"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election". ~ Warren Buffett
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of
twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office
and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All
funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security
system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system,
and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for
any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans
do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay
will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the
same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American
people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen
made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor,
not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours
should serve their term's), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree with the above, pass it on.
(Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.)
*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*
Showing posts with label tax dollars at work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax dollars at work. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, September 01, 2011
The Case for Wasteful (Government) Spending
Government waste is like the weather. Everyone talks about it but no one really does anything about it. I suspect that no one does anything about it because what constitutes wasteful government spending is such a subjective thing. Just as the old saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so it is that one man’s wasteful spending is another man’s necessary investment. As with so many things, the definition depends on your point of view.
This is not to say that government spending couldn’t be done more effectively or efficiently or that it isn’t possible to get more bang for the buck. Without doubt, our government could certainly get more bang for the buck in many cases.
But let’s examine a concrete instance. Let’s take Medicare Part D as a starting point. It was enacted as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) and went into effect on January 1, 2006. (I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to figure out who controlled Congress in 2003.)
By the design of the program, the federal government, by law, is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as other federal agencies do in other programs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D. For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year's supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the Veterans Administration (VA) pays $520.
From the point of view of the tax payer, the difference between what the drug companies are charging the government Medicare program and what they charge the VA could easily be defined as wasteful spending. However, from the point of view of the drug companies who lobbied for the provision and the congressional legislators who supported the measure, it’s extremely important to protect the profitability of the drug companies. So, whether or not Medicare spending $265 more than the VA for the same medication is wasteful is a function of which side your on … the tax payers’ side or on the side of corporations.
That spending difference was enacted into law and, because it is the law passed by Congress, no one in the administration of Medicare can do anything about it without breaking the law. However, those in the administration of the Medicare program certainly get the blame for being inefficient and ineffective and wasteful.
The $4 billion worth of medical-related fraud the feds recaptured in 2010 is presumably a fraction of the taxpayer-subsidized scams that the pharma and health care providers got away with. The Top Ten Federal False Claims Act settlements in 2010 involved health care, with pharmaceutical company fraud accounting for eight.
Was the $4 billion a waste of taxpayer’s money? Most people would agree that it was. However, the obvious solution to some is to cut the Medicare program with the consequence that fewer government employees are available to investigate false claims … because it’s paying government employees that’s the wasteful spending?
But there’s a even bigger point. When talking about wasteful spending people seem to argue from the point of view that what they consider wasteful spending is basically putting money into a rocket ship and blasting it off into outer space. The fact of the matter is that even “wasteful” spending is money that, through the government purchases of goods and services, gets circulated throughout the economy. The money that isn’t captured as corporate profits (think $600 toilet seats) goes to pay people to manufacture those products or perform those services.
All systems have waste. Waste cannot be eliminated. At best, it can be controlled.
When we talk about wasteful spending in government, it might be a good idea to ask “compared to what?” For example, the internal combustion engine that powers your car has an efficiency rating on the order of 18% to 20%. That means that between 18% and 20% of the energy released from .the burning of fuel in the engine is used to propel the car down the road. The remaining 80% of the energy is released as heat and is dissipated into the atmosphere, accomplishing nothing. By contrast, Medicare a government program, considered by some to be very inefficient, provides a decent standard of health care for approximately 45 million Americans with only a 3% administrative cost (that could be analogous to the useless heat from your car engine) while 97% of its funds go to directly to individual health care (excluding fraud as mentioned above, of course).
But that’s not comparing apples to apples. So lets compare the Medicare 3% administrative cost to the 15% to 20% administrative cost associated with private health care providers. Incidentally, you can add corporate wasteful spending on top of that (interminable staff meetings that accomplish nothing, for example, because someone has to pay all those employees who attend for their time).
The take away from all of this is that government waste is subjective. It is a favorite hobby horse ridden by those who oppose anything that resembles a government program … while they neglect to mention that they were the ones who created the waste.
This is not to say that government spending couldn’t be done more effectively or efficiently or that it isn’t possible to get more bang for the buck. Without doubt, our government could certainly get more bang for the buck in many cases.
But let’s examine a concrete instance. Let’s take Medicare Part D as a starting point. It was enacted as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) and went into effect on January 1, 2006. (I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to figure out who controlled Congress in 2003.)
By the design of the program, the federal government, by law, is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as other federal agencies do in other programs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D. For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year's supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the Veterans Administration (VA) pays $520.
From the point of view of the tax payer, the difference between what the drug companies are charging the government Medicare program and what they charge the VA could easily be defined as wasteful spending. However, from the point of view of the drug companies who lobbied for the provision and the congressional legislators who supported the measure, it’s extremely important to protect the profitability of the drug companies. So, whether or not Medicare spending $265 more than the VA for the same medication is wasteful is a function of which side your on … the tax payers’ side or on the side of corporations.
That spending difference was enacted into law and, because it is the law passed by Congress, no one in the administration of Medicare can do anything about it without breaking the law. However, those in the administration of the Medicare program certainly get the blame for being inefficient and ineffective and wasteful.
The $4 billion worth of medical-related fraud the feds recaptured in 2010 is presumably a fraction of the taxpayer-subsidized scams that the pharma and health care providers got away with. The Top Ten Federal False Claims Act settlements in 2010 involved health care, with pharmaceutical company fraud accounting for eight.
Was the $4 billion a waste of taxpayer’s money? Most people would agree that it was. However, the obvious solution to some is to cut the Medicare program with the consequence that fewer government employees are available to investigate false claims … because it’s paying government employees that’s the wasteful spending?
But there’s a even bigger point. When talking about wasteful spending people seem to argue from the point of view that what they consider wasteful spending is basically putting money into a rocket ship and blasting it off into outer space. The fact of the matter is that even “wasteful” spending is money that, through the government purchases of goods and services, gets circulated throughout the economy. The money that isn’t captured as corporate profits (think $600 toilet seats) goes to pay people to manufacture those products or perform those services.
All systems have waste. Waste cannot be eliminated. At best, it can be controlled.
When we talk about wasteful spending in government, it might be a good idea to ask “compared to what?” For example, the internal combustion engine that powers your car has an efficiency rating on the order of 18% to 20%. That means that between 18% and 20% of the energy released from .the burning of fuel in the engine is used to propel the car down the road. The remaining 80% of the energy is released as heat and is dissipated into the atmosphere, accomplishing nothing. By contrast, Medicare a government program, considered by some to be very inefficient, provides a decent standard of health care for approximately 45 million Americans with only a 3% administrative cost (that could be analogous to the useless heat from your car engine) while 97% of its funds go to directly to individual health care (excluding fraud as mentioned above, of course).
But that’s not comparing apples to apples. So lets compare the Medicare 3% administrative cost to the 15% to 20% administrative cost associated with private health care providers. Incidentally, you can add corporate wasteful spending on top of that (interminable staff meetings that accomplish nothing, for example, because someone has to pay all those employees who attend for their time).
The take away from all of this is that government waste is subjective. It is a favorite hobby horse ridden by those who oppose anything that resembles a government program … while they neglect to mention that they were the ones who created the waste.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
A Basic Math Lesson
"The GDP equation has four variables (long-time readers, please be kind. I'm talking to Washington here and they are stupid): C (consumer spending) + I (gross private investment) + X (net exports) + G (government spending). Right now, the consumer is OK but not great, investment is fair, but not great and the US is a net importer, so that subtracts from growth. That leaves government spending."
My comment: An economy is value (money) in motion. If the private industry is not spending (it's deleveraging or paying down debt), consumer spending is off (joblessness tends to do that) and we're a net importer (see the trade deficit), what do you suppose will happen to the economy if government spending is put on an austerity basis with draconian cuts in spending?
Cutting government spending slows the movement of value. Government spending (even wasteful spending) is not putting money in a rocket ship and blasting it into outer space. Government spending contributes to moving value (money) within the economy.
If you're sorta liberal, if you're a rational conservative, if your opinions are formed by facts, then read the article. If you're a Tea Potty supporter, don't bother. We already know that facts don't matter to you and that anything longer than a bumper sticker is too long for your ADD to navigate.
My comment: An economy is value (money) in motion. If the private industry is not spending (it's deleveraging or paying down debt), consumer spending is off (joblessness tends to do that) and we're a net importer (see the trade deficit), what do you suppose will happen to the economy if government spending is put on an austerity basis with draconian cuts in spending?
Cutting government spending slows the movement of value. Government spending (even wasteful spending) is not putting money in a rocket ship and blasting it into outer space. Government spending contributes to moving value (money) within the economy.
If you're sorta liberal, if you're a rational conservative, if your opinions are formed by facts, then read the article. If you're a Tea Potty supporter, don't bother. We already know that facts don't matter to you and that anything longer than a bumper sticker is too long for your ADD to navigate.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Deficits, Debts and Taxes
The deficit, which has everyone freaked out, is running about 10% of GDP. The people who are freaking out seem to forget that in 1942, government spending created a deficit on the order of 30% of GDP in the ramp up for our full and active participation in WWII. (The Debt in 1942 was about 120% of GDP while current Debt is about 110%.) In 1943, government spending was not significantly lower (as a percentage of GDP) than in 1942.
People like to say that WWII got us out of the Depression, and it did ... but it wasn't Hitlers spending that did the trick ... it was our government spending that fired up our ship yards; it was our government spending that converted The American Seating Company in Grand Rapids, MI from making folding chairs and cast iron theater seat frames to making B-17 bombers. Our government spending paid (through military orders) for companies to hire hundreds of thousands of people - nay! millions of people - who in turn bought groceries, shoes and clothing from local merchants causing them to hire more clerical help, causing the merchants to place more orders with their suppliers which caused their suppliers to hire more workers to produce more goods ... because there was demand. I wonder how a Balanced Budget Amendment would have worked out for us if it had been passed in 1941. How's your German? Japanese?
By 1946, at the end of the war, the deficit that had been running at 25-30% of GDP reversed and became a surplus - because government spending at previous levels was no longer necessary and GDP had increased astronomically. We became a manufacturing powerhouse and an export giant in a world where all of our competitors had been devestated. The deficit had moved to surplus in the space of less than a year. Eisenhower used that surplus to initiate the Interstate Highway System in the early 1950s. He used to people's money to do something for the common good, something that benefited individuals and corporations and still does to this day. (Incidentally, one of the specifications of the Interstate Highway System was that it could double as landing space for military aircraft in the event the threat from the USSR came home to visit us. Ever wonder why those Interstate lanes are separated from each other as much as they are throughout the country?)
I find it interesting to hear so many so-called Conservatives long for those simpler, idyllic days of the 1950s and 1960s when there was full employment and dad made enough money from his job that he could buy an affordable house while mom stayed home and took care of their 2.3 kids. They long for those wonderful days when inflation was less than 3% and there was a job for anyone that wanted one.
I find myself asking, why are they so reluctant to support a tax structure that made those days possible?
People like to say that WWII got us out of the Depression, and it did ... but it wasn't Hitlers spending that did the trick ... it was our government spending that fired up our ship yards; it was our government spending that converted The American Seating Company in Grand Rapids, MI from making folding chairs and cast iron theater seat frames to making B-17 bombers. Our government spending paid (through military orders) for companies to hire hundreds of thousands of people - nay! millions of people - who in turn bought groceries, shoes and clothing from local merchants causing them to hire more clerical help, causing the merchants to place more orders with their suppliers which caused their suppliers to hire more workers to produce more goods ... because there was demand. I wonder how a Balanced Budget Amendment would have worked out for us if it had been passed in 1941. How's your German? Japanese?
By 1946, at the end of the war, the deficit that had been running at 25-30% of GDP reversed and became a surplus - because government spending at previous levels was no longer necessary and GDP had increased astronomically. We became a manufacturing powerhouse and an export giant in a world where all of our competitors had been devestated. The deficit had moved to surplus in the space of less than a year. Eisenhower used that surplus to initiate the Interstate Highway System in the early 1950s. He used to people's money to do something for the common good, something that benefited individuals and corporations and still does to this day. (Incidentally, one of the specifications of the Interstate Highway System was that it could double as landing space for military aircraft in the event the threat from the USSR came home to visit us. Ever wonder why those Interstate lanes are separated from each other as much as they are throughout the country?)
I find it interesting to hear so many so-called Conservatives long for those simpler, idyllic days of the 1950s and 1960s when there was full employment and dad made enough money from his job that he could buy an affordable house while mom stayed home and took care of their 2.3 kids. They long for those wonderful days when inflation was less than 3% and there was a job for anyone that wanted one.
I find myself asking, why are they so reluctant to support a tax structure that made those days possible?
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Be a Budget Hero!
Think you might do better than President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in picking and choosing what government spending to cut — or taxes to raise — to stave off a debt showdown that could wreck the economy? A new computer game gives you, too, the chance to play "Budget Hero."
"Budget Hero 2.0" is an update of an original version that came out in 2008. It shows players just how difficult it might be to carry out their grand policy objectives — universal health care, extending the Bush tax cuts or ending foreign aid — and still keep the government from either becoming irrelevant, or going broke.
Read more at SFGate ...
"Budget Hero 2.0" is an update of an original version that came out in 2008. It shows players just how difficult it might be to carry out their grand policy objectives — universal health care, extending the Bush tax cuts or ending foreign aid — and still keep the government from either becoming irrelevant, or going broke.
Read more at SFGate ...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts
So it's come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper's supply-side tax cuts, announced that the "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts." The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply "disastrous."
Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. Of course, you'd never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.
Read up on the 10 Lies here ...
Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. Of course, you'd never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.
Read up on the 10 Lies here ...
Friday, April 23, 2010
Guns v. Butter 2010
See if you can identify the bleeding heart liberal who said this:
Noam Chomsky? Michael Moore? Bernie Sanders?
Nope, it was that unrepentant lefty, five-star general Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953, just a few months after taking office -- a time when the economy was booming and unemployment was 2.7 percent.
Read more about our priorities and how they work against us on Huffington Post after the click ...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Noam Chomsky? Michael Moore? Bernie Sanders?
Nope, it was that unrepentant lefty, five-star general Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953, just a few months after taking office -- a time when the economy was booming and unemployment was 2.7 percent.
Read more about our priorities and how they work against us on Huffington Post after the click ...
Friday, March 19, 2010
On Sunday, Will GOP be on Wrong Side of History ... Again?
Mark Green on Huffington Post
Republicans warn Democrats about the political downside if Obama-Pelosi win Sunday's vote on Health Care. Actually, it's the GOP that's in a lose-lose -- either the Democrats earn due credit for change or the public will blame the GOP for opposing major social breakthroughs as it so often has.
It's happening again, and for much the same reasons. At the brink of a major social advance, the GOP is standing at the doorway of history shouting STOP! Let the free market status quo continue to screw things up, is in effect the message. Whatever the short-term headlines and polls -- and probably a third of America will buy whatever anti-government rhetoric if offered -- there's a long-term cost to a party that's been so consistently on the wrong side of reform and reality.
Apparently there's a reason the GOP constantly has to refer back 150 years as "the party of Lincoln" given its track record since.
... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.
Republicans warn Democrats about the political downside if Obama-Pelosi win Sunday's vote on Health Care. Actually, it's the GOP that's in a lose-lose -- either the Democrats earn due credit for change or the public will blame the GOP for opposing major social breakthroughs as it so often has.
It's happening again, and for much the same reasons. At the brink of a major social advance, the GOP is standing at the doorway of history shouting STOP! Let the free market status quo continue to screw things up, is in effect the message. Whatever the short-term headlines and polls -- and probably a third of America will buy whatever anti-government rhetoric if offered -- there's a long-term cost to a party that's been so consistently on the wrong side of reform and reality.
Apparently there's a reason the GOP constantly has to refer back 150 years as "the party of Lincoln" given its track record since.
... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.
Monday, November 02, 2009
FACT CHECK: GOP Math Suspect In Stimulus Debate
Beware the math. Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama's stimulus package are using grade-school arithmetic to size up costs and consequences of all that spending. The math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading.
It goes like this: Divide the stimulus money spent so far by the estimated number of jobs saved or created. That produces a rather frightening figure on how much money taxpayers are spending for each job.
On Friday, the White House released estimates that $160 billion in stimulus spending created or preserved 650,000 direct jobs.
By the critics' calculations, that's over $246,000 a job – and a terrible deal for taxpayers. Why spend nearly $250,000 to employ a highway worker or a teacher making a small fraction of that?
The reality is more complex.
First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced.
Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output – a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid.
Read the rest on Huffington Post after the click
My comment: During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then Republican candidate, John McCain, experienced a stunning moment of truth telling when he admitted that economics was not his strong suit. (Presumably"Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" foreign policy is his strength.) Republican policies of deregulation on Wall Street, tax cuts for the rich and the off-shoring of American industry drove our economic buss into the ditch. Perhaps it's time for the whole right wing to admit that economics is just not their strong suit.
It goes like this: Divide the stimulus money spent so far by the estimated number of jobs saved or created. That produces a rather frightening figure on how much money taxpayers are spending for each job.
On Friday, the White House released estimates that $160 billion in stimulus spending created or preserved 650,000 direct jobs.
By the critics' calculations, that's over $246,000 a job – and a terrible deal for taxpayers. Why spend nearly $250,000 to employ a highway worker or a teacher making a small fraction of that?
The reality is more complex.
First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced.
Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output – a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid.
Read the rest on Huffington Post after the click
My comment: During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then Republican candidate, John McCain, experienced a stunning moment of truth telling when he admitted that economics was not his strong suit. (Presumably
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
How Health Care Stole Your Pay Raise
This amazing graph bouncing around the web is the most striking example of why health care reform isn't just about reforming care. It's about reforming the economy. New bumper sticker: "Reform Health Care; Get a Raise!"
... get the rest on The Atlantic website after the click.
My comment: Health Care is probably the most vital economic issue we face today. Our current system forces virtually every company in the United States to pay some sort of employee health care insurance. That cost of doing business channels directly in to the price of every manufactured good made in the USA ... adding a substantial cost to American made products that our international competitors don't have to pay. It makes foreign made goods more competitive than American made goods. I would think that every American conservative would get that ... but it seems it's beyond their short sighted thought processes.
... get the rest on The Atlantic website after the click.
My comment: Health Care is probably the most vital economic issue we face today. Our current system forces virtually every company in the United States to pay some sort of employee health care insurance. That cost of doing business channels directly in to the price of every manufactured good made in the USA ... adding a substantial cost to American made products that our international competitors don't have to pay. It makes foreign made goods more competitive than American made goods. I would think that every American conservative would get that ... but it seems it's beyond their short sighted thought processes.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Socalism rears its ugly head once again ...
from Bob Cesca
I'm calling upon Sean Hannity to use his prime time television program as a platform to rally Republican politicians, cable news hacks and citizens alike to refuse delivery of not just recovery bill spending, but all so-called "socialist" government programs. Send it all back. End American socialism now! All of it.
Refuse to send your kids to socialized public schools and universities; refuse to use socialized roads and highways; refuse to call upon socialized police and fire departments; shut down the socialized air traffic control; refuse to visit socialized national parks; tell grandma that her Social Security and Medicare will have to be sent back to the government; demand the immediate dismantling of our socialized American military. Sarah Palin and her supporters in Alaska should refuse all forms of "redistributed wealth" by sending back their checks from the socialized oil program there.
... more on this spectacularly patriotic, anti-socialist theme after the click.
My comment: Sadly, whenever people ban together and pool their resources for the common good ... that's socialism. No two ways about it. I'm sick and tired of all the Isms and the damned Ism Wars. The only Ism worth more than a fart with a lump in it is Pragmatism!
[Well, maybe not on second thought.]
I'm calling upon Sean Hannity to use his prime time television program as a platform to rally Republican politicians, cable news hacks and citizens alike to refuse delivery of not just recovery bill spending, but all so-called "socialist" government programs. Send it all back. End American socialism now! All of it.
Refuse to send your kids to socialized public schools and universities; refuse to use socialized roads and highways; refuse to call upon socialized police and fire departments; shut down the socialized air traffic control; refuse to visit socialized national parks; tell grandma that her Social Security and Medicare will have to be sent back to the government; demand the immediate dismantling of our socialized American military. Sarah Palin and her supporters in Alaska should refuse all forms of "redistributed wealth" by sending back their checks from the socialized oil program there.
... more on this spectacularly patriotic, anti-socialist theme after the click.
My comment: Sadly, whenever people ban together and pool their resources for the common good ... that's socialism. No two ways about it. I'm sick and tired of all the Isms and the damned Ism Wars. The only Ism worth more than a fart with a lump in it is Pragmatism!
[Well, maybe not on second thought.]
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Seton Hall Law: Department of Defense Wrong Again on Guantánamo “Recidivism”
In an example of your tax dollars at work:
Sourced: Seton Hall Law.
My comment: Every day that has passed since Nixon, it's become harder and harder to be an idealist.
The Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research has issued a report which rebuts and debunks the most recent claim by the Department of Defense (DOD) that “61, in all, former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight.”
Professor Denbeaux of the Center for Policy & Research has said that the Center has determined that “DOD has issued 'recidivism' numbers 43 times, and each time they have been wrong—this last time the most egregiously so.”
Denbeaux stated: “Once again, they’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo—much less were they released from there. They have counted people as 'returning to the fight' for their having written an Op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival. The DOD has revised and retracted their internally conflicting definitions, criteria, and their numbers so often that they have ceased to have any meaning—except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of the supposed dangers of these men.
"Forty-three times they have given numbers—which conflict with each other—all of which are seriously undercut by the DOD statement that 'they do not track' former detainees. Rather than making up numbers “willy-nilly” about post release conduct, America might be better served if our government actually kept track of them.”
Sourced: Seton Hall Law.
My comment: Every day that has passed since Nixon, it's become harder and harder to be an idealist.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Bush's Last Month Sees Unemployment Hit 22%
... According to Wingnuttia's Math
Per the discussion of the right-wing's new efforts to slander Franklin Roosevelt, note that though the Bureau of Labor Statistics today reports that the unemployment rate in President Bush's last month is 7.2 percent, if you use the same kind of absurd math conservatives use to berate the New Deal, then the unemployment today is actually around 22 percent.
As University of California historian Eric Rauchway has noted, Wingnuttia's leading FDR slanderers like Amity Shlaes and Thomas Sowell base their claims that unemployment during the New Deal didn't go below 20 percent by counting government workers as unemployed. And those claims are being echoed by right-wing rags like the National Review and fringe think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. I want to repeat that: conservatives base their claims that unemployment didn't drop below 20 percent during the pre-WWII New Deal not on the official government data showing otherwise, but by counting government workers in programs like the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps as unemployed.
So, in the interest of comparing apples to apples, it's important to remember that using the same ridiculous method of counting, the unemployment rate today is 22 percent. Officially, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the total workforce is 155.4 million workers, and says 11.1 million workers in that workforce are unemployed - a 7.2 percent unemployment rate. But when you add the 22.5 million workers who BLS says work for the government to the 11.1 million officially unemployed workers ...
... more from David Sirota after the click.
Per the discussion of the right-wing's new efforts to slander Franklin Roosevelt, note that though the Bureau of Labor Statistics today reports that the unemployment rate in President Bush's last month is 7.2 percent, if you use the same kind of absurd math conservatives use to berate the New Deal, then the unemployment today is actually around 22 percent.
As University of California historian Eric Rauchway has noted, Wingnuttia's leading FDR slanderers like Amity Shlaes and Thomas Sowell base their claims that unemployment during the New Deal didn't go below 20 percent by counting government workers as unemployed. And those claims are being echoed by right-wing rags like the National Review and fringe think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. I want to repeat that: conservatives base their claims that unemployment didn't drop below 20 percent during the pre-WWII New Deal not on the official government data showing otherwise, but by counting government workers in programs like the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps as unemployed.
So, in the interest of comparing apples to apples, it's important to remember that using the same ridiculous method of counting, the unemployment rate today is 22 percent. Officially, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the total workforce is 155.4 million workers, and says 11.1 million workers in that workforce are unemployed - a 7.2 percent unemployment rate. But when you add the 22.5 million workers who BLS says work for the government to the 11.1 million officially unemployed workers ...
... more from David Sirota after the click.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Bush's Accomplishments - Smaller Than Life
This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).
If this is the best case that even Bush and his handlers can make for his achievements, you wonder why they bothered. Desperate for padding, they devote four risible pages to portraying our dear leader as a zealous environmentalist.
But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage.
... the rest from Frank Rich after the click.
My comment: He was a stellar president ... if you ignore just about everything he did.
I remember some spirited debates with a good friend in the run up to the 2000 election. In actuality, neither of us could muster much enthusiasm for either candidate. We voted our separate ways ... both holding the opinion that it really didn't matter all that much. It seemed that Democrats and Republicans looked a lot alike at that point. The press threw its glowing support behind the smug little draft dodging frat boy and mocked the socially uptight intellectual to the extent that it was hard to distinguish fact from fiction. In the meantime, how much difference could one man make ... particularly in a democracy with checks and balances? Then I watched in "shock and awe" as the next eight years worth of news reels unfolded.
How wrong we were. One man can make a heck of a lot of difference ... particularly when the spin machine has half the population hood-winked ... twice over.
They say that history is written by the victor. Maybe that's not always the case. We are witnessing an attempt to write history ... by a consummate looser.
If this is the best case that even Bush and his handlers can make for his achievements, you wonder why they bothered. Desperate for padding, they devote four risible pages to portraying our dear leader as a zealous environmentalist.
But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage.
... the rest from Frank Rich after the click.
My comment: He was a stellar president ... if you ignore just about everything he did.
I remember some spirited debates with a good friend in the run up to the 2000 election. In actuality, neither of us could muster much enthusiasm for either candidate. We voted our separate ways ... both holding the opinion that it really didn't matter all that much. It seemed that Democrats and Republicans looked a lot alike at that point. The press threw its glowing support behind the smug little draft dodging frat boy and mocked the socially uptight intellectual to the extent that it was hard to distinguish fact from fiction. In the meantime, how much difference could one man make ... particularly in a democracy with checks and balances? Then I watched in "shock and awe" as the next eight years worth of news reels unfolded.
How wrong we were. One man can make a heck of a lot of difference ... particularly when the spin machine has half the population hood-winked ... twice over.
They say that history is written by the victor. Maybe that's not always the case. We are witnessing an attempt to write history ... by a consummate looser.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Primum Non Nocere — The McCain Plan for Health Insecurity
from The New England Journal of Medicine
by David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
The most important questions raised by the health care proposals of the presidential candidates concern their values and judgment. These will guide a new president through the tortuous, unpredictable process of leading health care change. The specifics of candidates' proposals matter. But more important is what health plans communicate about a prospective president's fundamental beliefs and character.
By this standard, John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in the grip of the ideology that animates the domestic policies of President George W. Bush. The central purpose of President Bush's health policy, and John McCain's, is to reduce the role of insurance and make Americans pay a larger part of their health care bills out of pocket. Their embrace of market forces, fierce antagonism toward government, and determination to force individuals to have more "skin in the game" are overriding — all other goals are subsidiary. Indeed, the Republican commitment to market-oriented reforms is so strong that, to attain their vision, Bush and McCain seem willing to take huge risks with the efficiency, equity, and stability of our health care system. Specifically, the McCain plan would profoundly threaten the current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), and leave the number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of the McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America's sickest citizens.
... the rest after the jump.
The article concludes:
The choice facing health care professionals, like all Americans, is basic: Who deserves to be trusted with the stewardship of America's health care system? The McCain proposal violates the bedrock principle that major health policy reforms should first do no harm. It would risk the viability of employer-sponsored insurance and the welfare of chronically ill Americans in pell-mell pursuit of a radical vision of consumer-driven health care. Senator McCain's plan does not demonstrate the kind of judgment needed in a potential commander in chief of our health care system.
(emphasis added)
by David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
The most important questions raised by the health care proposals of the presidential candidates concern their values and judgment. These will guide a new president through the tortuous, unpredictable process of leading health care change. The specifics of candidates' proposals matter. But more important is what health plans communicate about a prospective president's fundamental beliefs and character.
By this standard, John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in the grip of the ideology that animates the domestic policies of President George W. Bush. The central purpose of President Bush's health policy, and John McCain's, is to reduce the role of insurance and make Americans pay a larger part of their health care bills out of pocket. Their embrace of market forces, fierce antagonism toward government, and determination to force individuals to have more "skin in the game" are overriding — all other goals are subsidiary. Indeed, the Republican commitment to market-oriented reforms is so strong that, to attain their vision, Bush and McCain seem willing to take huge risks with the efficiency, equity, and stability of our health care system. Specifically, the McCain plan would profoundly threaten the current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), and leave the number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of the McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America's sickest citizens.
... the rest after the jump.
The article concludes:
The choice facing health care professionals, like all Americans, is basic: Who deserves to be trusted with the stewardship of America's health care system? The McCain proposal violates the bedrock principle that major health policy reforms should first do no harm. It would risk the viability of employer-sponsored insurance and the welfare of chronically ill Americans in pell-mell pursuit of a radical vision of consumer-driven health care. Senator McCain's plan does not demonstrate the kind of judgment needed in a potential commander in chief of our health care system.
(emphasis added)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
The US goes Bananas
Andrew Sullivan / Vanity Fair
In a statement on the huge state-sponsored salvage of private bankruptcy that was first proposed last September, a group of Republican lawmakers, employing one of the very rudest words in their party’s thesaurus, described the proposed rescue of the busted finance and discredited credit sectors as “socialistic.” There was a sort of half-truth to what they said. But they would have been very much nearer the mark—and rather more ironic and revealing at their own expense—if they had completed the sentence and described the actual situation as what it is: “socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the rest.”
I have heard arguments about whether it was Milton Friedman or Gore Vidal who first came up with this apt summary of a collusion between the overweening state and certain favored monopolistic concerns, whereby the profits can be privatized and the debts conveniently socialized, but another term for the same system would be “banana republic.”
... the rest after the click.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Priceless
from Steven Colbert
Priceless: Folks, everybody knows I’m a huge fan of market forces. It’s always bugged me when people say you can’t put a monetary value on human life. Of course you can!
That’s why I demand ransom for the release of my summer interns. Pay up, mom and dad!
Well, it turns out there is an exact monetary value of human life. It is a number calculated by government actuaries based on risk assessment and payroll figures that is used to decide whether life saving regulations are worth paying for. For example, let’s say there’s proposed legislation that will require inspecting possibly tainted Chinese shrimp. And, let’s further say that regulation would cost $100 million, and if you don’t inspect the shrimp, 100 people could die at a seafood restaurant.
Now, if you value…if you value those 100 people at a million dollars each, the benefit is equal to the cost, so the regulation’s worth it. But, if you value them at less than a million dollars each, well, the cost outweighs the benefit. Now, I happen to think—and this is just me—I happen to think tainted shrimp adds an element of danger to the appetizer course. It’s like skydiving with cocktail sauce.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency uses numbers like this to decide whether to regulate things like pollution. And five years ago, they estimated that a human life was worth $7.8 million, but recently they lowered that to $6.9 million dollars. That’s right, under the Bush administration, human life has become a million dollars cheaper. This…this is great news. Because the lower the value of human life, the less it pays to protect it with regulations. That might be why last week the EPA chose not to regulate greenhouse gases. It’s just not worth it with human life at such bargain basement prices.
But we can get those prices lower. By devaluing life, they’ve made it less likely to regulate water and air quality. And the worse the water and air quality get, the less life is worth living, which further devalues life, which makes it even less likely to regulate water and air quality. It’s like the circle of life. And that’s great, that’s great. You see, while they may have lowered the value of a person, the EPA has given us something worth a lot more. Because a human life: $6.9 million; gaming the system to protect industry from safety regulations: Priceless.
See also: American Life Worth Less Today
Priceless: Folks, everybody knows I’m a huge fan of market forces. It’s always bugged me when people say you can’t put a monetary value on human life. Of course you can!
That’s why I demand ransom for the release of my summer interns. Pay up, mom and dad!
Well, it turns out there is an exact monetary value of human life. It is a number calculated by government actuaries based on risk assessment and payroll figures that is used to decide whether life saving regulations are worth paying for. For example, let’s say there’s proposed legislation that will require inspecting possibly tainted Chinese shrimp. And, let’s further say that regulation would cost $100 million, and if you don’t inspect the shrimp, 100 people could die at a seafood restaurant.
Now, if you value…if you value those 100 people at a million dollars each, the benefit is equal to the cost, so the regulation’s worth it. But, if you value them at less than a million dollars each, well, the cost outweighs the benefit. Now, I happen to think—and this is just me—I happen to think tainted shrimp adds an element of danger to the appetizer course. It’s like skydiving with cocktail sauce.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency uses numbers like this to decide whether to regulate things like pollution. And five years ago, they estimated that a human life was worth $7.8 million, but recently they lowered that to $6.9 million dollars. That’s right, under the Bush administration, human life has become a million dollars cheaper. This…this is great news. Because the lower the value of human life, the less it pays to protect it with regulations. That might be why last week the EPA chose not to regulate greenhouse gases. It’s just not worth it with human life at such bargain basement prices.
But we can get those prices lower. By devaluing life, they’ve made it less likely to regulate water and air quality. And the worse the water and air quality get, the less life is worth living, which further devalues life, which makes it even less likely to regulate water and air quality. It’s like the circle of life. And that’s great, that’s great. You see, while they may have lowered the value of a person, the EPA has given us something worth a lot more. Because a human life: $6.9 million; gaming the system to protect industry from safety regulations: Priceless.
See also: American Life Worth Less Today
Monday, April 07, 2008
The Green Light
from a yet to be released book about the origins of torture in the Bush Administration
by Phillippe Sands / Vanity Fair
The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the “rendition” of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?
The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. At the heart of the matter stand several political appointees—lawyers—who, it can be argued, broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality, where formal investigation is now a very real option. This is the story of how the torture at Guantánamo began, and how it spread.
More after the click ...
My comment:
Perhaps it would be worth while, at this point, to review the proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials that followed the Second World War and count the parallels between the current administration and the Nazi defendants.
So much for "Never Again!" It's only taken 60 years for "Again" to come full circle.
by Phillippe Sands / Vanity Fair
The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the “rendition” of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?
The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. At the heart of the matter stand several political appointees—lawyers—who, it can be argued, broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality, where formal investigation is now a very real option. This is the story of how the torture at Guantánamo began, and how it spread.
More after the click ...
My comment:
Perhaps it would be worth while, at this point, to review the proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials that followed the Second World War and count the parallels between the current administration and the Nazi defendants.
So much for "Never Again!" It's only taken 60 years for "Again" to come full circle.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Making sure our troops have everything they need ... sorta
Faulty Helmets? Here's Another $74 Million
by Te-Ping Chen
When it comes to providing helmets for U.S. soldiers abroad, the Defense Department hasn't shown itself to be particularly discriminating in its choice of manufacturers.
Last December, after secret tapes revealed the North Dakota Sioux Manufacturing Company charged with producing helmets for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had knowingly delivered some 2.2 million helmets made with substandard weave, the Defense Department wasn't fazed by the controversy. Rather, 12 days before the pending Justice Department lawsuit was settled (with a $2-million slap on the wrist), the DOD issued another contract to the Sioux Manufacturing Company worth up to $74 million.
Today, VoteVets.org and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington launched a campaign for Congressional inquiry into the contract. Two whistleblowers from Sioux Manufacturing publicly released their recorded tapes with Sioux Manufacturing employees this morning (available with transcripts here); Sens. Kerry and Clinton have joined them in their call.
Read the rest after the click ...
by Te-Ping Chen
When it comes to providing helmets for U.S. soldiers abroad, the Defense Department hasn't shown itself to be particularly discriminating in its choice of manufacturers.
Last December, after secret tapes revealed the North Dakota Sioux Manufacturing Company charged with producing helmets for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had knowingly delivered some 2.2 million helmets made with substandard weave, the Defense Department wasn't fazed by the controversy. Rather, 12 days before the pending Justice Department lawsuit was settled (with a $2-million slap on the wrist), the DOD issued another contract to the Sioux Manufacturing Company worth up to $74 million.
Today, VoteVets.org and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington launched a campaign for Congressional inquiry into the contract. Two whistleblowers from Sioux Manufacturing publicly released their recorded tapes with Sioux Manufacturing employees this morning (available with transcripts here); Sens. Kerry and Clinton have joined them in their call.
Read the rest after the click ...
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