Marketplace Quotes - page 7
I wish to make a comment about the so-called co-op approach. My friends, you can call it the government option. You can call it a co-op. You can call it a banana. But the fact is, it is government intervention into the free marketplace, which will lead to crowding out, which over time will lead to government control of health care in America. A co-op can exist today. They do not have to wait for legislation. They can exist today. Yet very few do. If there was a pressing need for more co-ops, wouldn't more of them have been created? Under the co-op approach, the Federal Government would design, fund, and foster their creation. But let's not kid ourselves. Creating a new, massive government plan designed in Washington is still Washington involvement in health care. And if we did not learn any lessons from the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac co-ops, nobody has been paying attention.
John McCain
For the last fourteen years, I have advocated the elimination of all payroll taxes - including those for social security and unemployment compensation - and the replacement of that revenue in the form of pollution taxes - principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same. It would be, in other words, a revenue neutral tax swap. But, instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.
Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an "externality." This absurd label means, in essence: we don't need to keep track of this stuff so let's pretend it doesn't exist.
And sure enough, when it's not recognized in the marketplace, it does make it much easier for government, business, and all the rest of us to pretend that it doesn't exist. But what we're pretending doesn't exist is the stuff that is destroying the habitability of the planet.
Al Gore