John on the Sunset Coast wrote: Nice straw man about taxes, SB. Sales taxes cover a myriad of local services, not just health care, which illegal immigrants use also.

Riginslinger wrote: What happened was, many people who couldn't get health care in some other place moved to Oregon and swamped the system. That's exactly what would happen with national health care. Look at the way illegal immigrants have swamped the schools.

Sales tax is just a small part of the equation. Taxes collected by employers from illegal workers are never refunded to those illegal workers. Social Security paid by illegal workers will never be collected by those illegal workers. You can't dismiss the tax issue as a "straw man," to the contrary, this is an aspect of the illegal immigrant situation that is usually not disclosed by the Bush crowd. Oh, and by the way, it isn't "a myriad of." It's just "myriad."

Riginslinger, the state of health care in the U.S. is a disgrace, as is the state of American education. Where else but in a nation where corporations work to enact hugely beneficial legislation would "universal health care" be a plan where everyone, even the poor, would be required to buy health insurance from private or supposedly "non-profit" companies (i.e., Blue Cross/Blue Shield)? The offer of a tax break or credit is the bait and switch of it--a company gets richer by collecting premiums and the government collects less tax. Whose fault is it if we fall for this shell game year after year?

Step back for a moment. People who don't have the money to begin with are asked to pay cash into the pockets of insurance companies. Pure profit as long as no one is sick in the family, and if someone is sick, you can bludgeon them by forcing high co-pays on consumers and bludgeon doctors by forcing them to accept much smaller payments than they actually charge (my doctor stopped taking my health BC/BS insurance plan for this reason.) If the "insurance" companies were taken out of the picture then you could work out a more equitable and cost-effective universal health plan. Oregon just didn't get it right or was in the wrong position when they put it into play for it to work. Don't blame illegal aliens and the poor for the Oregon failure.

Same goes for schools. Until the U.S. as a whole gets serious about education and starts funding it the way it needs to be funded, schools are going to do everything they can to cut corners.

I won't put your bumper sticker on my vehicle because I don't want people to think I sanction Jesus as a spiritual leader or a prophet or see him as an example. For me he's a historic figure, period. Invoking his name in this fight just brings up a different argument for some of us.

SRS