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Old 04-28-2010, 12:08 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob.Kerns View Post
Hmph. First, let me state for the record you've just proven yourself a better man than O'Reilly -- not that I had any doubts.

...
Whether there was, in the House bill, a possibility of jail, was never what was in dispute.

...
Furthermore, what FOX has been claiming, is that you could go to jail FOR NOT BUYING INSURANCE. That is completely ridiculous. There was never, ever, such a provision OR implication. You'd go to jail for not paying your fine. You can go to jail for not paying a lot of things.

...

First off, I have no desire to compete with O'Reilly or anyone else. And you are wrong, I am not a better man than him, and more than that, you have no possible way of making that assessment anyway...

You say there was never a dispute about Jail potential in the house bill, but there are only three of us posting on this thread at this time, and you and one other are blaming FOX news and the Republicans for everything from dawn to dusk that is wrong, and he was very clear to lie about the potential for jail not being written into the bill, which it was...

You are being disingenuous to say that the bill only required the purchase of insurance. That requirement would be enforced by a fine, but the fine would be called a tax, and if you did not participate at all, you could go to jail...

If the bill did not exist, then buying or not buying this insurance could never result in going to jail, but if it went on as it was written last fall, then it could result in going to jail... That means simply that it carried with it the potential for jail, even though you and another keep saying no...

The disingenuous statement includes saying that not buying insurance could not send you to jail... not paying anything will ever send you to jail, but starts a series of events in place that may send you to jail... It is not completely ridiculous, to fear going to jail for not participating, as that is now a potential since this bill, and was not a potential prior to it...

Thank you for responding to my question in post # 9.
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Old 04-28-2010, 02:46 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
First off, you have posts that say the bill did not include jail time, then went on to both say that it did, and even if the potential for jail was minuscule, that is still the threat of jail...
Repeat after me: The bill did NOT include ANY provisions for jail time. It simply defined a tax penalty. That is it. Period. LOTS of things come with tax penalties, including under-withholding your taxes. And in this regard, it's no different than ANY other tax provision.

Elsewhere, already in law, are provisions for CRIMINAL tax EVASION. That is, cheating the government (and everyone) by not paying your taxes, deliberately, and with the ability to pay, is criminal, with potential jail time.

THERE IS NO JAIL TIME IN THE BILL (any version). Just a tax.

That is, in fact, what the letter you provided states.
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Old 04-28-2010, 03:10 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob.Kerns View Post
Repeat after me: The bill did NOT include ANY provisions for jail time. It simply defined a tax penalty. That is it. Period. LOTS of things come with tax penalties, including under-withholding your taxes. And in this regard, it's no different than ANY other tax provision.

Elsewhere, already in law, are provisions for CRIMINAL tax EVASION. That is, cheating the government (and everyone) by not paying your taxes, deliberately, and with the ability to pay, is criminal, with potential jail time.

THERE IS NO JAIL TIME IN THE BILL (any version). Just a tax.

That is, in fact, what the letter you provided states.
Let's look at a couple of specific cases. Let's say you object to being covered by Medicare, and so you estimate that portion of your FICA tax, and refuse to pay that much of your taxes.

Or let's say you object to atomic weapons, and estimate that part of the budget, and deduct it from your tax payments.


Or farm subsidies.

If you're stubborn enough about any of these positions, and have the money to pay, YOU MIGHT GO TO JAIL, if you persist in REFUSING to pay.

THAT is the norm. However, for THIS part of your tax bill, unlike all others, that will not happen.

Just because some people decided to scare people into thinking that POOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T AFFORD INSURANCE MIGHT GO TO JAIL. I think the letter you cite is pretty clear that is neither in the bill, nor a possible consequence of the bill. Yet it is also VERY clear that that is the message that FOX was pushing.
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Old 04-28-2010, 03:52 AM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
First off, I have no desire to compete with O'Reilly or anyone else. And you are wrong, I am not a better man than him, and more than that, you have no possible way of making that assessment anyway...
You're welcome to your opinion, but I stand by mine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
You say there was never a dispute about Jail potential in the house bill, but there are only three of us posting on this thread at this time, and you and one other are blaming FOX news and the Republicans for everything from dawn to dusk that is wrong, and he was very clear to lie about the potential for jail not being written into the bill, which it was...

You are being disingenuous to say that the bill only required the purchase of insurance. That requirement would be enforced by a fine, but the fine would be called a tax, and if you did not participate at all, you could go to jail...
You do not find it at all disingenuous to claim that jail time is PART OF this bill?

Let's just take a look at this, shall we?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Beck
BECK: You know, this is the first time in history in our country where, just to be a citizen, just to be -- just to not go to jail, you have to buy something.
No, you can instead pay the penalty. Some people are already planning to do just that, thinking it's a better bet. Given the elimination of preexisting conditions, they're probably right, unfortunately.

And you can go to jail for not buying a host of other things; the statement is absurd. For example, failure to buy Workman's Compensation insurance carries both civil and criminal penalties in California. (In some cases, you can self-insure, but this option is not available to most small business owners).

It happens I agree with him that it's a bad thing that we have to buy our insurance from private, for-profit insurance companies that are protected from competition via government regulation and tax law. I'm pretty pissed about that, actually. I don't think it's going to work out very well.

I grant that Beck may have possibly been being stupid or careless with his words, rather than deliberately lying here. It's O'Reilly's claim that it never happened that we're focusing on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Morris
Can you imagine your prison yard? 'What are you in for?' 'Murder.' 'I'm in for rape.' 'I didn't have health insurance.' "
Yes, he does say it is only if you refuse to pay. But by illustrating it thus, it is clear the message he is carrying. You could go to jail for not having insurance!

But the reality is: not having insurance would not cause you to go to jail. Not paying the penalty would.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Napolitano
If you don't purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don't do so when they tell you to do it, if you don't buy just what they say is right for you, the government may fine you, prosecute you, and even put you in jail.
That's pretty clear.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
If the bill did not exist, then buying or not buying this insurance could never result in going to jail, but if it went on as it was written last fall, then it could result in going to jail... That means simply that it carried with it the potential for jail, even though you and another keep saying no...
We're not debating what "carried with..." means. We're debating whether O'Reilly lied. He did. Fox did NOT always make the distinction you're making, and which we are acknowledging.

The only reason you're seeing an inconsistency here is that you're not following the thread properly. We're saying that FOX's statements go BEYOND the remote possibility implied by the conjunction of a tax and the existing tax law, to imply and often STATE something far more nefarious.

FOX lied. You did not. We did not.

Both Civicsman and I are very carefully distinguishing between what the law says about not buying insurance, and what Fox said it says, and what the law + TAX LAW say about not paying penalties.

I think we agree on the basic facts of the law. I don't know if there's any hope of convincing you that FOX lies, but otherwise, the only source of disagreement I see here is just a matter of following the thread of the discussion, and keeping straight which of those three categories the statements are addressing.

News programs are supposed to inform, not obscure. Are you really willing to defend Fox here, when it is so clear that they intended people to believe that people were going to go to jail because they could not pay for insurance?

[Edit: I should also add -- please distinguish between your opinion of the law, and the honesty of the Fox reporting. The point here isn't about whether the law would have been good or bad as originally written. I disagree with the change, but it doesn't upset me. If Fox had wanted to honestly report on the implications, I'd have cheered them on, even if I disagreed with their conclusions. If they'd wanted to rant instead, but hadn't tried to cover it up, I'd have just shrugged it off as a typical side-effect of the pernicious impact of television. It's only when O'Reilly lied about whether FOX said what FOX said, bragged about taking Colburn down a notch, and then lied about whether he got caught lying, that I start to get riled up about this.

Contrast this with, say, NBC's handling of the reports that Bush evaded National Guard service. They bent over backwards to investigate -- many charge, too far, perhaps caving to White House pressure, even. They brought in former AG Dick Thornburgh for the investigation, as well as the CEO of the AP. They fired people. I believe it even contributed to the eventual departure of Dan Rather. This at least took on the form of journalistic integrity.

I'm riled up, because FOX bears much direct responsibility for our failure to have a meaningful debate on the topic.

And in case you didn't notice, this isn't some Liberal conspiracy. Colburn is a GOP Senator, and no liberal, and it was HE who was originally objecting to FOXs reporting. Nor is he the only one.]
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Old 04-28-2010, 09:16 AM   #25
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The bias of FAUX News is echoed by other News Corp outlets.

Does anyone else wonder about Rupert Murdoch's intentions? FAUX News is his cable flagship, so there is no possibility that he is unaware what is going on there. Yet, what responsible news organization would put Glenn Beck on the air?

(Here's a good example of fully misrepresenting something that it is not. This sent the local fanatics at my office through the roof when it aired. It took me 5 minutes to find the truth of the matter, an investment which apparently distinguishes me from a majority of FAUX watchers )

)

What are Murdoch's intentions in providing biased reporting that constantly muddies the waters of American politics?

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Old 04-28-2010, 04:16 PM   #26
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In my opinion both Bob and Civicsman understand that not participating in health care insurance previously did not carry with it the potential for the government sending you to jail.

Now that the healthcare bill was passed, which does not really improve healthcare at all, and especially the way it was written in the past, carries with it fines... But they called those fines taxes instead, and authorized the IRS to collect them, because they have the authority we have been exhaustively discussing...

Because this bill has passed, not participating in health care insurance now does carry with it the potential for government sending you to jail...

The fine point that the bill does not say jail, but instead says the fines are taxes, and taxes carry these or those penalties, does not change the meaning of what is being said here...

To say that the passage this bill has no (or more specifically) had not potential to send you to jail is a lie.

I do not care to try to justify everything said on FOX news, and you cannot and should not put me in that position, simply because I listen to many news sources, and you guys are fanatics about hating FOX news and Republicans and I am not...

You are both being obtuse.
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Old 04-28-2010, 07:28 PM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
In my opinion both Bob and Civicsman understand that not participating in health care insurance previously did not carry with it the potential for the government sending you to jail.

Now that the healthcare bill was passed, which does not really improve healthcare at all, and especially the way it was written in the past, carries with it fines... But they called those fines taxes instead, and authorized the IRS to collect them, because they have the authority we have been exhaustively discussing...

Because this bill has passed, not participating in health care insurance now does carry with it the potential for government sending you to jail...
Nope, language was explicitly added to exclude that remote possibility.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
The fine point that the bill does not say jail, but instead says the fines are taxes, and taxes carry these or those penalties, does not change the meaning of what is being said here...

To say that the passage this bill has no (or more specifically) had not
potential to send you to jail is a lie.
Well, that's rather sloppily worded, but taken as I know you mean it, true -- except nobody that I know of has told that lie. If you have an example, we can discuss it. O'Reilly played a clip where someone tried to pin Pelosi down on the question. I can't say I'm exactly happy with the forthrightness of her answer, but she didn't say any direct falsehoods.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KSagal View Post
I do not care to try to justify everything said on FOX news, and you cannot and should not put me in that position, simply because I listen to many news sources, and you guys are fanatics about hating FOX news and Republicans and I am not...

You are both being obtuse.
If you can defend O'Reilly here, then can you give me an example of something said on FOX that you would NOT defend?

The issue here is simple: O'Reilly said Fox did NOT say it. They did. He did. All of your arguments don't bear on that question. Even had all of FOX's statements been 100% correct, O'Reilly's statement would still be a lie, because they said what he said they did not say.

I hate the Democratic party, too. And all TV news. And people who ignore economic realities, and a bunch of other stuff. They're just usually aren't so openly blatant as to hand me such ammo.
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Old 04-28-2010, 08:16 PM   #28
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Quote:
Now that the healthcare bill was passed, which does not really improve healthcare at all, and especially the way it was written in the past, carries with it fines... But they called those fines taxes instead, and authorized the IRS to collect them, because they have the authority we have been exhaustively discussing.

Because this bill has passed, not participating in health care insurance now does carry with it the potential for government sending you to jail...
I think I understand the first paragraph, and if I do, I agree that there are potential fines that may be levied by the IRS.

However, the latter statement in the quote is completely incorrect.

Apparently, two completely different entities are writing under the KSagal name. One of them wrote the above statement, saying that both fines and jail time are part of the legislation that was passed.

The other one wrote on April 16,
Quote:
"I suspect that one reason that severe penalties including fines and jail were removed from the bill before it was passed as a result of many people pointing these penalties out.."
The reality of the situation is that the possibility of incarceration was specifically removed from the health care bill, as passed. Personally, I don't believe that this is a good thing, but in the big scheme of things, it is inconsequential.

Nobody is asking anyone to justify "everything" said on FOX news. That's a sweeping generalization, intended to deflect specific criticism. The main body of the FOX discussion here has been about the Lie told by Bill O'Reilly. I greatly dislike sweeping generalizations, such as "you guys hate FOX News and Republicans". Hate is a word I don't use as lightly as some, and FYI, I voted for John McCain in the last primary. (How are some people going to be able to reconcile THAT, I wonder.)

I greatly dislike the far-right dead end that the GOP has allowed itself to get sucked into. Quality people are not electable, only because they are not sufficiently extreme. It's bad for the GOP, who are beholden to their "base", yet find it both shrinking and ever more extreme at the same time. Ultimately, this is bad for the country.

I DO hate lies. When it comes to politics or stories with political overtones, I believe FOX is more of a mouthpiece than an news organization, and I think they knowingly use outright lies for political advantage. The O'Reilly "we never said that" lie is one of those.

Further, I find it unconscionable when smart and educated people know full well when this is being done, yet find it necessary to be apologists for such actions.
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Old 04-28-2010, 09:05 PM   #29
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Incorrect. The fines are still there. The bill never included jail time. However, the final bill specifically excluded criminal penalties.
...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Civicsman View Post
,,,

The reality of the situation is that the possibility of incarceration was specifically removed from the health care bill, as passed. Personally, I don't believe that this is a good thing, but in the big scheme of things, it is inconsequential...
Looks to me that the first quote says there was never jail, the second says it was removed... How can you remove what was Never there?

Enough lies. I would like to be done with this...
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Old 04-28-2010, 09:14 PM   #30
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Those who comprehend the English language should read through the thread from the start so as to understand the specifics of what was said.
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