I am not sure I would call it "robbed". The best way to look at it, was instead of getting a $1,330 subsidy to offset the cost of proscription drugs for retiree's, they were getting around $2,000 (up to that, they only get the funds If they use them).

I am not a fan of the subsidy in the first place, but I would do something like phase it out at 10% over 10 years, and not even look at doing that until the economy recovers.

But this is really what this government wants. In there perfect world, everyone would be on a government run healthcare program. This bill was the first step to get us there.

I talked with my father tonight to see how he is doing. He has prostate cancer, and just underwent targeted radiation treatment. He lives in Albuquerque, NM. He told me that in Albuquerque, there are two machines that do this kind of thing. The same number they have in all of Canada.

I just hope when I get his age, I don't have the same problem.

Oh, sorry.  I meant: REREGULATE THOSE MUTHERFUCKERS.

I watched the fall of the US as an economic Super Power in realtime.  It started with Reagan, the granddaddy of the neocons.

Do you know what a tarriff is?  It's a tax on imports.

Say, a pair of tennis shoes costs $.90 to manufacture in the US, but they cost $.10 to make elsewhere, an $.80 tax would be levied on all tennis shoes imported.  Ronald Dickhead Reagan, with a compliant congress, did away with that protection. End result: China pwns the USA.

DON'T even get me started on usury laws. (I MEAN IT!)

So what do you do, then, when the poor can't pay the 30-40% price increase on US made goods?

From what I understand, the way the law was written, things were going like this: 
Gov. gives AT&T $50 to help buy drugs.
AT&T buys drugs with their money and the $50.
AT&T goes to the IRS and gets $25 more for no reason. 
(numbers proportional to what you just said)

I mean, we can put it any way you like but at the end of the day companies were getting money that was not intended to be given to the tune of billions of dollars (if closing the loophole cost AT&T alone a billion).  I don't think it's valid to look at it as simply a bigger subsidy because that tax refund wasn't being allocated to drugs in particular AFAIK. 

Sorry to hear about your dad. 
... what machines are those exactly? 

The poor wouldn't be so fucking poor if they were paid a decent fucking wage. THAT'S THE POINT OF A FUCKING TARRIFF.

Ehhhhhhhh I'm okay with it.

Not sure. I sent him an email. I will let you know when he replies. And thanks.

To those who are ok with this.. I just have a simple question.

This is a billion the government was not taking from AT&T, and now they are. Why do you think the government will do something better for the people with that money, then AT&T would have?

AT&T would not just sit on it and do nothing. They would expand there company, hire people, improve there services.

What, do you think, the federal government is going to do with that money?

I would love to see a chart that tracks an average dollar collected by the government, and see where it all really goes.

The government will inevitably spend it on something, I'm sure. Contrary to what humorists believe, government can't actually shoot money out into space.

You'd be surprised  

(I'm incredibly bored, and hyped up on sugar =/)