Life in these United States is plenty complicated enough without political opportunists and religious zealots adding to the confusion by attempting to influence health care and other policy decisions. Their continued mischaracterization of programs and policies and the emotional spin they put on everything is insulting and dishonest.
It must work, though, because Republicans keep repeating the same bogus arguments to support their negative positions about Democratic proposals. How often we hear that government-managed health-care will lead to socialized medicine even if that is not what is being proposed - - or that government doesn’t know how to run things well. Social Security and Medicare may be under-funded but by golly if you have a question about either of those programs, a call to their offices is responded to quickly and efficiently.
Do members of Congress in thrall to insurance-industry giants and other corporate interests explain to constituents their real reasons for not supporting health-care or regulatory legislation in general or do they just pretend they seek, in good faith, solutions to a host of medical and economic muddles? Senator Thune (R-SD) said in an interview that the “Democrat” leadership wrote its health-care bill “behind closed doors”, to which comment Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown responded “he knows better than that,” since most features had been, discussed ad nauseum for weeks. Only in the final stages did Senate Democrats retreat to a de-wrinkling session in-camera.
But it isn’t only Republicans who dissemble and bow to the corporate colossus that dictates the direction our lives should take. Consider Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson who are gifted with large insurance-industry campaign donations. Their reasons for opposing a public option in health-reform legislation, for example, are couched in high-fallutin’ language that serves to distract from the more venal pursuit of whatever benefits their corporate patrons are disposed to provide.
Lately, in addition to our pay-to-play style of governance, religious fanatics have managed to contort health-reform legislation into a referendum on abortion and turned the health-care debate into something unrecognizable. Aren’t many of them the same people who rant about the Constitution and individual freedoms? That defining document clearly states that there shall be “no religious test” to hold office yet right-wing evangelicals and The Catholic Church keep pressuring politicians to behave as if the entire country were made up of dutiful supplicants. Without question, they should lose their tax-exempt status and be required to register as lobbyists like the rest of the special interests that travel Washington’s Inner-Sanctum.
But for heaven’s sake, don’t let’s talk about raising anybody’s taxes to help stem the tide of economic havoc that has overtaken the country. Those Bush tax cuts that lined the pockets of the very rich have taken on a legitimacy in the minds of some in the GOP who would consider a rollback of the highest-bracket tax advantage a heresy not worth talking about. Tax abatement was supposed to create jobs; even ordinary Americans could be heard to say “a poor man never gave me a job.” But job creation never materialized even as upper-class wealth grew exponentially in proportion to the income of regular folks. Strangely, persons of lesser means express greater willingness than the rich to pay higher taxes if that would help solve some of the country’s more intractable problems.
It is said that opinions regarding taxes and sharing the cost of government programs are animated by honest philosophical differences, but more often it seems that self interest drives a debate that is less about philosophy than it is about entitlement, privilege and power. Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont and a professed Socialist participated with Senator Judd Gregg, Republican from New Hampshire, in a discussion about health care. With respect to the issue of tax-cuts for the rich and repealing the estate tax, something he supports, Gregg appeared to grow flustered, eventually asserting rather lamely that he and his Republican colleagues believe in “profits.”
That statement provided some insight into a political view that spawns economic dissonance and a ho-hum response to our troubled health-care system. Profits can build financial fortunes and create a sense of security, but in the absence of responsible social safeguards, profit motive is nothing more than a euphemism for greed.
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Quickly? Efficiently?
SSA will provide more wrong answers than right. Their reps are ignorant of SSA rules and no one within SSA notices this or cares. Maybe Medicare is better at responding with correct answers, but SSA definitely is not. They are a living, writhing nightmare. Tired of getting dicked around by phone? Make an in-person appointment at your local SSA office, where no cash is kept on the premises. You'll see an armed guard scrutinizing everyone in the waiting room. Guess why, or better yet, interview the people waiting there. Many have been coming in for years to get simple clerical errors corrected. If you doubt me, you'll find out soon enough.
I know
I know. A co-worker died 10 years ago and we still keep getting mail for him from the good old SSA. No money is involved and letters have been returned with "deceased" on the envelope for years. Yet, as good government employees, they persist in making sure that he is satisfied with his Medicare.
I only wish Congress was that concerned with anyone's healthcare but their own.
FIRE YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS! Democrats and Republicans are only interested in doing what their insurance masters tell them to do. Free yourself and refuse to vote for a Republican OR Democrat in 2010.
Change will only come when WE, THE VOTERS change.
Secret meetings, behind closed doors---
---could that apply to the meeting behind closed doors held after midnight by Congress in the Reagan years? A quiet non publicized secret meeting in which they voted themselves a "big payraise" which would be applied every year thereafter. The Congress folk put the spin on that as a move to make them competative as CEO's, as attracting the best minds--suddenly that move made them all "CEO's" and the "best".
So why do these politicians still call themselves "public servants"? Like they gave up great alternate opportunities to slave in public service for 100 days a year, long vacations each year and lush perks,---- right? And they call themselves "the honorable".
No One Speaks for the American People
In a very real sense no one speaks for the American People. Yes, there are journalists and commentators who may from time to time express a thought or an idea or espouse a particular philosophy that a lot of us would agree with. So to that extent they speak for the American People. Or at least they speak for one segment of the American People. But then, Sarah Palin does that as well. Apparently George W. Bush speaks for a 26% segment of the American People. What the hell, there are segregationists, white supremacists, creationists, neo-nazis, birthers, truthers and numerous others who speak for a segment of the American People. I don't know if you will ever find anyone, anywhere, anytime who speaks for ALL of the American People. Now, if by asking that question you mean, who speaks for the MAJORITY of the American People well, you could find one or two. You could certainly say, I believe, that Bernie Saunders speaks for the majority of the American People; Dennis Kucinich perhaps. Russ Feingold. The next question then is who is listening to those who speak for the majority of the American People? Well, there again, no one. The MSM is not listening to them. Do you see them on the Sunday talking head programs? Do you read about them in YOUR newspaper? As much as I dislike; I mean I really dislike agreeing with Richard Nixon but, we, progressives all, have become the SILENT MAJORITY. We are not organized, we have no leaders, we have no advocates with power yet we represent the majority view in America. We want a strong public option; we want tough regulation of markets; we want a return of Glass-Steagle; we want a rollback of the Bush tax cuts; we want the criminals in the Bush administration tried for the crimes against humanity that they perpetrated; we want our justice system to apply to ALL EQUALLY. We need, more than having someone speak for us, to stand up and speak for ourselves because truth be told, no one else is going to do it.
Fiscal solvency
Been saying for years - just "unlimit" cap on deductions for FICA and make the rich pay for ALL remuneration in form of taxes and FICA and there would be no deficit in 5 years.
However, the squeeling from the top 10% would be deafening - I can stand it, can you?
Repeat it often enough.....
Nearly every time a Republican congressman opens his or her mouth, we hear the words, "the American people" , "hardworking Americans", and "passing debt to our children and grandchildren". The last time I checked, the Republicans were a major minority. They repeat, repeat, repeat the same message, believing that if something is repeated often enough, people will believe it to be true. I am an American person, and the Republicans do not speak for me, contrary to what they contend.