by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The NASA A-Train satellite constellation symposium I attended last week in New Orleans was in some sense a celebration of the wide variety of global satellite observations we are now collecting from Earth orbit.
This really is the Golden Age in satellite data collection of the global climate system. While a few A-Train satellites are still to be launched, other older satellite assets in the A-Train are now operating well past their planned lifetimes.
There are no plans to replace many of these one-of-a-kind instruments, so much of what we will learn in the coming years will have to come from the analysis of previously collected data.
Unfortunately — at least in my opinion — the existence of this superb national resource depended upon convincing congress almost 2 decades ago that manmade global warming was a clear and present danger to the world.
Manmade Global Warming as the Justification
Since I believe the majority of what we now view as “climate change” is just part of a natural cycle in the climate system, I argued from the outset that NASA should be also selling “Mission to Planet Earth” as a way to better prepare ourselves for natural climate change — something that history tells us has indeed occurred, and we can be assured will occur again.
But behind the scenes there was a strong push for policy changes that even most of the scientists involved supported — ultimately culminating in the governmental control over how much and the kinds of energy sources humanity would be allowed to use in the future.
Cap and Trade, as well as potential regulation of carbon dioxide emissions by the EPA, are the fruits of the labor of politicians, governmental representatives, bureaucrats, the United Nations, and activist scientists who have used global warming as an excuse to accomplish policy goals that would have never been accomplished on their own merits.
Of course, most who speak out on this issue continue to point to the supposed “scientific consensus” on global warming as the justification, but those of us who knew the players also knew of these other motives.
I am often asked, “So, are you saying there is a conspiracy here?”
No, because the ultimate goals were not a secret. Just a bunch of elitists carrying out plans that the politicians supported — with continuing promises of congressional funding for research that those politicians knew would support Job #1 of government — to stay needed by the people. Many of the scientists involved are just along for a ride on the gravy train. Even I ride that train.
The elitism clearly shows through in the behavior of those who speak out publicly on the need for humanity to change its Earth-destroying ways: Al Gore, James Cameron, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, RFK, Jr.
These people apparently believe they are God’s gift to humanity. How else can we explain that they do not see the hypocrisy the rest of the nation sees in their behavior?
Unfortunately, I saw this attitude on a smaller scale at the New Orleans meeting. There are many new, young scientists now joining the ranks. They are being mentored by the older scientists who helped spread the alarm concerning manmade global warming. And they will be rewarded for playing the game.
Or will they?
The Times They Are A-Changin’
How is it that government agencies long ago decided to put all their eggs in the man-made global warming basket? Why have the movers and shakers around the world ignored natural climate change — even going so far as to claim it does not exist?
The only reason I can think of again goes back to their elitist beliefs and desired policy outcomes. The belief that a better-educated few should be allowed power over the less educated masses. That government knows better than the people do.
Tomorrow’s election is widely viewed as a referendum on the proper role of government in people’s lives. There is no question that the founders of our country intended there to be maximum of freedom on the part of individuals and the states, while placing strong limits on the role of the federal government.
Just read the Declaration of Independence if you want to see how pi$!ed off the settlers of the original colonies became at the King of England over his intrusion into their personal affairs.
And global warming legislation is now quite possibly the best opportunity the governments of the world have to increase the role of government in people’s lives.
The Basic Economics of Individual Freedom
Yet, many Americans believe that government can more equitably distribute the wealth generated by a country. This is a laudable goal on the face of it.
Unfortunately, history has taught us that trying to impose equality of outcomes only serves to make people equally miserable.
I like to think that I know something about basic economics. It was the subject of the 6th chapter in my first book –Climate Confusion — which received a nice blurb on the jacket from noted economist Walter Williams.
One of the reasons I am willing to stick my neck out and inform people of the uncertain nature of government-approved global warming science is because the basic economics behind any governmental (or environmental extremist) attempts to restrict personal choice in energy use will end up killing people.
In fact, it already has.
The biggest threat to humanity is poverty. Wealthier is healthier. When governments make energy more expensive, or environmental organizations pressure foreign countries to not build hydroelectric dams, poor people die.
Those already living on the edge are pushed over the edge. Energy is required for everything we do, and artificially raising the price of energy cannot help but destroy wealth generation.
If these elitists really were interested in the poor, they would be doing everything they could to help individuals take control of their own economic destinies. One billion people in the world still do not have electricity.
Worried about population growth? Then encourage the generation of wealth. It is the poor of the world that cause global population growth. The wealthy countries of the world have close to zero population growth.
Of course the main argument against this view is “sustainability”. Can the Earth sustain even more people consuming natural resources?
Interesting how those who ask the question have already gotten theirs, and now want to prevent others from doing the same.
But I would ask, can the world sustain the poverty-stricken? Poor countries have had most of their trees cut down. Imagine if global society collapsed and billions of people had to make do on their own with what they could scavenge from nature.
Now THAT would lead to a pollution problem.
What ensures sustainability is free markets. As natural resources of one type become more scarce, their price goes up, which makes alternatives more attractive. People are incentivized to develop new answers to old technological problems. This is why fossil fuels will never be used up. At some point, they simply will become too expensive to extract.
Mass production by factories and corporations should be embraced, rather than derided. It represents the most efficient way of providing goods and services. Waste is minimized because it hurts competitiveness.
But What About Equality?
Equality of outcomes is an illusion. It can never be achieved…unless we totally destroy the people’s motivation to make a better life for themselves.
A vibrant economy is what maximizes the tax revenue collected by the government. The two largest periods of growth in tax revenue collected by the government occurred after two major tax-CUTTING initiatives: JFK’s in the early 1960’s, and Reagan’s in the early 1980’s.
If you really want to help the poor, then help the country grow economically. Want to make sure the poor are taken care of? Then encourage businesses to grow, which will lead to more jobs. Economic activity is what is needed, and since the tax revenue the government receives is a “piece of the action”, more action means more money for government programs.
And whether we like it or not, the only way to ensure this growth happens is to give business owners and entrepreneurs some hope that their risk-taking and creativity will pay off for them personally in the future.
Yes, in the process, some people will get rich. A few will get obscenely rich. But this only occurs because so many consumers want the goods and services those rich few can offer them.
Call it a necessary evil, if you must. But it is, indeed, necessary. The end result will be more money for the poor, not less.
A New Fight Begins Tomorrow
The basic economics and desire to help the poor that have motivated me to speak out in the last 20 years on global warming policy will, starting tomorrow, be the subject of a national debate regarding the proper role of government in helping its people.
Tomorrow’s election is only the start. From then on, education about the practical importance of economic freedom will be central to that debate.
There is no question that our country has an unsustainable growth in our yearly budget deficits, and our total national debt is staggering. Everyone agrees this must change.
And reducing government expenditures must, of course, be part of the debate.
But increasing tax revenue to help support those programs is ALSO part of the solution. And since the only demonstrated (and sustainable)way to accomplish this is to grow the economy, it requires personal economic freedom.
So, what is the primary role of government in all this? In my opinion, it is two-fold: (1) make sure people play fair, and (2) get out of the way.
Dr T G Watkins says:
November 1, 2010 at 5:28 pm
…. equality of opportunity is an essential aim but equality of achievement is impossible given the inevitable Gaussian distribution of intelligence and motivation.
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Hate to be a nit picker, but intelligence (and probalbly motivation) is a log-normal distribution, not a Gaussian (normal) distribution. Log-normal distributions are characterized by a long “tail,” and are named such, because the the log of the quanity being considered is normally distributed. Income distribution is a log-normal distribution. The long tail of the intelligence distribution makes equality of achievement even more impossible.
When governments make energy more expensive, or environmental organizations pressure foreign countries to not build hydroelectric dams, poor people die.
John Christy on moral issues of ‘global warming’, on better, and longer life because of fossil fuels,
1:26 video
pat says:
November 1, 2010 at 7:53 pm
whatever criticisms are made of the Tea Party (Parties), the fact is they have shaken up the political “elites”. if it were not for the Tea Parties campaigning against cap’n’tax, the GOP would still be on the carbon-taxing fence:<——true that!!!
"1 Nov: WSJ: Scott Rasmussen: A Vote Against Dems, Not for the GOP
Voters don’t want to be governed from the left, right or center. They want Washington to recognize that Americans want to govern themselves
More precisely, it is a rejection of a bipartisan political elite that’s lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve."
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Perhaps it is the era I grew up in. It is unfathomable for me to view the political gamesmanship as it is today. It doesn't register properly. But, I should first, clarify. There isn't anything inherently wrong with big business. GM at one time was the world's largest employer. To state the obvious, creating good jobs is a good thing. The problem is big business has become synonymous with out-sourcing and reaping the benefits of our laws while reaping the benefits of cheap labor at the expense of the displaced workers. Fiorina would be hands down winner in Cali if most of us tech savy people would forget her closing the last U.S. hp plant while stating 'we need to understand U.S. jobs aren't a given'.
A note to the rest of the world. Please take HP away from us. They are, in a microcosm, what is wrong with "big business" today. This nation and any other nation, only works when this nation is the priority of the populace and its leaders. Sorry Cali, you have a choice between an overt or covert U.S. hater which both, would and do, by action and word put ideology above county and countrymen. It is time for another party.
evanmjones says:
November 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Taxes can be too low. Taxes can be too high.
Let’s try to make them too low and deal with it then.
There is going to be a lot of slug fests on the way to the bottom. But rest assured we are on our way to the bottom. The left and right are like a tag team match. Their’s nothing either party can do to stop where we are going. We just have a twist to these elections. We have the remnant of the founders of our country trying to preserve some semblance of what we once had. Titanic is going to the bottom. Make no mistake.
Ross Barton says:
November 1, 2010 at 3:54 pm
That line about Reagan cutting taxes and tax revenue soaring has been disproven time and again. People who cite this claim forget population growth and inflation during his presidency. Here are the annual rates of growth of real revenue per capita over several decades:
1973-1979: 2.7%
1979-1990: 1.8%
1990-2000: 3.2%
2000-2007: ~0.0%
These figures are compliments of Prof. Paul Krugman, 2009 Nobel prize winner in economics. As you can see, real revenue growth as a result of Reagan’s tax cuts was poor.
Ummm…. don’t think so. Here are the raw numbers, compliments US Dept of Commerce and other US Govt Agencies.
1980, the year Reagan took office, GDP was $2,788.1B, and tax receipts $885.62B
1988, the year Reagan left office, GDP was $5,100.5B, and tax receipts $1,676.22B
The inflation impact on the 1988 dollar compared to the 1980 dollar was .699301
In constant dollar terms the tax collections were $1167.284B.
This rounds neatly to a growth rate of 3.5% p.a., higher than the GDP growth rate.
Pretty significant in economic terms as it proved that lower actual rates does not mean lower actual collections. The first 2 years of Reagan’s administration was a pretty vicious recession (worse than the current one in several respects) that played havoc with the numbers, and which was necessary to tame a terrible inflation. Absent that two years (which occurred BEFORE the tax cuts) and the numbers look considerably better. But then, all of us on this blog know how we can cherry pick the years to prove anything. Not to mention fool around with numbers. Particularly when we are “Nobel” prize laureates.
Just the facts.
commieBob says:
November 1, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Being Canadian…
Dr. Spenser is an American, and will no doubt be voting tomorrow.
I thank him for his essay on why.
Roy addressed the elitist pronouncements of Al Gore, James Cameron, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, and RFK, Jr. But Al Gore is about as scientifically erudite as Ted Haggard, and the scientific vacuity of many movie stars is no surprise.
I felt let down when Roy started discussing the elitist arrogance involved in trying to force an AGW-driven policy on us all, and then ended up only naming politicians and movie stars as his examples.
The real question is how do we explain the scientists involved? Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, Phil Jones, Tom Karl, Gavin Schmidt, Jonathan Overpeck, Kenvin Trenberth, Ben Santer, Ray Pierrehumbert, Bob Bolin, John Houghton, and so many others, have run pell-mell into AGW partisanship and too many have not hesitated to use defamation as a weapon.
I have real trouble assigning their partisan behavior merely to venal grantsmanship. For quite a while, I’ve had the view on this that Hal Lindsey described so well when he resigned from the APS. Their behavior is too bizarre; too bizarre to reflect banal motives. My own opinion is that the elitism is ideologically based, and that the principals involved have sacrificed scientific integrity on the altar of environmental salvationism.
The doubly strange thing for me, is that this happened in a branch of physics, where mathematics prevails most strongly, where predictions are most precise, where the results are most quantified, and where the scientists are most rigorously trained in the meaning of models and in the statistics of uncertainty. Physicists should have been most resistant to the ideological subversion of their discipline. And yet. . .
So, Roy, if you have some thoughts about the how and the why of the surrender of physicists to a physics-subverting righteous ideology, I’d sure like to read them.
Let’s try to make them too low and deal with it then.
Better too low than too high.
But even better to be anywhere between the levels of highest revenue and highest productivity. (Currently, we are definitely taxing too much!)
“But I would ask, can the world sustain the poverty-stricken? Poor countries have had most of their trees cut down. Imagine if global society collapsed and billions of people had to make do on their own with what they could scavenge from nature.”
The answer has already been written, and that answer is no. Bare knuckle agriculture cannot support 9 billion people, it might make 3, but not 9.
No need to imagine global society collapsing and the scavenging. What is described is the actual conditions at the start of the first Solar Grand Minimum after the MWP…. in Europe. The woods were depleted (little heating fuel available) and the marginal agricultural lands were abandoned as the harvest yields declined.
By the luck of the draw, some lands will be in a better condition upon a natural climate downturn.
The biggest danger in an energy-starved world is the weaponry that now exists and has proliferated.
Is there something in the Huntsville water that drives the naivety out of UAH scientists? Great article. Say hello to my friend Rob Sheldon for me.
pat says:
November 1, 2010 at 7:53 pm
the collective wisdom and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, there are no limits to what we can accomplish
Milton Friedman would appear to agree with you:
President Obama has deliberately fanned the flames of class warfare and hatred, labeling Americans with a different opinion from his as “enemies.” How can that be a good and healthy thing?
Democrat-style American class warfare hates tenth commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.” But leftist politicians deliberately pander to this common human failing: “Why should he have a nice house, when you have to sweep floors and live in an apartment?”
The answer is that ‘he’ [Everyman] probably worked hard and saved and got educated and did without, in order to make his life better. But had ‘he’ failed, the government would never make him whole again. Real Americans pick themselves up and start again.
America was founded as a pure meritocracy. There is no primogeniture or entail here. Telling people they have a stake in the earned wealth of others is the most corrosive idea in American politics.
Politicians advocating the forced transfer of wealth from productive citizens to layabouts in return for votes should be banished to a worker’s paradise like North Korea. IMHO, of course.
This is the best post I’ve seen on the internet in a while. Thank you Roy Spencer. And thank you Anthony Watts.
commieBob says:
November 1, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Well presented argument, But you lost me at “meat head”.
rbateman says: wrote
November 1, 2010 at 8:43 pm
“The biggest danger in an energy-starved world is the weaponry that now exists and has proliferated.”
“Imagine if global society collapsed and billions of people had to make do on their own with what they could scavenge from nature.”
Amazing the things we are randomly thinking these nowadays.
May I introduce u to Renaissance 2.0 in order to fix the problem, you need to know how it got to be a problem first before you can fix it.
HMO=Death Panels? Come off it.
commieBob says:
November 1, 2010 at 8:11 pm
re; Canadian Health Care vs. HMO
My doctor will order an MRI in a heartbeat on the least suspicion it might reveal something, I can get it done the same day I see my doctor, and my HMO pays for it.
Is that how it works in Canada too?
That’s a rhetorical question, eh. Hosers have to wait an average of over two months for an MRI. If you’re happy with that more power to ya but when I need medical care I expect to get it the same day.
commieBob says:
November 1, 2010 at 8:11 pm
…..
I am a liberal. I believe in the maximum freedom for each individual. I believe that unfettered freedom for corporations is just as bad as bureaucracy for subjugating people.
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That’s good Bob, I’m a liberal, too, then. However, most would call me very conservative. I know of no one that advocates unfettered freedom for corporations, so that’s just weird.
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Being Canadian, I would far rather have universal health care than have to deal with an HMO. You Americans do have death panels already, they are called HMOs.
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That’s nice Bob. I’m glad you live in a country that engages in the will of the populace. What a novel idea! BTW, it isn’t mandatory we Americans participate in HMOs. Isn’t that nice? In fact, I don’t. I’ve only that silly BC/BS stuff. So, I suppose you could say our participation in death panels are optional today, but maybe not tomorrow. Here’s to hoping you weren’t part of the people trying to help us ignorant Americans “see the light”. I owe you a visit if you were.
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It distresses me that, when the state purports that it is protecting the little guy, what we mostly get is oppression by bureaucracy.
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Yeh? Me too. The difference is, we don’t revel and wallow in what someone else can provide for us, we do something about it and wish only the opportunity to provide for ourselves.
@Owen
I spent enough time in Oslo on business 20 years ago to know it’s an interesting place to visit and about the last place I’d ever want to live. Three weeks out of the year when it’s barely warm enough for brass monkeys to go the beach is bad enough but anyplace where a six-pack of weak beer in a supermarket costs USD $20 that’s just ridiculous. What’s the matter, can’t Norwegians control their alcohol intake without the government taxing it so much that ordinary folks can’t afford it? I’ve travelled all over Europe and Asia on business and Norway takes the prize for the most anal-retentitive society I’ve seen.
And talk about hypocritical when it comes to AGW – most of Norway’s GDP comes from oil.
First, the tar sands in the US rival the size of those in Canada. they are just “protected by the Government” and unavailable for protection due to environmental concerns.
Second, normal oil reserves in the US are enough to cover what we use for up to 100 years. Those are also protected.
I hate oil scarcity being parroted like it is all the time. This has been debunked in the literature so often…onto the other topic…
Elitism is a true phenomena in the US. This is taught at the first political science class and is a true feature of American politics. Do you really think someone like George W. Bush or Al Gore could have possibly made it as far as they did without their respective fathers? Elitism has worked for America since the start when the people who founded our country were themselves elitists…
But I make a big distinction here… elitism works when the elites are after the public’s well being. The second they become corrupt and look after their own or other elite’s self interests, the system tends to break down. Either through atrophy (voters notice and vote them out) or through the system itself getting bogged down, elitism will work only as long as the elites look after the interests of all of their people.
This has failed since the elites instead of looking after the interests of the people are looking after their own self-interests. Cap and trade is not in the interest of anyone. The bankers get rich, oil companies get rich, the poor get poor in this system….only the elites benefit. Health care could be, but any fix needs to be for all the people and really give the people a true system that works instead of exclusive clauses for special interest groups, new taxes, etc. The people benefiting the most in the new health care are the elites to a large extent. The rare person who doesn’t buy health insurance because they don’t want to pay for it and gets hurt…well they will benefit, but is it really fair for them to benefit when they never intended to get health care in the first place?
Don’t think health care is an issue of price. Medicare is there as a safety net for the poor, and this might not be the best solution, but it does exist…..There are issues with the system before that could have been dealt with such as pre-existing conditions/life time limits, etc…but the main problem of people simply not buying healthcare is not something that is in the best interest of most people. Who benefits the most from this is large healthcare firms which pass their costs onto the Government, HMO’s as well, large medical practices which have more people with healthcare that may not want it, but use it since its free, etc. Who does that really benefit?
The doctors get the same pay, but get more patients. They do not benefit. same for health care workers. The patients, get worse care since the per patient load of every doctor is now higher. The elites benefit from the recent health care system.
This is the true cause of voter dis-satisfaction. Voters were open to a dialogue on health care and wanted changes. This was why Obama was elected, but instead of “a new form of politics” he did the same old school politics with health care that he had promised he wouldn’t do. This upsets many voters, because he is only after his own self interest and that of other elites. And therefore him and the rest of the democratic leadership blew their chance at really changing Washington.
The election tomorrow is going to be about anti-elitism more then anything for all the reasons I stated above. No matter which party comes out ahead, the true failure is in the current representatives who failed by not looking after the interests of the people who voted them into office in the first place.
You don’t even know who is running against Nanci Pelosi in San Fransisco. That’s because the MSM kept that information from you.
There was supposed to be a double tag team smackdown match between Sharon Angle and Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and John Dennis. We didn’t get the second half of that match. They deprived it from us. That is the power they have.
Yes, John Dennis was running against Nancy Pelosi.
Ross Barton says: November 1, 2010 at 3:54 pm
“These figures are compliments of Prof. Paul Krugman, 2009 Nobel prize winner in economics.”
Paul Krugman has produced such suspect analysis over the past few years; I wonder why you did not probe deeper. There are lots of variables on tax collections, but I am willing to focus on tax rates for this post. Let’s try to be aware of the cherry picking in Krugman’s nubmers. In fact, tax collections were sputtering before Reagan’s tax cuts — 3% in one year, followed by negative growth the following year. But when Reagan’s tax cuts were fully implemented, growth (in tax collections) rose to 9 to 11% on an annual basis. These annual growth rates came down with the Bush (I) and Clinton tax hikes. But when capital gains tax rates were cut in the 1990s, then we saw the strongest growth in tax collections in the 90s.
Similarly, when Bush (II) tax cuts were fully implemented, we then saw double digit increases in tax collections.
In case it is not obvious, astute economists pay attention to when changes in tax rates are actually implemented and not just passed.
For Owen
(and the rest of the American bashers)
Before I say anything else, let it be known that I am not an American. I’m from Canada, the first major democracy in the world to establish socialized medicine. In fact, I grew up in the province of Saskatchewan, the first province in the country to have socialized medicine and my grandfather was a founding member of the CCF party who won power and brought it in. As Dave Springer alluded to, our system has challenges, and I don’t think what we have today is what the founders of the CCF envisioned. Every time someone proposes a change, the opposition comes out of the woodwork screaming that we don’t want to be “like the Americans”. Well I second that. As one comic quipped, Americans die from lack of health coverage and Canadians die standing in line. At least the Americans get to lie down first. Point being both systems have lots of room for improvement. Now… onto America vs Norway etc.
Good on those European countries who are shipping goods world wide, beating the Americans at their own game. Been a long time since any of those ships hit an iceberg and sank, thanks to regular tracking and reporting world wide at substantial cost. You guys recover that cost in the goods you sell right? No? Oh yeah, the USA provides that as a free service to the whole world. Perhaps you should stand up in a forum like the United Nations and thank them. You pay for your membership, it costs you a lot of money, may as well use it. Well, not as much as Americans since they cover 50% of the costs by themselves, silly selfish buggers. Then there’s all that money they spent over the years on their military. You know the one I’m talking about. Aircraft carriers, missile systems, submarines, you know, all that stuff they got that kept the USSR from wandering into your countries and bringing you the really really nasty kind of socialism because those war mongering Americans made it clear they were prepared to defend you. The people of North Korea live on four ounces of rice per day, mostly donated by the free world. North Korea would gladly export their standard of living to South Korea except those ignorant Americans have a few tens of thousands of troops there to prevent it. Tell me, how many Norwegian troops are there in South Korea helping out? Swedish? Danish? German? Well, you probably help out in other trouble spots in the world instead like Afghanistan. Oh wait, that’s almost all Americans plus some Canadians. There’s other countries there too of course, happy to help out… as long as there’s no fighting, they only send small numbers of troops for non combat roles. Someone mentioned Scandinavian countries being leaders in high tech. Take cell phones for example, Nokia is spanking Motorola in that market. You know the market I mean, the one that runs mostly on American satellites? I bought a Japanese made GPS recently, really like it. Gets its position for free from American satellites.
I could go on for a very long time. Are the Americans lilly white? Of course not. They screw up like everyone else and sometimes spectacularly so. But the fact is that they have shouldered far more than their fair share of the world’s problems these past few decades, paid for them with both blood and money, and there isn’t a single democracy on the planet that does not owe America an historical debt. That they are today led by a president who is more interested in apologies for what America has done wrong than in pride for what they have done right is sad. That Owen and others vaunt the accomplishments of other countries who are glad to brag of their better way of life while conveniently forgetting that it is paid for in part, in blood and money, by the country they criticize is even sadder.
God bless America. May she soon find her way back to the path she has walked for so many years, and done again the mantle she once wore so proudly. Leader of the free world. I see no one else stepping up to that responsibility, just complainers yammering away while getting a free ride.
@Ben Klijn D.
Ben, I think you’re missing a few points. First, about health care……when I was a young person, I didn’t purchase insurance. Yes, it was provided, at a cost, by my employers, but I didn’t. Why? Two reasons. One, they didn’t pay me enough to afford it, and two, I was a healthy young adult that chose not to live in fear of the big “what if”. If you got suckered into living in that fear and paying money that you’ll never get back out, well, that’s on you. Not me.
Secondly, while Medicare may be a “safety net for the poor”, I’ve never once seen it lift someone to a higher level, nor have I ever witnessed it prohibiting someone from being less poor. It simply serves as a cost of living. For the hard working poor, it is useless. I speak from direct experience. The people that took from my fathers under the pretense of providing for my children are, in fact, liars. The cost was much, the promise was great, the delivery was …….nothing.
The charity by state is only for those willing to wallow in self-pity and self imposed poverty. Society benefits none by sponsoring such ill thought machinations.