+score.jpg

Why should anyone take you seriously if you are just going to make shit up? Plus even this score doesn’t include private sector savings (e.g. hospitals saving billions not providing charitable care, or having their bills written off in bankruptcy). Nor does it include scoring changes from changing certain budget rules about payments to Medicare providers, changes which CBO scores at $245 billion. Meaning that the entire package of reforms will end up being scored by CBO as a $6 billion surplus. http://speaker.house.gov/blog/?p=1872
CBO Scores Confirm Deficit Neutrality of Health Insurance Reform Bill

Strangely this story got ZERO coverage by the MSM, probably because it wasn’t convenient for the narrative of the Just Make Shit Up and See if It Sticks crowd.

We have entered this weird Bizarro World where it is just self-evident that six Blue Dogs held the whip hand over House Energy and Commerce but that Senate Liberals are just helpless bystanders on Senate Finance. Baucus can cut whatever deals he wants but in the end he needs 12 votes to get that deal out of Committee and he will be lucky to get more than 2 Republicans, and even if he could he can’t afford to have this look like a Republican bill when it gets to the floor. So by my count he can’t lose anymore than 4 Dems from the following list: Baucus, Rockefeller, Conrad, Bingaman, Kerry, Lincoln, Wyden, Schumer, Stabenow, Cantwell, Nelson, Menendez, Carper. Granted that is a pretty moderate group at best by why not a scenario where Rockefeller, Kerry, Wyden, and Schumer just tell Baucus to fuck off and demand changes just like Ross and the Blue Dogs did on the other side. These guys are not shrinking violets, plus I would not want to be in Kerry’s shoes when he has to tell Kennedy he had no choice but to bend over for the Insurance companies.

Reporting I see suggests that Rockefeller is well and thoroughly pissed at being frozen out, is he just going to sit and whimper like a whipped puppy when Baucus has to take this to the full Committee for markup? And if so why? More importantly is Dodd really prepared to back-stab Kennedy and go along with this when it gets to the Senate Floor? And does Rahm really have the whip hand over Pelosi, Waxman, Dingel and Brown when this gets to Conference? I mean you got some pretty big egos in play. Dingel is 83 and has introduced a universal health care bill every year since he first got to Congress – in 1955. He was in the Chair when Medicare was passed. He allowed himself to be eased out of the Chair of Energy and Commerce with the promise that he would be the lead on Health Care, this bill if passed will be known in the future as Kennedy-Dingell. Are people like these just going to yield to a couple of guys from Chicago who were either in diapers or not even born when they first took office?

I find it hard to believe that Kennedy wants his epitaph to be “Tried to reform health care but was told no by an undersize former ballet dancer/political fixer named Rahm”. In retrospect maybe they should have held HELP up until Finance actually completed its work, in which case I don’t think we would be having this same conversation, but either way I don’t see the reason why Baucus’s stubborness should be allowed to magically transform him into the King of the Mountain. Because he is the last guy standing?

It is only when business interests intersect with the centralized power of the federal government that we see corruption and greed.

OMG! That’s certainly a broad assertion! I would remind you that it wasn’t until certain gov’t restrictions that were touted to be too inhibiting on business by the likes of Phil Graham and others, and the overly lax policies of Alan Greenspan took effect, that our economy crashed. Most economists point to those factors as being a large part of the cause. Yes I’m talking about the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

Still, I also do not see all profit as bad. However, I do see what many of the insurance companies have done to be, in some cases, pathetic and almost criminal. However, I think it’s due to self-interest (normally a good thing) gone awry (in the extreme, greed, which is very bad). Still, self-interest, and it’s extreme, greed, is part of human nature, not a biproduct of self-government.

I fear that too many of our citizens have either been scared into believing that all gov’t is bad, or have forgotten that “we, the people” are the gov’t. We elect the various branches of the federal gov’t, as well as our local and state officials, ourselves. If they are corrupt, it’s our own fault. We need to be more observant and throw the bums out. But I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.