As Republicans continue to reject any proposal to increase revenue to offset budget cuts in the current negotiation over raising the federal debt ceiling, it is hard to believe the G.O.P. is serious about deficit reduction. The GAO (General Accounting Office), the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), former Secretaries of the Treasury of both parties, scores of economists (including a Nobel Prize winner in Economics) and the bi-partisan Bowles-Simpson commission (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) have all concluded budget cuts alone will not balance the budget or pay down the national debt. The only way to solve the debt crisis is by raising government revenues while cutting spending at the same time. Democrats agree. President Obama and Congressional Democrats put forth a plan that cuts 4 trillion dollars from the federal budget and contains a mix of modest revenue increases which will balance the budget and put the nation on the fast track toward eliminating the national debt. Republicans, however, insist that Democrats agree to budget cuts without raising additional revenue; otherwise, the G.O.P. will force the federal government to default on it's debt obligations.
The Republican Party is being held hostage by a block of ultra right wing "Tea Party" Libertarians in the House of Representatives whose approach includes many radical ideas, like the legalization of recreational drugs and prostitution (Ron Paul, R-TX) and legalizing discrimination by race (Rand Paul, R-Sen. - KY). Equally disturbing are their ideas to dissolve many functions of the federal government, including the elimination of the Department of Education, the Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, the Internal Revenue Service, Medicaid and all welfare programs, privatizing Social Security, and forcing Medicare into the private health insurance market. The Republican Party has no intention of balancing the federal budget or solving the debt crisis. Their goal is to completely destroy the federal government, the economy and the social compact of the United States of America.
It is important to understand how the United States came to a debt crisis in the first place. Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush quadrupled the national debt under 12 years of G.O.P. administrations. After four straight years of budget surpluses under the Clinton administration, Republican President George W. Bush turned surpluses into huge deficits, doubled the national debt in 8 years and led this nation into the worst depression since 1928.
Republicans believe that lower taxes lead to greater prosperity. However, recent history shows the opposite to be true. George W. Bush's tax cuts created neither jobs nor economic growth. During the Bush presidency, employment grew at a 0.9% annual average rate (CBS MoneyWatch 11/30/2010) compared with a 2.5% average rate for comparable periods since WWII. Median household income was lower in 2007 than in 2000. And, while Republicans claim to be defenders of small business, the Bush tax cuts were skewed to the super-rich and less than 2% of small business owners qualified for them (US News, August 10, 2010).
Senate G.O.P. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's favorite phrase, "job killing;" is used to justify Republican resistance to many Democratic initiatives, but especially raising taxes, as if there were jobs just waiting to be created if the government would lower taxes. Tax cuts, if they create jobs at all, create them in Asia where American multi-national corporations find lower employment costs and no environmental regulations. The Bush tax cuts of the last decade amounted to a huge jobs program for Asian countries. And, since interest rates in the United States have been at historic lows, tax cuts encourage investment outside the United States, not in it.
Republicans constantly complain about the high corporate tax rate in the United States. The marginal rate, at 35%, is one of the highest in the world, but, the actual (effective) corporate tax rate is one of the lowest (averaging 14%) due to thousands of tax credits, loopholes and givebacks in the tax code. General Electric, the nation's largest corporation, got a tax refund last year. In fact, these ten companies paid no tax at all last year: Exxon Mobil, Bank of America, General Electric, Chevron, Boeing, Valero Energy, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, ConocoPhillips, Carnival Cruise Lines (Senator Bernie Sanders', I-VT, as published April 15, 2011 by MoveOn.org). A study in 2008 by the GAO found that 55% of American companies paid no income tax at all in at least one of the last seven years (New York Times, May 2, 2011). A bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks have made American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California, who was head of the Congressional joint committee on taxes (NY Times, 5/2/11). Last year, corporate tax revenue dropped to 9% of federal income in spite of corporate profits hitting an all-time high in 2010.
Yet, Republicans have taken corporate tax loopholes, tax breaks and givebacks to corporations off the table in current budget negotiations. Republicans call this approach "pro growth" after a decade in which business and industry used these tax breaks to create no jobs and kept wages for the American worker flat. In some cases, Republican legislators have voted to keep tax breaks that benefit them personally. For instance, noted Tea Party Republican Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a G.O.P. presidential candidate, receives $250,000 per year in farm subsidies for her family farm. Kristi Noem (R-S.D), who won in 2010 on a platform of spending cuts, has received millions of dollars in federal farm subsidies over the last decade. It should be no surprise that Republican legislators refuse to cut farm subsidies, but favor cutting social programs instead.
If the United States is serious about solving it's debt crisis, we need legislators who are willing to put aside special interests, ideology, and partisan debate. President Obama, Vice-President Biden and other Democrats are doing just that. We need Republicans to do the same.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Health Care and the Budget
The health care industry reminds me of the auto body repair business. If your car bumper needs to be repaired, the first question an auto body shop will ask is if you're paying out of pocket or using insurance. The reason? They will write a higher estimate if you're using insurance. Private auto body businesses know how to milk the system.
After an auto accident last year, my ex-wife had an MRI. The charge to the insurance company was $700. But, I go to the same MRI firm and pay $250 out of pocket for my son's MRIs (he's a baseball pitcher and has had several of them). No one would think of the health care industry as "scam artists" in the same way we often think of auto body shops; they are worse.
The next time, God forbid, one of your family members is in the hospital, ask to see an itemized list of charges. You will find $50 ibuprofen, $250 doctor visits, $400 per day room charges - a laundry list of inflated charges. Hospitals and doctors charge the insurance company inflated rates, the insurance company passes those costs on by raising premiums. The cycle is repeated over and over until the system is out of control. Everyone used to joke about the Pentagon paying $500 for a hammer, except that health care costs are no joke.
One might think it silly to defend such a system, but that's exactly what Republicans do under the "free enterprise" philosophy of government. The private sector unrestrained, according to the G.O.P., will solve ANY problem by itself. I have my own idea about free enterprise and it goes like this: A company, completely unregulated, will charge the HIGHEST price they can get away with. And, if you don't believe that, I know a lot of auto dealerships that would like to see you on their showroom floor.
What is free enterprise doing with health care? It is opening health clinics in drug stores with unqualified personnel that barely speak English. The person giving flu shots was the same person I saw the week before at the cash register. That, my friends, is unregulated health care.
That latest Republican health plan comes from Representative Paul Ryan under the disguise of budget cuts. Ryan's plan would end Medicare and Medicaid. If you're on Medicare, Ryan's going to give your $96 back (taken out of your social security check for Medicare) and expect you to buy private health insurance. It's impossible to find private health insurance for $96 per month.
Ryan's Medicaid plan is going to lower payments and, eventually, phase them out. Here's what you need to know about seniors and Medicaid: Most people in nursing homes use Medicaid because they run out of assets before they die and they have nowhere else to turn. Am I supposed to watch thousands of elderly people be denied entrance to nursing homes or indigent AIDS patients denied life saving drugs just so the Republicans can balance the budget without raising taxes?
There are solutions. Universal health care plans such as the Massachusetts plan continue to control costs by lowering premiums 20-40% and improve overall health by covering 98% of citizens. I'm not concerned with where solutions come from, whether free enterprise or government. But, free enterprise health care better offer me something more than a health clinic at the local drug store. That place sucks.
Paul Ryan's budget that ends Medicare and Medicaid is not a solution. It is a problem.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
After an auto accident last year, my ex-wife had an MRI. The charge to the insurance company was $700. But, I go to the same MRI firm and pay $250 out of pocket for my son's MRIs (he's a baseball pitcher and has had several of them). No one would think of the health care industry as "scam artists" in the same way we often think of auto body shops; they are worse.
The next time, God forbid, one of your family members is in the hospital, ask to see an itemized list of charges. You will find $50 ibuprofen, $250 doctor visits, $400 per day room charges - a laundry list of inflated charges. Hospitals and doctors charge the insurance company inflated rates, the insurance company passes those costs on by raising premiums. The cycle is repeated over and over until the system is out of control. Everyone used to joke about the Pentagon paying $500 for a hammer, except that health care costs are no joke.
One might think it silly to defend such a system, but that's exactly what Republicans do under the "free enterprise" philosophy of government. The private sector unrestrained, according to the G.O.P., will solve ANY problem by itself. I have my own idea about free enterprise and it goes like this: A company, completely unregulated, will charge the HIGHEST price they can get away with. And, if you don't believe that, I know a lot of auto dealerships that would like to see you on their showroom floor.
What is free enterprise doing with health care? It is opening health clinics in drug stores with unqualified personnel that barely speak English. The person giving flu shots was the same person I saw the week before at the cash register. That, my friends, is unregulated health care.
That latest Republican health plan comes from Representative Paul Ryan under the disguise of budget cuts. Ryan's plan would end Medicare and Medicaid. If you're on Medicare, Ryan's going to give your $96 back (taken out of your social security check for Medicare) and expect you to buy private health insurance. It's impossible to find private health insurance for $96 per month.
Ryan's Medicaid plan is going to lower payments and, eventually, phase them out. Here's what you need to know about seniors and Medicaid: Most people in nursing homes use Medicaid because they run out of assets before they die and they have nowhere else to turn. Am I supposed to watch thousands of elderly people be denied entrance to nursing homes or indigent AIDS patients denied life saving drugs just so the Republicans can balance the budget without raising taxes?
There are solutions. Universal health care plans such as the Massachusetts plan continue to control costs by lowering premiums 20-40% and improve overall health by covering 98% of citizens. I'm not concerned with where solutions come from, whether free enterprise or government. But, free enterprise health care better offer me something more than a health clinic at the local drug store. That place sucks.
Paul Ryan's budget that ends Medicare and Medicaid is not a solution. It is a problem.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Acceptable Casualties
Seventeen percent of Americans suffered food poisoning last year resulting in death, sickness, and nationwide product recalls. In spite of this, 25 Republican senators voted against improving food safety in the last session of Congress. Republicans viewed the legislation, which passed and became law, as job killing, which it is clearly not. It is the lack of a safe food supply that is job-killing: Most of the western world refuses to buy U.S. beef products. While the rest of the world tests every piece of beef produced, the American beef industry violently opposes testing with the support of Republicans.
It is interesting the G.O.P. doesn't view the lack of food safety as people-killing. The G.O.P. propaganda machine ignores the facts about food safety and keeps churning out pro-business rhetoric - eliminate unnecessary regulations, lower taxes and get the government off the backs of business.
The truth is that food manufacturers consider food poisoning to be part of the cost of doing business. Their legal budget in any given year reflects the funding the company predicts it will need to fight claims. And, here is where Republicans can be a big help: passing legislation to limit tort awards.
In this sense, the food industry measures people's lives in dollars: The additional profits generated from reduced safety procedures and testing versus the cost of legal fees and awards won by plaintiffs years after all appeals have been exhausted.
The food industry loved the Bush administration. For eight years, Republicans cut the number of safety inspectors in regulatory agencies, installed industry professionals as heads of agencies and eased safety standards across the board. This left business and industry virtually policing themselves. Of course, George and Laura didn't need to worry - the White House tests every piece of food served. They just didn't feel everyone else deserved safe food products.
The G.O.P. considers the freedom of business to act unimpeded, in its own self interest, to be as important as an individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Republican version of freedom is the anarchy of business; the right of business and industry to pursue unlimited profits at the expense of the individual. Our nation, defined by Republicans, is nothing more than a marketplace that balances itself through unregulated and unrestrained competition. That's not what I read in our founding documents. Our founding documents talk about personal freedom, not the freedom of large corporations.
Evidently, Republicans feel the seventeen percent of Americans who fall ill from food poisoning each year to be an acceptable casualty rate. Otherwise, Republicans would have voted in favor of food regulation. Republicans would do well to remember that the pursuit of corporate profit does not equal the pursuit of my individual liberty.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
It is interesting the G.O.P. doesn't view the lack of food safety as people-killing. The G.O.P. propaganda machine ignores the facts about food safety and keeps churning out pro-business rhetoric - eliminate unnecessary regulations, lower taxes and get the government off the backs of business.
The truth is that food manufacturers consider food poisoning to be part of the cost of doing business. Their legal budget in any given year reflects the funding the company predicts it will need to fight claims. And, here is where Republicans can be a big help: passing legislation to limit tort awards.
In this sense, the food industry measures people's lives in dollars: The additional profits generated from reduced safety procedures and testing versus the cost of legal fees and awards won by plaintiffs years after all appeals have been exhausted.
The food industry loved the Bush administration. For eight years, Republicans cut the number of safety inspectors in regulatory agencies, installed industry professionals as heads of agencies and eased safety standards across the board. This left business and industry virtually policing themselves. Of course, George and Laura didn't need to worry - the White House tests every piece of food served. They just didn't feel everyone else deserved safe food products.
The G.O.P. considers the freedom of business to act unimpeded, in its own self interest, to be as important as an individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Republican version of freedom is the anarchy of business; the right of business and industry to pursue unlimited profits at the expense of the individual. Our nation, defined by Republicans, is nothing more than a marketplace that balances itself through unregulated and unrestrained competition. That's not what I read in our founding documents. Our founding documents talk about personal freedom, not the freedom of large corporations.
Evidently, Republicans feel the seventeen percent of Americans who fall ill from food poisoning each year to be an acceptable casualty rate. Otherwise, Republicans would have voted in favor of food regulation. Republicans would do well to remember that the pursuit of corporate profit does not equal the pursuit of my individual liberty.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
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