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Half a Person (2007)
IMDB rating: 4.80
Plot: On a road trip from their small hometown to Toronto, two best friends begin to learn the truth about one another, and finally prepare to enter adulthood. Alex (Nigel Smith) is a straight, quiet young man in search of love, while Mark (Michael Majeski) is gay, charismatic, and struggling in his committed partnership. Together, the pair travels across Canada, exploring the countryside and mapping out their future.
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Directors: Santangelo Adam
Actors: Smith Nigel,Majeski Michael,Udell Andrew,DelSordo Emilio,Santangelo Brian,Massey Doug,Santangelo Joseph,Gill Vijay,Comedy,Drama,
For people who say "the GOP has no ideas," what do you think about these?
In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.
Not that Daniels has ever been bereft of ideas. Under him, Indiana property taxes have been cut 30 percent and for the first time, Standard & Poor’s has raised the state’s credit rating to AAA. But in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his "Roadmap for America’s Future," a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America.
Some calamities — the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 — have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America’s Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.
Funding entitlements — especially medical care and pensions for the elderly — requires reinvigorating the economy. Ryan’s map connects three destinations — economic vitality, diminished public debt, and health and retirement security.
To make the economy — on which all else hinges — hum, Ryan proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard. It would have just two rates: 10 percent on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25 percent on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health care tax credit (see below).
Today’s tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice: Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest. Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times — more than once a day.
At the 2004 Republican convention, thunderous applause greeted George W. Bush’s statement that the code is "a complicated mess" and a "drag on our economy" and his promise to "reform and simplify" it. But his next paragraphs proposed more complications to incentivize this and that behavior for the greater good.
Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world’s second highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive — and more able and eager to hire.
Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits, or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent.
Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As persons under 55 became Medicare eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support.
Ryan’s plan would fund medical savings accounts from which low-income people would pay minor out-of-pocket medical expenses. All Americans, regardless of income, would be allowed to establish MSAs — tax-preferred accounts for paying such expenses.
Ryan’s plan would allow workers under 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan long available to, and immensely popular with, federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose every dollar they put into these accounts.
Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing — subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees’ adult lives.
Compare Ryan’s lucid map to the Democrats’ impenetrable labyrinth of health care legislation. Republicans are frequently criticized as "the party of no." But because most new ideas are injurious, rejection is an important function in politics. It is, however, insufficient. Fortunately, Ryan, assisted by Republican representatives Devin Nunes of California and Jeb Hensarling of Texas, has become a think tank, refuting the idea that Republicans lack ideas.
Nice cut-and-paste job. Does the word "plagiarism" mean anything to you?
You could have at least given credit to your source.
Sadcat | Feb 07, 2010
People who say the GOP have no ideas are just saying they aren’t ’serious’ ideas, meaning they don’t do what Dems want to do.
Which means only if the GOP agreed with the DEM ideas, would it count.
You can see this in Obama’s recent speeches. He tells the Dems to meld ‘their’ House and Senate bills to a ‘final’ bill (his word) THEN invite the GOP to hear their ideas.
Since the GOP ideas refute a mandate to purchase insurance, amongst other things, how ‘bipartisan’ a result would you expect?
Nice try, but you are wasting your time.
As for raising the retirement age, though, the problem is the people that impacts in the next generation have mostly already paid into the system with uninflated dollars which had much more purchasing power than the dollar does today. They had no choice. Quite a number won’t survive out of their 70s, longevity is a very spotty issue, and averages aren’t helpful to the individual case.
The government should never have forced people to do this, but now has obligations it can’t walk from any more than an annuity company could just decide the obligations it took on by contract will be too expensive and walk from them.
DAR | Feb 07, 2010
dont go making the libs mad now or they will report you for hurting their feeling
Sonny | Feb 07, 2010
great
Cigar that Bill Clinton Sniffs | Feb 07, 2010
So this one guy, Paul Ryan, if he’s loaded with a thousand ideas, is supposed to make me think the republican party is about adaptation and boldy leaping into the future?
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, you be kidding me!
Howard | Feb 07, 2010
Gee isn’t that nice. A $2,300 tax ‘break’ to help pay for a $350,000 major hospitalization bill.
Cheezass H. Kriest | Feb 07, 2010
hmmmmm…..good points but I wonder if Daniels really has a chance?
LOL notice how ( sadcat ) makes a personal attack rather than comment on the facts provided…typical of liberal lunatics who avoid the truth at all cost. They always get off topic when they lack the mental capacity for debate.
White Devil | Feb 07, 2010
that would seriously underfund the usa its a road map for disaster
if that’s the best you can do your doomed
amazingly underfunded, based on unrealistic growth figures
Lordpercywooster XXV | Feb 07, 2010
"Those people" are usually ignorant liberals who have no idea what’s going on…..and explaining anything to them is useless. One day when they realize the government has completely taken over every aspect of their lives and are paying over fifty percent taxes, maybe, just maybe, they will wake up.
corvette | Feb 07, 2010
Flat tax and work until you die have always been republican party initiatives!
Convincing people that it’s fair for people earning <$10,000 a year to pay the same rate of tax as people earning >$100,000 a year has been a difficult task but it’s slowly making progress. After all your just jealous of rich people… admit it!
Efforts to bring the social security system to collapse have also been on the agenda for a long time. The social security budget is as high as the defense budget and old people are no longer useful once they have retired.
Republicans all agree old people are a waste of money and with the aging population looming on the horizon they need the system to collapse before the people who contributed to the scheme are old enough to collect!
Privatising the scheme and putting the money into the hands of the banks that brought on this financial crisis seems to be the most effective way to guarentee the money will disappear before people are old enough to collect and everybody will agree those Wall St. fat cats were to blame.
They could shift old people to welfare and claim they are parasites on society for not working and everyone would agree old people are stupid for not saving for their retirement and only have themselves to blame!
Mentor M | Feb 07, 2010
| Oct 10, 2009
