Any half-competent political hack can spin anything so it's "pro citizen". A staggering proportion of citizens are in favour for the privacy/security trade off, it's just that We Know Better(tm). Of course Google and Apple should pay their fair share, I just can't get excited about it, I don't see how adding more money to the same semi-corrupt deeply immoral special interests buffet that brought you SOPA, and simultaneously distracting from the ongoing scandals of the political system, benefits anyone but the politicians.
Well, Medicare is underfunded to the tune of $38T. If all of Google and Apple was liquified at current market cap and put towards funding that liability, it would be underfunded by at little more than $37T. Retroactively cancelling the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would give you cash to knock the number down to $36T.
Of course people benefiting from Medicare benefits from Medicare, but "championing" Medicare benefits only politicians, because they know better than anyone else that it's going to go away, soon, but they'll happily lie about it in order to get reelected while they wait for it to happen.
