R.P. Barr

Questions for Presidential & Congressional Candidates

Budget cuts are coming, I’m reconciled to that.  However, I am weary of all the talk about how many trillions/billions, etc. will be involved.  I want to know the real numbers.  Anyone who advocates big cuts should be able to provide the real numbers.  The U.S. government has the best statisticians in the world and can count and predict almost anything.

So, Mr/Ms Candidate, tell me, what is the cost of your program in human lives?  How many careers and businesses will be ruined by your layoffs, and cutbacks in government purchases?  How many foreclosures will that involve? How many divorces?  How many students will not get higher education due to your cuts?  What will that do to their futures and their future families?  How many crimes will be committed for want of preventive measures?  How many crimes will go undetected and unenforced?  How much public corruption will occur for the same reasons?  How many people will be injured or made ill because safeguards and regulators are taken away?  Let’s make it simple.  How many people are expected to die for want of medical care, or workplace safety enforcement, or of pollution related cancers, or suicides or murders by the economically desperate?  What is the anticipated body count?

Please, put all this dollars talk into terms I can understand.  I don’t give a damn how many rings around the earth one could make with hundred dollar bills.  Cuts must be made.  Whether large or small, people will die as a result, just as some die now for want of more spending.  That’s reality.  Show some courage.    Tell us the real numbers.

Please Terminate Abortion

Understanding why President Obama threw the D.C. budget under the bus does not make it right.  He had to give the Republicans some meat in order to prevent a government shutdown and D.C. was better than the whole country.

That’s what happens when you have no representation in the body that decides how you spend your money. 

 There were three major provisions:  School vouchers don’t bother me, but using them or not is a local issue, not a matter for Congress. 

 Stopping the clean needle exchang program, however, is stupid, fiscally irresponsible, and morally reprehensible.  The program works.  It slows the spread of HIV/AIDS.  That not only keeps junkies alive—not that I care about them—but it helps prevent HIV from contaminating our blood supply and spreading into the wider community.  This is an epidemic, people.  You are either against AIDS, or you are for it.  The Republicans are evidently for it.  Plus, when the victims wind up in the hospital, guess who pays for their long and expensive treatment?  We do.

And then there are abortions—again. 

 Let me begin by saying that I am opposed to abortion on moral grounds.  There is no point at which life begins.  It began millions of years ago and it continues passing from one generation to another through the union of a live sperm and a live egg.  It does not rise from anything dead or inert.

 If this were a perfect world of two billion well-fed people, I would fight for that principle.  That ain’t the case.  Of course, if Congressman Ryan gets control of health care, we will move in that direction.

 I am in favor of birth control.  The reason is that sex does not always result in pregnancy.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs die for every one that is fertilized.  Millions, if not billions, of sperm also die for want of a safe harbor.  Blocking a few more is hardly going to make a difference.

 I believe that women should have control over their bodies, and, tragedy aside, I have no problem with a carefully considered suicide.  Abortion, however, means killing someone else.

 That is where the hypocrisy comes in.  Abortion is legally not the same thing as murder.  The pro-lifers don’t advocate life in prison for women who have abortions.  The person who hires a killer is as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger.  Those who assist in the crime are accomplices.  There is no proposed legislation to prosecute doctors, nurses, pharmacists, nurses aids, the women who hire them, the parent/friend/lover who provides money or transportation or who had prior knowledge, etc.

 Under the law, a fetus is not quite a true human being, because killing him/her is not quite murder.

 Let’s set punishment aside.  Most abortions are for economic reasons.  A very few are due to rape or incest. A few more are for the health of the mother.  The rest are because the woman—single or married—is not in a position to care for a child (or another one).

 If my daughter had become pregnant as a teenager, I would have raised the baby to free her to go to college and start a career.  There would also have been a rather stern admonition to not do it again. What about the girl without that kind of support?  The best way to prevent abortions is to provide pre- and post-natal health care, a dozen or so years of day care, health care, education, and whatever else it takes. Guarantee the newly pregnant woman a future as bright with a child as without, and the rate of abortions will drop way down.

 The pro-life crowd won’t do that because they think it would encourage young women to have babies for the money, and, they certainly don’t want to encourage new life.  Especially if it costs them anything.  Babies are God's way of punishing promiscuity.  And, that is how you spell hypocrisy.

 A couple days ago, Lashanda Armstrong, 25, who had had babies instead of abortions, drove her minivan into the Hudson River, deliberately drowning herself and three of her four children.  Ten-year-old  Lashaun, the eldest, rolled down a window just in time and swam to safety.  Ms Armstrong, according to her neighbors, had been a good mother, but she had reached the end of her rope.  Being a single mother was just too damn hard in this economy.  She felt there was nowhere to turn.

 When the Republicans and Tea Partiers and Conservative Christians begin to take care of the Lashanda Armstrongs of this country, then I will join them on the pro-life picket line.  Until then, please, shut up.

 

Fixing the deficit--part two

Paul Ryan is from Wisconsin.  I’m not sure what that means, but I’m glad he isn’t from my state--or any other state where I’ve lived or worked.  I don’t want that association.  At least he is the first to talk about the deficit using real numbers.  I'll give him credit for that.

 A few weeks ago, I wrote that the key to reducing the deficit to a manageable number was to tackle health care costs [Fixing the deficit—part one--March 8, 2011].  The Ryancare plan also puts Medicare/Medicaid front and center but the way he does it is sort of like reducing logging by burning down the forest.

 Personally, I want more disposable income.  After my mortgage, the biggest bite is health insurance and its deductibles.  I don’t care whether the premiums go to insurance company A, or company B, or if they go to an increase in taxes, as long as the total is reduced, AND I still have adequate coverage.  --Ryan and the Republicans want to see taxes reduced regardless of what it does to your--and my--pocketbooks.

 The reason is simple.  Rich people pay a disproportionate share of the taxes.  They want to pay less.  No matter that they also rake in a disproportionate share of the income, that’s beside the point.  From their point of view they are paying a lot of money so that the government can regulate their businesses and make them pay even more to install sprinklers in buildings, and buy hard hats for workers, and stop them from dumping toxic sludge in rivers, etc.  They feel besieged.  No wonder that they look toward India and China where the rich are rich and the poor work until they drop.

 That’s why Ryancare features the destruction of Medicare/Medicaid.  Replace the government bureaucracy with a private one.  Put all that tax money into insurance company dividends and executive bonuses.  Medical costs will continue to rise, but the government’s share will rise at half that--according to current projections.  Retirees will pick up the ever-increasing difference.  That’s not sustainable.  To make it work, the insurance companies will reduce coverage, resulting in an increased death rate which will reduce the number of people who need assistance.  How’s that for a win-win?

If you want to reduce the growth of Medicare/Medicaid, you have to address the reasons for the rise in medical costs.  First, require everyone to have either private medical coverage or government coverage.  Everyone.  Medical care professionals can either work in the private sector and receive no government funds, or they can work for the government on straight salary.  Why?  Because the fee-for-service system is probably the biggest driver of the rising cost of medical care.  

 Medicare/Medicaid will set up their own hospital and clinic system on the Veterans Affairs model--which is quite efficient.  Then, as the biggest user of medication and medical products, the government can use their clout to get the best prices.  

 Do we need another super agency?  The current system encourages runaway costs.  Market forces don’t work with health care.  There has to be some method of control.

In order to reduce the costs related to illness, Medicare/Medicaid can emphasize preventive care.  And, with the full weight of the government behind them, Medicare/Medicaid can regulate practices that lead to illness and accident.  For instance, require bars and road houses to collect the car keys of customers who enter and return them only after  passing a breathalyzer test.  Politicians who want to reduce the budget will put physical education back in the schools K to12. 

 Insurance companies can’t mandate safer products.  They can only raise the rates to cover the consequences of bad choices, and environmental hazards.  You and I have to pay for the excesses of other people with no recourse at all.  But, with our elected representatives in charge we can exercise some power.  --And reduce the deficit. 

 

Fixing the deficit--part one

Everybody seems to be talking about the deficit—which is huge--and then arguing about nickle-and-dime spending which won’t make a difference.  Sure a hundred million sounds like a lot of money, and it would certainly make a difference in my life style, but in the ocean of federal debt and spending, it wouldn’t fill a teacup.

 Ready for some numbers?  The national debt at the end of the third quarter of 2010 (that’s “Q3” in econo-speak) was $14,700,000,000,000,000.00 more or less a few billion.  We can call it 14.7 trillion. 

 The federal budget for discretionary spending in FY2010 was $1.3 trillion.  That sure sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?  If we want to pay off the national debt in 10 years, we can cancel ALL descretionary spending and we’re  still a trillion point seven short—give or take a few billion.

 What’s included in this “discretionary spending?”  Well, $815 billion was for defence and security—stuff that even conservatives don’t want to cut.  The rest ($485 billion) is for air traffic controllers, public health, weather satellites, national parks, printing money, etc.  If we chuck all of that stuff, we can pay off the debt in a little more than 30 years—not counting the growing interest on the debt.

 Mandatory spending in FY2010 was $2 trillion, a much easier amount to calculate.  This was composed of $715 billion for Social Security, $451 billion for Medicare, $275 billion for Medicaid, and $515 billion for miscellaneous (like Unemployment, Food Stamps, Child Nutrition, Supplemental Security for the Blind and Disabled, Student Loans, Retirement and Disability for Civil Servants, the Military, and the Coast Guard.)

 [In the interests of transparency and full disclosure, I receive retirement benefits from this last category—and you better keep your hands off it!]

 After excluding my pension from consideration, it is easy to see that we will never get rid of the debt without 1. Increasing revenues, or 2. Cutting mandatory spending.

 Let’s look a little closer.  Social Security should not even be in this pot.  It is paid for by a separate tax, and if the tax had kept up with the times [see my blog “Dispatches from the Class War,” February 27, 2011] we would not have a problem with Social Security.  Likewise with civil service pensions.  We paid into them in good faith, and should get back what was promised.  The reason that the states are in trouble is because they did not fully fund the pensions as they were obliged to do.  Cowardly legislators and governors cut the funding to avoid looking for spending money elsewhere.

Medicare/Medicaid cost a total of $726 billion.  That isn’t all of our medical expenses, of course.  The military has hospitals, the Veterans Administration has hospitals, there are Worker’s Compensation expenses, etc.  And, this section of the budget is the fastest growing.  It won’t be long before it is double what we spend on non-military discretionary spending.

 I think that this is a good place to start looking for savings, or at least slow the increase to match the rest of the economy.  I plan to write about that later.

 Meanwhile, I would like to condemn the visionless economists who think the only way to make a profit in business or balance the government budget is to cut expenses.  We need to think like entrepreneurs, not bean counters.  We should always look to make economies, of course, but the only true way to fiscal responsibility is to increase revenues.  Does that mean raising taxes?  Not necessarily.  People who are dodging their fair share of the tax burden should be nailed to the wall, but more than that, I’m talking about generating more taxable income.  That is where the converation should be going.  Then, we can talk about the other stuff.

 

Selling our humanity

The current administration running the state of Virginia is trying to save money.  This is not only not a bad thing, it is a neccesity in these cash-strapped times. 

The governor wanted to sell off the monopoly that the state has in retail liquor sales.  Only state owned stores are allowed to sell booze.  This raises a lot of revenue.  It also raises the envy of private companies that are being shut out.  Selling the stores would raise some short term revenue, but would cost the state much more over ensuing years.  The governor has backed off that one for now.

 The Richmond gang is also reducing the size of the training centers for the intellectually disabled (ID).  One of the governor’s men said that the goal was to reduce the size until they were no longer economically viable, and then shut them altogether. Again, the state sees savings and private interests see profits.  The lobbyists for the elimination of state facilities say that government institutions are inherently bad and small, intimate group homes are always better.  But, it ain’t necessarily so.

There was a time when mental illness, and even epilepsy, were not acceptible in American society.  ID children, the ones with autism, Down’s syndrome, etc. were sent away and shut up in warehouses where they were not treated as well as livestock on farms.  Of course, that was before factory farms—but I digress.  There were a series of scandals.  Under intense pressure and scrutiny, state institutions improved greatly over the past few decades.  Some states got out of the business altogether.

As networks of privately run group houses grew, the natural antipathy toward state-run institutions became a well-financed movement.  And, in the Old Dominion state, it is in high gear.  Reporters are introduced to high-functioning individuals who talk about their jobs, and how they can go to the store by themselves, etc.  It sounds good.  Only an evil bureaucracy would want such endearing people shut away.

 They don’t show the less gifted ID individuals.  Many people with mental problems were also born with severe physical handicaps.  Some cannot speak, but only make vocal noises.  Many cannot walk or even sit up straight.  They have to be moved frequently to prevent bed sores.  I knew a young man whose face was perpetually stretched as if in surprise.  He could not close his mouth and had to have it sprayed with water to prevent it from drying out.  Folks at this end of the spectrum need attentive care around the clock.

 There are some “normal” people who wonder why we should spend anything on such unproductive, vegetative beings.  They haven’t met them.  These are people with a sense of self and an awareness of their surroundings.  And, unlike some Wall Street bankers, ID individuals do no harm.  Quite the contrary, they teach the rest of us lessons in humanity.

 State institutions have layer upon layer of oversight: local, federal, state and community. All records not restricted by privacy laws are open to inspection.  Because of the numbers in these facilities, they attract scrutiny.  Blemishes are blown up into scandals--and rightly so.  All it takes for evil to re-emerge is for people to look the other way.

 Community houses don’t have medical and psychiatric support in house.  They don’t have campuses where individuals can roam in safety.  If they lock an individual in his room, no-one knows.  If staff mistreats or steals they do so in relative secrecy.  Is this sort of misbehavior rampant?  Probably not. But, how would we know if it were?

 As for the savings, community houses have always taken those who were most capable and required the least maintenance, while state facilities took those who needed the most looking after.  It’s like the taxi companies saying that they are more economical than the bus companies because their vehicles get better mileage.

 Since those with disabilities cover a vast range of needs, I want to see choices.  Every one of them should be able to maximize the possiblities of life.  I would also like to see comparison studies.  Start with a simple mortality study.  Where do people with similar conditions live longer?  In state facilities or in private ones? Once the publicly run centers are gone, they won't be coming back.  Shouldn't there be some hard data to prove that change?

It would be nice to see at least one policy decided on science instead of by lobbyist donations.

 

New Years' Revolutions

For previous New Years I have tried my hand at predictions.  These turned out to be my lamest pieces of writing.  So, this year, I will simply say what I am looking forward to following.

 Primarily, I want to see how the Tea Party meets reality.  The new Republican-majority Congress is pretty much limited to two choices. 

 They can try to do what they promised.  But, unless the Democrats really want to self-destruct, their Senate majority will prevent any repeal of Health Care or anything else done in the last two years.  That will mean that the Republican House will spend its precious 20 months before the 2012 elections making noise and obstructing progress.  Possibly even shutting down the government.  That won’t look good. 

 Or, they can put off their agenda and try to accomplish something that they can take back to the voters.  But, that will alienate their base.

 The thing to remember is that the American people (a grossly overused phrase) are pragmatic.  That is why elections see-saw between parties.  There are a few head-in-the-sand ideologues who don’t care if the world goes to hell as long they don’t have to compromise.  But, most just want the people they elect to act like grown-ups and do their jobs.  Tea Party petulance and road blocking is not going to work.

 Depending on what the conservative House does, I wonder if this is the year that folks become aware of the real class war and begin to fight back.  That should not be either a liberal or a conservative cause.

 In 2006, Warren Buffet said, “There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class that's making war and we're winning.”  The rest of us are arguing over gay marriage and ignoring our losses.

 Look at the economic “recovery.”  The big corporations are awash in cash.  The banks and brokerages are handing out seven-figure bonuses to their executives.  And, the new Congress is threatening to choke off funding to the agencies that regulate job safety, customer safety, investment safety, and protect air/water/food from contamination.  Who will that benefit?

 Jobs are being created.  But, most of them are being created overseas.  Even when there is hiring here at home, how many unemployed people have you heard of who wound up in new jobs that paid as much or more than they were earning before?  So, even working people not reflected in the unemployment statistics are less able to spend what they did before.  Less spending means a slower economy.  Not that the multi-national corporations care, they’re making money in China.

Well, it’s the government’s fault.  We need to cut back.  Lay off governement workers.  Okay, let’s throw—hmmm, say—10,000 government workers onto the streets.  We’ve saved money, right? Except that now we have increased the unemployment roles by 10,000.  How many new jobs have we created?  How long before these layoffs result in new private sector hiring?

Suppose, on the other hand, that we kept these workers on the payroll and gave them each a paycheck this week.  What do you think they would do with it?  Is it possible that spending their salaries would help the economy?  The 10,000 would not default on their credit cards, or apply for unemployment and welfare, or go to the hospital because they don’t have insurance to pay their doctors, or lose their homes to foreclosure.

The governor of New Jersey recently announced a number of austerity measures that would impact state employees.  He said that the state was in trouble and that state workers should share the pain.  Sounds fair enough.  He did not say that taxes should be increased on the wealthiest New Jersey citizens—the ones who can best afford a hit.  No, because the rich not only don’t have to share the pain, they don’t have to be annoyed by those who do.

 You’ve probably heard that raising the taxes on the rich would not solve all of our problems. That may be true.  (I personally favor 50% tax on those earing $1 million or more and no deductions allowed—except charitable). But, giving the rich a break does not create jobs.  Look around.  Government spending does.  Let’s give it a try.  And, then spread the pain around.

 

Mark 12:17

The other day, I found a copy of the Washington Examiner and had a few minutes, so I flipped through it.  For those of you who live outside the Capitol Region, there are two free newspapers available in sidewalk boxes near most metro stations and on the sidewalks of D.C.  Actually, there are more than two, but the others are specialized and these are general news newspapers.  The Washington Post prints one of them, and the Washington Times prints the Examiner.  The Times was originally part of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s empire.  Both the Times and the Examiner have a decidedly conservative bent. 

 In this issue, there was the first of a three-part series on “Obamacare” by Sally Pipes.   The headline shouted, “Obamacare Will Cost You Your Retirement.”  Since I am pseudo-retired myself, I thought that I had better read it.  Turns out that she wasn’t addressing me, and wasn’t really alarmed about retirement plans.  Ms. Pipes was upset because the tax rate was going to be raised on people who made more than $200,000 ($250,000 for families). Increasing the taxes they pay by as much as 2.35 per cent at the upper end of the scale.

Now, a family income of $250,000 is well over twice what I show on my joint return.  And, if someone were to offer me double my income in exchange for an agreement to pay an additional 2, 3 or even 5% in my tax rate, my only question would be: where do I sign up?  I know people who live without complaint, if not without worry, on half of what I make.  Ask them if they would take a tax increase along with a  quarter of a million dollars annually.  I do not share Ms. Pipes’ distress.

 Last week, the Congress voted down a bill that would have provided relief for medical bills experienced by the 9/11 first responders.  The reason for the defeat was that Republicans did not want to pay for it by closing a tax loophole for foreign corporations that made money in the U.S. 

 The very word “tax” seems to set off alarm bells among the political right.  Abortion is old hat.  We can’t provide medical care for children because it might increase taxes.  We can’t protect the environment.  We can’t provide for the elderly.

The military, on the other hand, is a worthwhile expense.  We shouldn’t question the billions that are not accounted for in Iraq.  We shouldn’t enforce the law on military contractors who rape American coworkers overseas, or murder foreign civilians.  Military waste—whether monetary or human--is patriotic.

 The United States has reputation for fairness.  Among all the countries of the world, this one was founded not on ethnicity, but on ideals, on principles of law and equality.  Anyone from anywhere can become a citizen here—if they follow the rules.  The glory that is—or was—the American middle class was due to the triumph of labor unions and fair labor laws.  A worker could make a decent living here.

But, in the past few years, this country has lost its way.  We’ve been confused by terrorism, subverted by greed, and corrupted by religions that have abandoned their origins.

 Christianity is nominally the dominant faith.  How often do religious spokespersons cite the lesson of dividing the bread and fish of a few to feed the multitudes?  Or the lesson on taxes, which was to render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s?  You can't take it with you.

 A handful of American billionaires seems to have remembered that bit about a rich man having less chance of getting into heaven than a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle.  Of course they could have reduced their wealth by charging less for their products, or foregone moving their operations offshore.  But, taking the good where I find it, I feel a little better about typing this on Microsoft Word.

Health Care Blues

This has been a busy news week, and the biggest story was buried beneath all of the noise. Did you read that in California, WellPoint Inc., one of the top five health insurers, announced a premium hike of 39%? 

WellPoint claims that in this economy, their healthier clients are dropping their insurance (or heading for cheaper policies with other companies) and leaving them with a sicker pool of customers. This costs them more and so they have to raise rates. 

Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that a public option for health insurance is dead, and overall reform is on life support. 

 I was tempted to say I told you so, but then I read an article on toledoBlade.com [http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100212/NEWS32/2120342] Apparently, the top five health insurance companies, including WellPoint, had a profit in 2009 of $12.2 billion. That’s up 56% from 2008. This is in spite of the fact that they are insuring fewer people. The big five have also managed to shift more of their operating funds away from paying for client health care to salaries, administrative expenses, and profits. Think about that. They lose the healthier clients and pay out less for the sick ones who stay. That’s some kind of management. 

 But, look on the bright side. Taxes won’t be going for a bureacracy that gets between you and your doctor. 

If you want to know how such a bureaucracy would work, I direct your attention to an article a couple weeks ago on BBC’s web site about a health care problem in UK. It seems that the bean counters for the country’s national health system noted that British citizens spend a lot of time in pubs, where they often drink to excess and get rowdy. This leads to substantial health care expense, mostly due to contact with broken pub glasses. 

With the weight of government behind an effort to reduce these injuries, British glass makers have come up with non-breakable pub glasses. 

 In this country, it took insurance companies years to get the government to mandate seat belts in cars. That is the difference. Government can reduce medical costs through regulations. The feared “death panels” would never happen. Can you imagine being a Congressman and having to deal with all the letters, phone calls, emails, twitters, etc. that would come from an agency’s decisions to let some people die. Insurance companies shrug off those complaints daily, but elected officials couldn’t. They would, on the other hand, have a real incentive to make things safer.  --But, it's not going to happen.

 So, if you know any young people uncertain about their career paths, steer them toward insurance or banking where—if they get to upper management—they will be able to afford health care. That’s the future.

Predictions Past and Future

Here we are in a new decade.  If you want to feel old, try this:  I was born in the 1940’s, so I have seen the ‘40’s, the ‘50’s, the ‘60’s, the ‘70’s, the ‘80’s, the ‘90’s, the Oughts, and now the Tens.  Count ‘em, that’s 8 decades.  If I were really 80, however, I would have to have been born in 1930.  What fun!

 Anyway, this is a time to look back, and forward.  Last January, I predicted that the world’s bad actors would test our new president.  That hasn’t really happened.  Mostly, the current class of dictators seems to have taken a wait-and-see attitude, and quietly gone about their business. 

 As Obama contemplated an Afghan surge, the Yemeni al-Qaeda prepared a retaliatory attack, which was launched this past Christmas.  As assaults go, it was pretty pitiful.  No-one seems to have pointed it out, but the skivvies bomber proved that the system works.  After all, he did not carry a big bomb in his suitcase, like in Lockerbie.  He wasn’t a well-trained terrorist like the 9/11 crew.  And he had to struggle with a do-it-yourself timer, unlike nearly every other al-Qaeda bomber.  The current restrictions made the job so difficult, that Umar Etc. failed.

 Should the intel have been better?  Sure, but remember that the only reason we had anything on him at all was because his father phoned in a warning.  As far as his al-Qaeda handler’s knew, Umar had a clean record. 

 My prediction for 2010 is that they will try again.  This time they will have someone whose father did not call the American Embassy, and who will fly from a neutral country--not the infamous 14.  If they are smart, they will do it before the new screening machines are deployed, or they will find a way to beat the machines.  It won’t be hard and won’t take any new technology.

Last year, I noted that Israel jumped into Gaza before the new American president had a chance to object.  In 2010, Israel will continue their land grab in the West Bank and Jerusalem.  The Palestinians may not fire any rockets into Israel this year, but there will be no lasting peace until the issue of land is fairly decided.

 Russia has continued moving away from democracy.  Did you read about the election in which the entire town of an opposition candidate voted for his opponent?  The entire town.  100% of the votes.  That means that the candidate and his family also voted for the ruling party candidate.  A result that would make Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai blush.

 Ukraine will hold presidential elections this month and their incumbent, Viktor Yushchenko is unlikely to make the runoffs.  The front runners are the runners-up in the last election.  While ordinary Ukrainians are disgusted by all three, Russia will be pleased with either one.  I predict Yulia Tymoshenko will prevail.

Last January, I also predicted a number of mad dog attacks on Obama.  Has there ever been a time in our previous history when prominent spokesmen preferred damage to our country over success by an opponent?

 At least, we will get a health care bill passed that will cause millions to be insured who are now doing without.  Lives will be saved.  Without a public option, however, health costs will not go down.  And, unless the costs go down, we will all be bankrupted—or do without medical care.  I see health care costs as another bubble that will burst—but, probably not this year.

I would like to see legislation that will rein in Wall Street and reinstitute the restrictions that were there before.  But, it won’t happen.  The next banking crisis is already being developed.  Give it a couple years.  Meanwhile, you might reflect that unregulated American bankers did more damage to the U.S. and the world than all the combined terrorist attacks since 1776.  Will this be the year when we learn what we should really be afraid of?

Dependency

The facility where I work supports and provides for people with profound physical and mental disabilities.  I am in the admin side of the house, but I went to the Halloween party to feel like a part of the things.  Watching our clients having a good time was a remarkable tonic for me, for the staff, and for the volunteers who came to help out.  Not all of our folks are capable of smiling or laughing, but by having seen those individuals in their daily routines, I could tell by their posture—either more alert or more relaxed—and by their movements--in time with the music, etc.--that they were enjoying the evening.  Some of them had selected and worn costumes.  It was magical.  While I am speaking in the aggregate—for the sake of privacy—I remember the individuals.  There was the woman dressed like a princess who strutted around so proudly, the flapper who just liked being dressed up and told how pretty she looked, the guy in the sorcerer’s robe who proudly introduced himself to everyone—their personalities were as much on display as their costumes.

The evening brought to mind a recent letter-to-the-editor I saw online.  The writer complained about being “obligated” to pay his hard-earned money to provide care for other people.  The people in my facility depend on tax dollars for their survival, and they put as much effort into their activities as anyone who is paid a wage.  But, that’s not the point.  The disabled require more hands-on, up-close-and-personal care, but they are not the only ones in need of public services that they cannot afford on their own.

I wake up in the morning in time to get to work because my clock radio turns on automatically.  And, it does that because electricity comes to my home 24-hours.  I can rely on it, and not just because I pay my bill.  In other countries, electricity customers also pay their bills, but without government regulation and support, the power isn’t guaranteed.

 I crawl out of bed on my own, and go to the bathroom where the water comes out of the tap and will not inflict a horrible disease if I brush my teeth with it.  When I get dressed, I know that my cottons are really cotton, the wool is really wool and if I ever buy anything with a designer label, I can be sure that it is not counterfeit.  Why?  Because I pay taxes and my neighbor does, too.  We take care of each other.

 My house did not fall down in last night’s storm because the builders adhered to government standards that were backed up with inspections.  I can afford my house because I have a government-backed mortgage. 

 My car is where I left it the night before, in part because I don’t buy cars that anyone wants to steal, and in part, because there are multiple layers of law enforcement that ensure my safety.  If you don’t want to pay taxes for my security, go to Mexico where you only have to pay for your own.  See which is cheaper.

 The air I breathe is as clean as it is because of government regulation and enforcement.  Visit a country without air quality regulations, someplace where you can feel the grease in the air, and then tell me that you don’t need the government to take care of you.

 We are all dependent.  There are places where taxes are low and services are non-existent.  Life expectancy is around 50 years and you have to hire guards to sit in front of your house at night.  Self-sufficiency and independence is a myth, and those who are the richest are the most dependent on government protections.

Every breath we take, every bite we eat, every mile we walk, drive or ride is made safer by government workers and tax dollars.  And, when an agency fails to meet expectations, we complain about it—vigorously.  That’s how dependent we are.

 So, why do we pay more for health care than any other country and still rank below the rest of the developed world in life expectancy and infant mortality?  Which agency is responsible for that? 

 Oh, wait, health care is provided by the private sector.  On a fee-for-service basis which means the more things a doctor can do to you the more he gets paid.  As long as he stays within the insurance company guidelines.  And, if you get better, that’s nice, too.