Free Market Family Values

[paft.livejournal.com]

Stuart Varney: Why don’t you just spend more time with the family, let somebody else work, you go on Obamacare… Stay home, spend more time with the family, let somebody else pay for your healthcare…


It began as the usual Obamacare Horror Story “Bombshell” going pfffffft. We’ve seen it happen, over and over again. A supposedly dire effect of the Affordable Care Act gets cited, which, on examination, turns out to involve someone who could easily afford it paying a higher premium or (in the case of “Bette,” cited during a Republican response to the SOTU) someone who’s been “victimized” by her own refusal to use the options offered by the ACA.

The latest involves the release of the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the impact of the ACA. “Law will reduce fulltime employment by about 2 million,” it was announced. “Healthcare Law will reduce hours worked by about 1.5% to 2% from 2017-2024”

“You wonder how they explain it,” exclaimed a Fox Anchor.

Wouldn’t you know it, CBO director Doug Elmendorf went and spoiled everything by explaining it. See, it’s not so much a matter of jobs being eliminated. It’s a matter of many workers now having the option of reducing their hours or, if they have enough savings, retiring completely from the workforce. As the report says (emphasis added),

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor…


So what’s the next step on the right? Act outraged that many workers will actually be in a position to, not just leave jobs they dislike for jobs they prefer, but also cut back on their work hours so they can spend more time with their (get this) families.



Or worse yet, if they’ve got enough in savings, retire!

Jon Stewart puts it beautifully in his reaction in Varney’s comments, “What the Hell? You’re conservatives. I thought you guys loved the family.”…’The family must be protected from asteroids, nuclear weapons, dudes in love, they have to be protected!’”

Some of you may remember last autumn a thread on retail workers being made to work on Thanksgiving (or, as one sniveling coward of a retailer put it in its ads, “Thursday.”) Stewart remembers the issue too.

“Now that I think about it,” he observes, “When family clashes with capitalism around the holidays, conservatives throw family overboard.”

Yes, yes, I remember the arguments I encountered here. Giving an employee paid time off on that day is a dire restriction of their freedom. Demanding they come in to work on a major holiday isn’t going to seriously crimp any plans. Nobody books air tickets months in advance and endures long security lines and packed planes for the sake of traveling to see the folks on that day. And requiring someone to man the toy department on Thanksgiving Day is just the same as asking emergency and health workers, airline and telecom employees and other vital transportation and communication personnel to work on that day.

Which left me with the spooky sense the Internet is not just a revolutionary means of communication that spans the globe. It may very well enable us to interact with the inhabitants of some parallel universe where airports are all but empty in late November through December and retail workers are clamoring for the chance to work on what, (in this universe,) is a wildly popular, family oriented holiday.

I kid, of course. The people making these bizarre arguments are, in fact, inhabitants of our world, who, for the sake of defending the indefensible, are willing to feign a complete disconnection from reality. But the more I listen to free market conservatives, the more it sounds as though they believe only upper management should reproduce. In the minds of these folks, people making below a certain amount have no business bearing children or keeping in touch with aging relatives or siblings.

Apparently, a JOB is not a way for people to support themselves and their dependents while contributing to either the private or public sector. If it pays so little and takes up so much time that there is nothing left for friends and family, workers shouldn’t complain. They should just be glad they have a JOB.

A JOB after all, is a quasi-religious requirement, which establishes a firm caste system (see the arguments about whether someone who digs ditches 40 hours a week “deserves” a living wage) and trumps any other personal tie or obligation.

*

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Edited to note, indeed. The CBO's Elmendorf did say words to that effect. Elemendorf who was addressing the House Budget Committee, also said that the subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act would make lower-income people "better off." And It wasn't all bad news for the Obama administration. The CBO's wide-ranging report predicted that the federal budget deficit will fall to $514 billion this year, down from last year's $680 billion and the lowest by far since Obama took office five years ago.

The new estimates also say that the health care law will, in the short run, benefit the economy by boosting demand for goods and services because the lower-income people it helps will have more purchasing power. The report noted that the 2014 premiums that people pay for exchange coverage are coming in about 15 percent lower than projected, and the health care law, on balance, still is expected to reduce the federal deficit.

Source. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/05/budget-office-chief-obamacare-creates-disincentive-to-work/)

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

My point being, do you honestly think that Republican's solution in mind to the "Job lock" problem was to essentially hand out subsidies so people wouldn't have to work? Does that fall in line with Republican Ideology at all?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You'll have to ask a Republican idealogue about that, I'm afraid.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

No, you really don't.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

"I'm not a Republican. I'm an independent!"

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

It's fairly obvious you know little about what Republican's believe, and you clearly lack the knowledge required to tell me what political affiliation I belong to. I don't consider being a Republican a bad thing, nor being a Democrat. I have no reason to lie about my political affiliation.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It's fairly obvious you know little about what Republican's believe, and you clearly lack the knowledge required to tell me what political affiliation I belong to.

If it looks like a duck and walks etc. like a duck: it is a duck.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Unless it is a goose.

Chalk up another point for Haidt and Co.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Basically it seems that Haidt was right (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1396425.html)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

That's a provocation. A cheap personal jab. Other than riling up your interlocutor, what other purpose do you believe it serves?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. And since it's a lot less provocative than suggesting that the other person is not well read, which is patently absurd in that example (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1823207.html?thread=144710887#t144710887) I'm curious why you're hassling me when you didn't hassle *them*?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

The Republicans took their toys and went home, refusing to participate. So there were no Republican solutions to a health care problem that had the U.S. spending more per capita than fellow industrialized nations with UHC systems.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase Tomas Sowell.

When you're putting out a fire you don't "replace it" with anything.

(frozen comment)

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Quoting famous thinkers makes you so much smarter, doesn't it.

(frozen comment)

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

No, but reading a wide variety of books written from wildly divergent view points does.

You should try it sometime

You might even find, or think of a pithy come-back that or two that doesn't come from the Daily Show. ;)

(frozen comment)

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

No, the only thing it does is to potentially educate you some more, or more likely to confirm your preconceived biases (in case you give preference to reading stuff that only matches your preferred ideology). So, no, reading doesn't necessarily make you smarter.

You should try it sometime

You first. But this time try thinking for yourself, as opposed to regurgitating what someone else said.

I don't watch the Daily Show, but nice try nevertheless. Got anything better as a comeback?

(frozen comment)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Translation: "You don't read books - start reading and we can talk again".

A pithy petty comeback on your part as well.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Except that health care and costs aren't a fire but an ongoing concern. One has grown into a massively expensive and inefficient situation. Poor outcomes compared to our industrial peers, despite pouring more private and government money into it per capita.

WTF does Tomas Sowell have to do with this issue?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

When you're putting out a fire you don't "replace it" with anything.

Smoke detectors, sprinklers, evacuation plans...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

If you're coming up with smoke detectors, sprinklers, and evacuation plans after the building catches fire you're doing it wrong.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

Or considering ways to keep it from happening again.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As I recall, back when Bush was President, right before Bear Sterns collapsed, wasn't the official GOP party line that there was no recession, the fundamentals of our economy were strong, and that the recession was just the product of a nation of whiners? So, in that case, the GOP denies there is a fire and then bashes the people trying to put it out.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Then you also recall the numerous protests and primary challenges within the GOP over this very topic.

Sorry bub but you don't get to have it both ways either.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, actually, I don't recall any of them on the specific topics of the economy working well and the recession being a purely psychological phenomenon of whiny little Lefties who hated America. Why would Republicans prosecute people who said there was no recession?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Republican solution, if it be labeled that, is to let them starve because if they're too lazy to work, they don't deserve to eat. Meanwhile the GOP votes scads of moneys to CEOs who don't deserve it and refuse to label this class warfare, presumably because it depends on which class benefits from that largesse.