My debate with Republican friend on FB about Affordable Care Act

His response to my first argument:

Just because it was supposedly rooted in a Republican plan doesn't make it a good one. Further, no Republican supported this when passed thru both houses of Congress. As I'm sure you recall Obama got this thru based solely on Democratic support, which made it the first major entitlement in history, not Social Security, not Medicare, not Wellfare, to be shoved thru on a partisan basis. It cost the Dems the house and strong control of the Senate in 2010 elections. Finally as to the explanation of how the math works, I'm sure what you provide above works, if they can apply that formula. However it NEVER does when dealing with the Federal Govt. I can show you how the math works in Reagonomics - trickle down, but you have to cut spending when cutting taxes. Reagan couldn't or didn't make those same spending cuts, so we had huge deficits. Math can work, but not usually when Govt is involved.


My response



The part the Republicans now hate is the individual mandate which was the cornerstone of the Republican plan that actually was a 1989 Heritage Foundation Republican think tank idea and WAS part of Republican John Chafee's original bill, and co-sponsored by eighteen Republicans. Mitt Romney's MA HC plan had an individual mandate too. Now Republican's Gov's are suing the Federal Gov. because of the mandate. Just curious why Republican's now hate that part of the plan when it was their idea? As for trickle down economics, Bush's tax cuts on the wealthy are sill in place and yet the economy is still just barely growing. Under Republican Eisenhower's extremely high rates on the wealthy and Clinton's slight increase the economy boomed proving that taxes have very little to do with getting the economy going. I would love to see tax rates come down for everyone but we need to get control over the debt first like they did after WWII when Republican's and Dems raised taxes. JFK lowered taxes because the debt was getting back into a manageable position. Republican's use to be about fiscal responsibility which meant higher taxes until debts were paid but for the past 30 years it seems that raising taxes to get control of the debt is like murdering Jesus. They want to cut things like social security to bring the debt down like that is not going to be devastating to working families just getting by. http://www.newyorker.com/.../2012/06/25/120625fa_fact_klein