From the Left to the Right

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Waiting for The Other Shoe

Written : Mar. 22-23, 2010

Assuming the Health Care Bill is not repealed, we'll have millions more covered by insurance companies (beginning in 2014). How can we save our children and grandchildren from paying trillions of dollars for it? One method would be to wean the U.S. of foreign oil by doing several things. We drill. We build nuclear power plants, perhaps two or three per state. Prices for energy will then come down. We must innovate and we must hurry!

Can we have it all? Is it possible to spend $1 trillion, insure more people, lower taxes, lower premiums, and save money? How? And, what will happen when companies are forced to cover a larger number of people and extra treatments they won't be able to afford? We need to ask these questions. Will those companies be able to survive or will Uncle Sam come in, take them over, and bail them out with even more money he doesn't have?

What follows the Health Care Bill? Doesn’t it make you wonder? What's the government planning? Do we punish even more people and companies by taking more of their money through excessive fines and taxation? Such actions usually hurt us and force companies to cut back and fire people. I don't want this to happen to the organization which employs me! Perhaps we allow businesses to flourish instead, allowing them to employ more of us. What do you think? President Obama promised to remake America with fundamental change. He's succeeding, but our president is not done with the metamorphosis. What comes next? Are you worried? I am.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Stimulating

Written : Mar. 16, 2010

It’s difficult to locate any relevant information about the stimulus bill, even using the Web, but a good place to start is recovery.gov. The website says 594,644 recovery funded jobs were reported by recipients so far. Unfortunately, many of those jobs are temporary construction jobs. Compare the almost 600k ‘funded’ jobs to the 4.4 million jobs lost since the administration took office. We’ve gained about an eighth so far, if that’s what ‘recovery funded jobs’ means, even though we’re still losing jobs each month.

I agree, our infrastructure could use some help, but what worries me is how we’re going to pay for what’s in this bill. According to Sean Hannity’s March 12 show, subtitled "Waste 102", $4.3 million was spent on new escalators in Washington, D.C. Speaking truth to power, Tucker Carlson rhetorically asked whether it would have been more cost effective and healthier to replace the escalators with stairs? … $200,000 are earmarked for studying the voting habits of Africans. In the long run, how will the study help our economy? … $500,000 will be spent on recycling bins in Dayton, OH. The bins will have microchips embedded in them to track participation. Isn’t that a bit creepy?

Jenny-O Turkey got over five million dollars for production and delivery of cooked deli breasts (total jobs reported: 286). At first, the Jenny-O award looks good. But divided up, it gets 286 employees a one-time total of about $18,000 each, but if and only if all the money goes to the people, otherwise it’s a lesser amount per worker.

There’s a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Head Start workers in Puerto Rico (total jobs reported: 6). This is just shy of $600,000 for 6 workers. Either that’s quite a healthy adjustment, or six people were hired to administer the COLA, or, I just don’t get it. It’s all very puzzling, and I didn’t mention how unreadable the bill is. Remember, our kids, and most likely our grandkids will help us fund everything we get from this one stimulus bill, needed or not.

For a cost breakdown of about 100 silly things the stimulus will give us see: Waste 102 - Warning: When you see the list you may start screaming, “Haliburton! Haliburton!” Or maybe not. Seriously, you may get a pop-up question regarding the running of scripts in the page. Either answer will let you view the site.

You may be more comfortable with this site: Stimulus Watch - You can examine each description, read more by clicking on each grant or contract, and vote yes or no if they do or don’t meet with your approval.

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You can also read this blog at “Your Hub”, which is part of The Denver Post online, at Your Hub Scroll down or “Edit/Find” the word, “blog”.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Haters

Written : Mar. 9, 2010

Yesterday morning I was listening to the David Sirota radio program on 760, “Progressive Talk” in Denver. A lady caller identified herself as a conservative, a Republican, and a Tea Partier. The topic was the suspension of a child from a private Catholic school because the parents are both homosexuals. The points of view on this topic are clear. Conservatives generally stand with the school’s right to do what it wants since it’s an independent entity. Catholics might say the school has to expect parents of students to uphold the schools’ teachings and/or philosophy. Liberals for the most part would say it’s an example of discrimination.

It doesn’t matter what I think, it’s not important. The fascinating aspect was Sirota’s reaction to the caller. Once the woman revealed her politics, Sirota became adversarial. He posed questions setting her up as a ‘Tea Party’ expert. Questions like… As a member of the Tea Party movement, would you be in favor of… The poor woman didn’t stand a chance, but this tactic is somewhat normal for many talk show hosts.

David Sirota played a tough, cross-examining lawyer for a while. He questioned the caller’s adherence to conservative principals. If she was for freedom, how could she be against the freedom for gays to be able to send their kid to a private school? Most of his questions up to that point were understandable. But I felt my eyes widen when Sirota went ballistic, accusing the woman of being a hater, of hating homosexuals, of accusing conservatives and then white people of hating all minorities… In an angry tone, he delighted in hanging up on her. Is it ok to disagree with someone? Yes! But is it fair to use generalizations and epithets to condemn someone else’s opinion? Is it hateful? In this case, you be the judge.

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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Health Care Positions and an Interview

Written : Mar. 2, 2010

The Democrats’ position on the health care bill is status quo, perhaps modify it slightly, and push hard to pass it. Most want to use the process called ‘reconciliation’ to get it through. Democrats view the Republican Party as the stubborn party, the one that won’t cooperate. They see Republicans as obstructionists who have no ideas, no matter how many suggestions they offer. Democrats are divided on the ‘public option’ but most seem to favor it. They worry about having enough votes to get the bill passed.

Republicans point out they had no part in drafting the original 2,700-page bill. They want the process to start over, this time with an invitation to participate from page one. They think they’ve contributed substantial ideas in several plans submitted to the majority party and during the Health Care Summit. They view ‘reconciliation’ as trickery, and as a process reserved for budgets. Republicans see the Democratic Party as stubborn and are frustrated over their perception that the Democrats aren’t listening to them. Republicans are worried about how they will pay for the Health Care bill.

On “This Week” on ABC, on Feb. 28, 2010, Elizabeth Vargas was the host and she interviewed both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) - for fifteen minutes - and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) - for eight. I wondered if she’d be neutral, or take sides. In Vargas’ first question to Pelosi she asked if the Democrats had enough votes to pass the bill. She asked Speaker Pelosi, “How long are you willing to wait for [Republican ideas]?” Vargas even quoted the president, “Times up!”, as if to urge Republicans to cooperate. She voiced her concern, “you’re certain that you can muster the 217 votes you need…?”

In her interview with Sen. Alexander, Vargas was much tougher. She asked if the Republicans were going to offer some amendments and “play ball”. Alexander said they already had and the Democrats were on a political kamikaze mission if they ram the bill through Congress. Vargas asked, “Why not be part of the process…?” and, “Why are you so opposed to [reconciliation]…?”, and, “Why [do you say] ‘political kamikaze’”? Vargas insisted the Congress must pass “sweeping legislation”, when Alexander kept referring to his preference they use incremental means to pass reform. Do you think Elizabeth Vargas was fair, or biased?

Also See: NewsBusters - You may need Adobe Flash to view the page, but if you do you’ll be asked if you want to install it.

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