Trump ends 1st year with lowest average approval rating

[black dog]

So much winning!!! I'm sick of all the winning.


Remember when he said he would be so busy he would never leave the White House?

Unlike his predecessors who volunteered on MLK day Trump took another golfing trip.

Meanwhile news broke that he paid off a Porn Star to the tune of $130K while married to his wife.


He has proven to be lazy, incompetent, crude, uneducated and a liar. No wonder his supporters still support him. Maybe they see themselves in him?

A few years of my investments doing so well it will be time to cash out and retire.
What are you gonna do when your moms Social Security checks stop coming?

 

[Merlin99]

While GURPS and the rest of the crew try desperately to rationalize their ignorance...the world continues on:



https://www.apnews.com/a4b3a9338ccb...-1st-year-with-lowest-average-approval-rating

The economy is doing well, yet a majority of American disapprove of our incompetent President. As expected prior to the election, the US economy did get stronger in 2017. The world economy surprised to the upside. Inflation is low, unemployment is low...yet the majority of Americans disapprove. More American disapprove of Trump today than they did a year ago.

Why would that be: because the majority of Americans understand that Trump is unfit to be President. It is that simple

I'm going to go with the 24/7 media mantra of Trump is incompetent. Tell you D's the same thing enough times and it becomes your truth.

 

[Merlin99]

Good for you. The majority of the country doesn't agree with you because they understand the Tax bill for what it was. A money grab by the wealthy. Did you not notice all the benefits expire for the poor and middle class while the ones for the rich don't?

The economy was doing fine when Trump came into office as was the unemployment rate.

As to North Korea we are back to where we were before Trump antagonized them. Great.


The mandate had nothing to do with your affording healthcare or not. If anything doing away with it will cause premiums to rise for everyone else. Jesus. After almost ten years of taking about insurance do you still not understand how it works?

The majority of the country has no clue what's in the tax plan, they've just been beaten over the head with a non stop litany of "tax plan only helps the rich". Like I said, you soft headed D's aren't going to be able to hold out against a convincing story.

Yeah, not really. Where we were back in the BO days was ship them money and apologize for something.

 

[This_person]

So much winning!!! I'm sick of all the winning.

You should be - it bodes poorly for your side next election. To be fair, that is over a week away, so most people on your side of the aisle will not remember anything prior to Hallowe'en, but, for most of the voting population it will mean something.

Remember when he said he would be so busy he would never leave the White House?

I do. I find it a problem that he hasn't "clarified" or "evolved" on his position the way other presidents have on things they say one way and do another.

Unlike his predecessors who volunteered on MLK day Trump took another golfing trip.

Was that real? What did they do Monday of THIS week, when a photo op wasn't the goal, but their real character would show?

Meanwhile news broke that he paid off a Porn Star to the tune of $130K while married to his wife.

2016 called, they'd like their story back. This was already brought out, already proven false.

He has proven to be lazy, incompetent, crude, uneducated and a liar. No wonder his supporters still support him. Maybe they see themselves in him?

I've seen none of this except the occaisional lie, which puts him right about three squares ahead of most politicians :shrug:

 

[Ken King]

Good for you. The majority of the country doesn't agree with you because they understand the Tax bill for what it was. A money grab by the wealthy. Did you not notice all the benefits expire for the poor and middle class while the ones for the rich don't?

The economy was doing fine when Trump came into office as was the unemployment rate.

As to North Korea we are back to where we were before Trump antagonized them. Great.


The mandate had nothing to do with your affording healthcare or not. If anything doing away with it will cause premiums to rise for everyone else. Jesus. After almost ten years of taking about insurance do you still not understand how it works?

Nice fabrication there. The tax and job act had to be put through by the process of reconciliation since no Democrat was interested in giving anyone a tax break. Thus the changes to income taxes had to be limited to the ten year period. If nine Senate Democrats believed in helping their constituents with a tax break they could have gone for a permanent solution, sadly, none of them want their constituents to have more pocket money.

 

[This_person]

... they understand the Tax bill for what it was. A money grab by the wealthy.

Please explain. Whose money are they grabbing?

The economy was doing fine when Trump came into office as was the unemployment rate.

And, now, it's doing even better! Especially the unemployment rate for black people - down lower than it's been at least since before 1980 (that's all the farther back I looked - it was 7.0% in April of 2000, but it is 6.8% now and dropping)



As for the economy, if we go back to 1980, we can see Reagan and Bush 43 really had it going on, Clinton and Obama presided over huge losses that ended up about even, and Trump is right in the middle.

As to North Korea we are back to where we were before Trump antagonized them. Great.

Back to where we were? Where was that? I don't recall NK at the bargaining table with SK in some time. I'm not sure what you mean here.

The mandate had nothing to do with your affording healthcare or not. If anything doing away with it will cause premiums to rise for everyone else. Jesus. After almost ten years of taking about insurance do you still not understand how it works?

Well, which is it, it had nothing to do with the costs, or it did? You have to pick a position and defend it, not go everywhere and say, "yeah, that's what I said."

 

[BOP]

A few years of my investments doing so well it will be time to cash out and retire.
What are you gonna do when your moms Social Security checks stop coming?

Not to worry...his mom has nice men come by to visit from time to time, and they always make a donation to mom's "Save-a-ho" 501C Charitable foundation.

 

[BOP]

Nice fabrication there. The tax and job act had to be put through by the process of reconciliation since no Democrat was interested in giving anyone a tax break. Thus the changes to income taxes had to be limited to the ten year period. If nine Senate Democrats believed in helping their constituents with a tax break they could have gone for a permanent solution, sadly, none of them want their constituents to have more pocket money.

Any real conservative politician would make political hay with that, but I haven't seen too many of them lately.

 

[littlelady]

Any real conservative politician would make political hay with that, but I haven't seen too many of them lately.

Ronna Romney McDaniel (new RNC Chair) was on Laura tonight. I didn’t know what to expect from her, but, my take away is that I was quite impressed with her.

 

[GURPS]

The majority of the country doesn't agree with you because they understand the Tax bill for what it was.

- which Majority is that ? the ones in NYC and LA too bad for you the people in the fly over states Choose the Anti-Misstatement Guy


Did you not notice all the benefits expire for the poor and middle class while the ones for the rich don't?

Democrats could have stepped up at ANYTIME and added their VOTES to the tax bill and made the cuts permanent .... but NO they wanted to throw a tantrum

Nice fabrication there. The tax and job act had to be put through by the process of reconciliation since no Democrat was interested in giving anyone a tax break. Thus the changes to income taxes had to be limited to the ten year period. If nine Senate Democrats believed in helping their constituents with a tax break they could have gone for a permanent solution, sadly, none of them want their constituents to have more pocket money.

Well Said

 

[Sapidus]

A few years of my investments doing so well it will be time to cash out and retire.
What are you gonna do when your moms Social Security checks stop coming?

So what have your investments been doing for the last 8 years? you should really pay more attention to trends if you want to play the market,

 

[Sapidus]

Nice fabrication there. The tax and job act had to be put through by the process of reconciliation since no Democrat was interested in giving anyone a tax break. Thus the changes to income taxes had to be limited to the ten year period. If nine Senate Democrats believed in helping their constituents with a tax break they could have gone for a permanent solution, sadly, none of them want their constituents to have more pocket money.

You've repeated that lie a number of times now with absolutely no basis for it. But just keep telling yourself that.

 

[GURPS]

You've repeated that lie a number of times now with absolutely no basis for it. But just keep telling yourself that.

you obviously do not know how the budget process works in Congress .....


so tell us how the statement is a Lie ...

 

[Sapidus]

Please explain. Whose money are they grabbing?



And, now, it's doing even better! Especially the unemployment rate for black people - down lower than it's been at least since before 1980 (that's all the farther back I looked - it was 7.0% in April of 2000, but it is 6.8% now and dropping)

That's great. Which of Trumps policies have gone into effect and caused this?
View attachment 121145

As for the economy, if we go back to 1980, we can see Reagan and Bush 43 really had it going on, Clinton and Obama presided over huge losses that ended up about even, and Trump is right in the middle.

Notice a trend there? Democrats coming into office as soon as economies tank and then righting them again only to have Republicans screw it up again? Not to good at seeing patterns are you?

View attachment 121146

Back to where we were? Where was that? I don't recall NK at the bargaining table with SK in some time. I'm not sure what you mean here.

Meaning we are where we were before Trump got into a pissing contest With North Korea. It's pretty easy to discern

Well, which is it, it had nothing to do with the costs, or it did? You have to pick a position and defend it, not go everywhere and say, "yeah, that's what I said."

Which is what I did. Having less people paying into the pool will make other peoples premiums go up. Again This is pretty simple stuff and after 10 years of discussion you would think it would be easy to grasp. I never wavered in my position or statements.

 

[Gilligan]

Which is what I did. Having less people paying into the pool will make other peoples premiums go up.

So why did premiums skyrocket and insurance providers start dropping out of the market when Barrycare went in to effect?

 

[Sapidus]

So why did premiums skyrocket and insurance providers start dropping out of the market when Barrycare went in to effect?

Because the GOP did every thing they could to ensure that would happen

Remember how many states refused to set up their own programs.

Not to mention :

"When the ACA was rolled out, telling insurance companies that they had to insure anybody who signed up, regardless of previous conditions or sickness, everybody realized that the insurance companies would probably lose money in the first decade or so, until previously-uninsured-but-sick people got into the system, got better, and things evened out.
To get the insurance companies to go along with this danger of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any losses in any of the first decade's years. At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their losses, and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.
Y
The possibility of their losing money was referred to as the "risk corridor," and the ACA explicitly filled those risk corridors with a guarantee of making the insurance companies, at the very least, whole.
And then something happened. As The New York Times noted on December 9, 2015, "A little-noticed health care provision slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law."
Rubio and a number of other Republicans had succeeded in gutting the risk corridors. The result was that, just in 2015, end-of-fiscal-year risk corridor payments to insurance companies that were supposed to total around $2.9 billion were only reimbursed, according to Rubio himself quoted in the Times, to the tune of around $400 million. Rubio bragged that he'd "saved taxpayers $2.5 billion."
And, indeed, he had. But the insurance companies were thrown into a crisis. And, with Republicans in Congress absolutely refusing to re-fund the risk corridors, that crisis would get worse as time went on, at least over a period of a few years."


https://www.salon.com/2017/03/22/ho...e-long-before-trump-came-into-office_partner/

 

[GURPS]

Because the GOP did every thing they could to ensure that would happen

exchanges have closed because companies are going broke providing coverage

 

[Sapidus]

exchanges have closed because companies are going broke providing coverage

Which only proves my point. You aren't very with it today.

 

[GURPS]

Risk Corridors

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-b...bamacares-risk-corridor-corruption-never-ends

The risk corridors were never more than a bribe to get insurers into ObamaCare's marketplaces. The program was supposed to transfer excess funds from exchange plans with lower-than-expected claims to insurers with higher-than-expected claims to safeguard them against losses.

The exchanges' finances haven't worked as planned. At 11.1 million, this year's enrollment is less than half what the Congressional Budget Office expected. On top of that, young people only made up 28 percent of enrollees in 2016 -- well below the 40 percent needed to keep the exchanges financially viable.

With so many coverage providers hemorrhaging cash, not many plans have been able to pay into the risk corridor pot. In fact, 2014 collections totaled only $382 million -- nowhere near the $2.87 billion promised to insurers.

And so, in the program's first year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made good on only 12.6 percent of insurers' risk-corridor claims.

[clip]

But the government can't legally give into insurers' demands. The law requires the risk corridors to be budget-neutral. So the feds can only send out what they collect from insurers, unless Congress appropriates additional funds.

And with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate, that's not going to happen.

Remarkably, the administration seems open to flouting the law in order to take care of its insurance-industry debts. In September, federal officials hinted that they'd tap something called the Judgment Fund, a 60-year-old entity housed in the Treasury Department and designed to settle government debts.

Forty-six members of the House have signed a letter warning the administration against such a bailout. "It's an end run on the clear . . . intent of Congress," said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.).

Griffith and his fellow Republicans may have an unlikely ally -- the Obama administration's own Department of Justice. In October, the DOJ moved to dismiss two risk-corridor lawsuits -- rejecting the very premise that the federal government owes those insurers a cent.

Keep Spinning Sappy ... by LAW Risk Corridors have to be budget neutral ... Obama had several yrs to fix this and didn't



Risk Corridors in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

 

[Sapidus]

Risk Corridors



Again.

You prove my point.

"unless Congress appropriates additional funds.

And with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate, that's not going to happen".