Hurricanes, Massacres, and Other Conservative-Converting Disasters

18 January 2013

Time Magazine’s Recent cover feature about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie once again reminds us of the key limitation of the American Conservative’s political views. Until the American Conservative experiences a need or disaster first- or second-hand, he doesn’t believe that it exists.

In the Christie case, the Governor’s embrace of Democratic President Obama and the Federal Government’s FEMA services made a big-spending Liberal out of this candid, big-hearted guy.

 ____________________ 

From the Perspective of the American political Center, we are of course familiar with this tendency: if all it takes to turn an American Liberal into a Conservative is a single case of being wrongfully sued, all it takes to turn an American Conservative the opposite direction is one first-rate disaster. 

For superlative example, why do so many elderly, otherwise-Conservative Americans support Medicare and Social Security? Because they know first-hand how essential this social “safety net” is to keeping them on solid ground. 

____________________  

Our Favorite Big-Hearted Cynic, columnist Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, takes to task both sides of the current assault-rifle-control controversy—the National Rifle Association and the President—for their use of kids in the discussion. 

The National Rifle Association [NRA] has come out big, as we all know by now, with its questionable-taste ad, holding President Obama responsible for the armed-guard protection that his two daughters get at their private school. But Mr. Milbank also accuses the President himself of using children as props, in his address seeking to garner public support for his various proposals for bringing down body counts when it comes to mass murder in America. To this point, Mr. Milbank writes:

“There’s an argument to be made that the horrific nature of the carnage justifies reminding the public that children are vulnerable, but partisans on each side will only dig in deeper if they perceive that the other side is using kids as props.”†

____________________

If It Takes a Disaster to turn an ideologically constrained Conservative into a Moderate American— reasonable-enough to realize that the Federal Government plays an essential role in modern American life—then it makes sense for Barack Obama to show what an innocent child—at risk of assault-rifle attack at school or movie theater or mall—looks like, while as President, he speaks to the American people in this disturbing debate.

____________________  

Does Either Side, Left or Right, have any substantive answers to the epidemic of mass murder in America? Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. Vice-President Joe Biden, at the behest of the President, recently sounded out a lot of different sides about this issue. The President, surrounded by his innocent-kid props, put forth his findings from the Vice-President’s efforts. The NRA fired back. While some of us debate the regulation of gun-ownership and the use of kids as political props, every one of us awaits to learn the news of the next mass murder.

Regards,  

(($; -)}  

Gozo! 

P.S.: To put a nice wrap around this, Governor Christie has now spoken out against the NRA ad, as CNN reports here: TRENDING: Chris Christie Rails Against NRA, Calls Ad ‘Reprehensible’

__________ 

*See the NRA’s ad here: When His Kids Are Protected by Armed...

† Read Dana Milbank’s Washington Post essay here: The Gun Debate Is Nothing to Kid About

@GozoTweets 

IF GOZO TWEETED: Tweet #0001

23 MARCH 2012

__________

Q: If Rick Santorum says Americans should stick with President Barack Obama, why should we believe him?

A: Because contemporary Republicans are always “Right.”
__________

Regards,
(($; -)}}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

Where Is “Honest Abe” Lincoln When America Needs Him Again?

21 MARCH 2012

President Obama Thought he could change the political climate in Washington by finding ways to incorporate Conservative and Republican ideas into his policies. Sadly, right now in America, both parties find little choice but to oppose anything the other party puts forward. Thus, for example, did Nancy Pelosi blame President George W. Bush for high oil prices, and now the Republicans blame President Obama. (Both were equally wrong.)

If Individual Americans, in large numbers, put pressure on their legislators to compromise, I wonder whether their legislators might compromise, and America might move forward.

Judging by the Divide of Opinions we see in “comments” forums for every bit of news or opinion posted on the Internet, We, the People, seem about evenly divided. So there’s probably not much hope that much help will come from there...
____________________

“A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.”

Or So Some Republican President Once Said.

Will the Progressives lead us forward, out of this stalemate? Will the Conservatives leave us mired in it?

Will China and the European Union and the rest of the world stand idly by, waiting to see if and when and how we work it out?

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

__________
The original version of this post appears at:

WHERE IS HONEST ABE (AGAIN) WHEN AMERICA NEEDS HIM?

Why Are Republicans Losing Out to Their “Straw Man” President?

11 MARCH 2012

If Barack Obama Really Is the “Straw Man” President that the Republicans pretend him to be, how can it be so hard for them to come up with a viable candidate to win the election in November?

It Looks like the Actual Facts of the Obama presidency so far are making a hard case for the Republican argument
that we need more hands-off government like we’ve had over the past thirty years:

01: Private-sector Jobs rising faster than Republican can cut jobs in the public sector

02: Unemployment numbers going down, despite Republican best efforts to make unemployed Americans wait until after the next election, before taking steps to turn the economy around

03: Millions More Americans Insured for Healthcare, and tens of millions more insured without exclusions or lifetime limits or preexisting conditions, while the Republican candidates avoid healthcare like a live wire 

04: The Auto Industry Turned Around, with GM is once again the world’s leading auto manufacturer

05: Increasing Domestic Petroleum production, even as America resumes the march toward cleaner air, greater fuel-economy, and alternative-energy manufacturing readying to take on China and Spain and the rest of the world

06: Homosexual Americans Serving Openly in the armed forces, without incident

If it Truly Took the Conservative Hand of Ronald Reagan to dig America out of the left-hand ditch
that the Democrats had gotten us into, it now looks up to Progressive hand of Barack Obama to get us back out of the right-hand ditch that the Republicans got us into during the 2000s.

If Things Are So Dim as the Republicans say they are, how come America’s future under the Republican “straw-man” President Barack Obama suddenly looks so bright?

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

Despite Their Bad Regard for President Obama—

01 MARCH 2012

THE REPUBLICANS CAN’T FIND AN ACCEPTABLE—AND WINNING—PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:

Gov. Mitt Romney is thus far the closest thing that the Republican Party has to an electable candidate in relation to President Obama. But a presidential election isn’t a game of “horseshoes.”

Sen. Rick Santorum has more consistency to his conservative values, but the extreme nature of his social-policy views would make him an easy target for “mad dog” representation in Democratic ads during the upcoming campaign.

Rep. Ron Paul has many unique views that resonate greatly with people on both sides of the aisle, but his singular greatest limitation is that his direct style of advocating for his views does not work well with a form of government that requires compromise, not dictatorship or obstruction, to get anything done.

Speaker Newt Gingrich hardly merits mention. His wide variety of ideas contradicts his recent efforts to reestablish himself as an authentic Conservative.

____________________

We Americans Always Vote for our presidents as if we are choosing a dictator. We care most about his views, which leads us to believe that he will steer our country in our preferred direction.

But this is not the case: no elected official can impose his will in this way. Either he must compromise, or he fails his constituents with a gridlock stalemate in which everybody avoids the tough choices of what they don’t want, but nobody gets what they need.

(The debt-ceiling debacle demonstrated this perfectly: the Tea Party Republicans held their ground against paying America’s bills without future reductions, the future reductions were arranged in what turns out to be an imminently surmountable fashion, and all we got for their trouble was a lowering of our credit rating—We didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt!)

____________________

Even as We Have Watched President Barack Obama implement numerous mainstream, conservative, Republican ideas—

His liberal, progressive, Democratic base has detested his betrayal of their “Hope and Change” values—

While the loyal, Republican opposition garnered great success with their consistent, repetitive, Frank Luntz-crafted messages of “lower taxes” and “too much regulation” and “no more Keynesian/Kenyan socialism”—

Until the economy started turning around.

____________________

But a steadily rising economy pretty much threatens to change everything....

____________________

This Puts the Republicans in a challenging spot right now: in order to win the Presidency in November, either the economy must go back to Hell in a handbasket—

Or the Republicans must come up with a candidate who is:

(A) Conservative-enough to pass muster with the base, and

(B) Reasonable-enough to pass must with the majority of relatively moderate Americans actually willing to vote for him, and

(C) Leader-like and charismatic-enough to bring enough of the people out to vote.

____________________

Now That it Seems to be “Halftime in America,” maybe the former mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California would be interested in taking on the job.

You read it first here. 

Now announcing the soon-to-be, up-and-coming front-runner for the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination:

The Man with No Name.

Regards,

(($; -)}

Gozo!

An Ode Against “The Republican Oath for Failure”

08 NOVEMBER 2011

What part of “We want America to fail!”
don’t they understand?

When the Republicans wanted “this President to fail,”
which America did they think he was president of?

When a majority of the American people elected Barack Obama to succeed,
what part of “majority rule” did congressional Republicans
think their oaths of office excluded them from?

When Republican pledges to Grover Norquist
overrule their constitutional oaths of office,
what country do our Republican legislators think they govern in?
____________________

Forcing America’s constitutionally elected President to fail:
what form of treason is that?

What part of “We want this President to fail”—

    during a time of great economic crisis—
    following an administration that started off-the-budget wars
        and an unsustainable Medicare program—
    with tens of millions of Americans unemployed—
    and pensions ruined—
    and teachers and police and firefighters laid off—
    and two wars waging—
    and Wall Street bailed out by America’s 99%—
 
what part of this ideologically obsessive partisanship
would ever make any American vote for any Republican ever again?
____________________

When it comes to government,
we want a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Nowhere in our constitution does it say,
“Government for the good of the Republican Party.”

Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower knew that...
____________________

We, the people of the United States of America want a government
by majority rule,
with protection of the minority
under the terms of the Constitution.

We, the people of the United States of America
want America to succeed. That’s why
we, the people,
voted for President Barack Obama
in the first place.
____________________

As for what the leaders of the Republican Party of America believe they were doing?
By setting out to make this President fail?

That’s anybody’s guess.

On November 6, 2012,
that’s for “we, the people” to decide.

How do others look at this Republican goal of failure?
What do you think of it?
____________________

For me, the next election can’t come soon enough:
I plan to take America back.
One more step
back from the brink of “Just Say No.”

What part of “we want America to fail!”
don’t we understand?

Regards,
(($ ;-)}
Gozo!

For Some People, the Past Only Began Yesterday

If America Already Faces a potential shortfall of 16,000 doctors within the next fifteen years, how can that possibly have been caused by last-month’s passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? This shortage was reported this morning on Pajamas Media, on XM-Satellite Radio’s  P.O.T.U.S. station.*

I Understand That President Barack Obama reportedly can walk on water and part the loaves and the fishes. But it’s hard to believe that even the Anointed One could sign a law on 23 March 2010, and the downward spiral toward medical armageddon has already begun, just three and a half weeks later.

Something Must Have Gone Wrong a While Ago. And coming off three decades of a Republican agenda, it’s a little hard to believe that it’s not the Republicans’ fault. Unless you use the kind of Republican reasoning that the Republicans use.

How Long Will We, the People, have our reasoning faculties beclouded by the slings and arrows of outrageous, mis-informed opinion? At least with adults back in the White House, we get some facts with our opinions these days.

If Doctors Are Being Chased out of medical practice by bureaucracy, the red tape comes not so much from the Federal government, as it comes from the confusion and contusions imposed by the multiplicity of insurance companies:

• Each insurance company has its own forms. Your doctor pays special personnel to handle these.
• Each insurance company has its own ideas about what procedures a patient (you) needs, and how long a  patient (you) should be allowed to spend in the hospital for the surgery your doctor prescribes, and what medicines you should take in recovery. Your hospital has special “case managers” just to handle these rationing ideas.
• Each insurance company has its own “disallows.” You yourself will likely have to pay for these.
• Each insurance company has its own structure of fees negotiated for the payment of services you provide. You will either pay more or less than your neighbors because of these.

Now That’s a Lot of Red Tape. All in the name of illogical opinion and an ideology that has persistently failed the American people for much of recent history. Anything but “single-payer.” Anything but “socialism.” Anything but “health-care reform.” Anywhere else but here.

The Origin of Much of the Standardization of these terms of insurance coverage comes from coding by the Federal government, through Medicare. If anything in American medicine has worked to standardize the relationship between medical providers and medical insurers, it is the Medicare system

That Codification Is a Benefit of Government, not a curse. Without even just this little bit of standardization, every single transaction throughout American medicine would be subject not only to the preceding list of items, but also to different forms of terminology, and to different computer codes for different medical procedures, drugs, and routines.

“Different Strokes for Different Folks” may work for individual freedoms. But it does not work for medicine. It does not change the facts, no matter what the underlying opinions would have us believe.

The Laws of Cause and Effect are often subject to interpretation. And the connection between what comes first and what comes later is not always cause and effect.

But You Don’t Get to Just Make Up your own reality. If the United States will suffer a substantial shortage of doctors in the next decade and a half, and the new reform law was just passed three and a half weeks ago, the opposition to the bill was not only lame, but was also contraindicated by those who oppose the reform law now.

We All Heard  the Republican Leadership in Congress repeat, over and over, through the long year of debate, “Go slow.”

We All Heard the Same Leaders Say, “We need to start over.”

We All Heard the Same Leaders Say, “We need to scrap this bill.”

If the System in Place before the three-week-old reform was already steering us toward a 16,000-doctor shortfall by 2025,* it was surely broken to start with. So how could America possibly afford to scrap this bill, start over, and go slow?

Someone Is Not Being Entirely Honest about This.

But at Least While the Republicans and the angry Tea Party Movement folks keep debating it, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party will be working on getting more Americans insured, encouraging more Americans to go into medical practice, and keeping more Americans healthy.

Outrage Is Easy.™

Talk Is Cheap.

Pajamas Media Has an Agenda that defies logic.

But We Finally Have a Few Adults Back in the White House.

At Least For Now.....

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

_______________

*Pajamas Media broadcast on P.O.T.U.S. XM Satellite Radio (04/17/2010)

The Facts of History Paint Such a Different Picture

The Facts of History Paint a Different Picture of the Conservative-vs-Liberal struggle than the one that comes out of the mouths and pens of most Republicans and other self-styled “fiscal conservatives.”

Looking Back as Far as President Jimmy Carter, the presidencies that have given us the biggest deficits by far have been Republicans. Ronald Reagan gave America the biggest up to that time, until the past years of George W. Bush dwarfed even that.

Liberals Believe in Government Doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves—national defense, pensions (Social Security) destroyed by Republican excesses of the Coolidge/Hoover years, health care (Medicare) destroyed by the Great Recession of recent times.

But Liberals, Unlike Conservatives, 
Expect to Pay Their Own Way.
Americans overall pay the least in taxes of any industrialized nation. Yet historically, it is the “spend and spend” Republicans who balloon the debt—from President Reagan’s “Star Wars” to George W. Bush’s two unfunded wars and an unfunded Medicare program with a big “donut hole.” And then Republicans blame the Democrats—such as Barack Obama—for the lengths we must go to, to clean up the disastrous mess.

What a Republican Set-up of the Democrats! What a shame that it’s the American people—unemployed and now without health insurance—who have to carry that weight.

Republicans Want to Bring the Federal Government to its Knees, so that the Democrats will be forced to cut popular programs—loved by Conservatives and Liberals alike—that the Republicans lack the courage to cut themselves

Why Else Was That Side of the Political Divide so silent over the George W. Bush years?

.....And No Wonder “Conservatives” such as those of the Tea Party Movement are angry!

They want their Medicare..........and they want their Social Security.....
     .....They want their national defense..........and they want their roads.....
         .....and the post office..........and the criminal justice system.....

                  .....and Homeland Security..........and thousands of other things 

that the Federal government—made up of “We, the people”—does.

“Conservatives” like to Talk about “Individual Responsibility”:

They Just Don’t Want to Have to Pay for It.....

Regards,

(($;-)}
Gozo!

“Borrowing the Jobs of Tomorrow” Is America's Best Investment Today

Where Is the Obama New “New Deal”?

The New “New Deal” That Americans Voted for Has Failed to Materialize. Despite the mandate given to Barack Obama on November 4, 2008, we have so far seen nothing that looks like the New Deal—the multitude of projects that President Franklin Roosevelt initiated during the Great Depression, to put thousands of jobless Americans back to work.

What Has Gone Wrong? What part of this mandate did President Obama miss, when he was swept into office in part out of the driving fear that we were sinking into the economic abyss.

No Matter How Much Some Americans have challenged the value of FDR and the New Deal, deep down where we Americans share so many core values, we know that the New Deal saved countless American lives. When it's our jobs at stake, we know that only the government can move quickly enough and large-enough to put the brakes on.

But the Impending Disaster that Many Americans Fear Today

are reality for millions of American families right now. As we speak. As we debate. As we dither and discuss and hide behind conflicting ideologies.

America Needs the Jobs of Tomorrow. And America needs those jobs right now.

Seventy Years after FDR gave us the beautiful and durable WPA and CCC buildings,the buildings still stand. All across America today, these wonderful facilities are enjoyed by millions of Americans each year. They bring pleasure to all who use them–and their durable construction has spared the American taxpayer millions of dollars we would have paid over the years since the Great Depression, had FDR not acted so wisely and prudently on America’s behalf.

What FDR Did with those New Deal programs was to borrow work from the future. America borrowed the jobs of tomorrow to put Americans back to work. The money would surely arrive later–but the jobs were needed back in the day.

These Are the Kind of Jobs America Needs Right Now.

We Need to“Borrow” the Jobs of the Future, to put American construction-workers back to work right now.

Is it Possible That Some People Don’t Understand This? It’s the same thing we do when we borrow for college education, knowing that this kind of “deficit spending” will yield big dividends in the future.

On the Other Hand, America lives at some current risk that President Obama, yielding to relentless caterwauling about the deficit, may rein in this future investment. Doing so risks sinking the economy quickly back into recession or worse–at a time when the resources of the typical American family are already sorely stretched.

Deficit Spending Cannot Continue Indefinitely without giving rise to inflation. But borrowing work from the future–with such  public-funded projects as FDR’s projects that stand the test and ravages of time)–actually stimulates the economy in a real and constructive way.

By Building Tomorrow’s Projects Today, the government buys two things for the American people:

First, Cheaper Labor currently available means that these jobs cost less now than they would in a post-recovery future.

Second, Spending for These “Future” Projects Today means that our children and grandchildren won’t have to spend for them tomorrow.

What May Look Risky–spending now, when we don’t yet have the money–is actually  just good business sense. It's one of the best investments the nation can make right now, at a time of cheap labor and high unemployment such as today.

It's the Fiscally Prudent Decision: to invest in tomorrow’s work projects today. And further, the American people voted for this kind of job creation.

Back in the Great Depression, it took FDR, a scion of wealth, a person raised to understand the methods of investment, to come up with the CCC and WPA deals.

Those Beautiful Buildings That America Loves:

Proof That Borrowing Jobs from Tomorrow is a fiscally conservative investment that stands the test of time.


Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Shining City on Hill Has Bright, New Star

John Winthrop and Ronald Reagan Would Be Proud. A bright, new star has landed atop their shining “city on the hill”:

....[F]or we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of god and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us....*

The First Eight Years of the Current Century saw a huge stain darken the beacon of human rights, hope, and courage that the United States of America has come to represent for the world over the course of our great nation’s history. Fear, renamed “Terror,” took hold of the dominant leadership of the nation.

Much of the Rest of the World Lost its “shining star” of hope and courage for most of the 21st century.

Those in Power in the Federal Government During That Time, whether for reasons of fear or of ideology, brayed forth their disdain on the rest of the world.

This Attitude—that Other Countries and other cultures might be dismissed out of hand, merely on the virtue of their disagreement with one or more of America’s policies or opinions—has been a shameful experience for the rest of us to endure.

Meanwhile, Those on That Fearful Side of the Political Fence remain oblivious to what they have done, with America’s reputation for courage and liberty and peace and leadership, as a “beacon of liberty” throughout the planet.

The Developed World Has Been Appalled. Those of us at home who believe unequivocally in the American ideals of “the land of the free and the home of the brave” have felt humiliated. And our real and legitimate enemies–North Korea and Iran–have raised their shields. Many Muslim people around the world have witnessed our disdain, and have experienced death first-hand, as a result of our misdirected cowardice.

No Reasonable, Fair-Minded Citizen Can Justify what was done by America out of fear.

But Today, a Striking Acknowledgment of the passing of that dark eclipse came unbidden, as out of nowhere.

In Giving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, the selection committee provided a less than adequate explanation for their selection. And almost without question, President Obama has accomplished little that is constructive, too little to earn such a major award on the merits.

Given the Prestige of this Noble Award, and the short list of Obama achievements to which it may have been attached, one can only assume that the award is given for the American accomplishment of the election of a biracial president and for the return, clearly evoked by the new president, of the bright and shining star—of that “shining city on the hill”—of the leading nation of the world, the one true “superpower,” wherein reside the hopes of people everywhere, that though this beacon was briefly dimmed, it was not extinguished. America once again takes its place as the repository of the world’s highest and noblest ambition, the leader of the free world.

We Americans Respect Those Who Differ from Us. We respect those whose opinions and faiths and beliefs differ from ours. But none of those others–whether Israeli or Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghan, Persian or Korean or Russian or Venezuelan or Cuban–can be inherently our enemies. For we, the people of the United States of America–and we alone among the world’s nations–are all people. Americans are Korean and Vietnamese and Muslim and Jew and Hindu and Christian and Buddhist and atheist. We are Georgian and Colombian and Brazilian and Ethiopian and Nigerian, and everything else.

America Does Not Attack, but Only Defends. We believe that we are all God’s children, we are all neighbors in God’s sight, no matter how we define or decline to accept God’s existence, God’s presence, God’s nature. It is not for us–as Americans–to judge how others behave or how others believe, but only to let the Lord judge.

In the Example of the Obama Presidency, we Americans return once again to the path described by John Winthrop in that same famous 1630 New England lecture:

[T]o follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.....[We] must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly affection, we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others’ necessities, we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality, we must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways.”*

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Announced Today in President Obama’s honor does not necessarily represent the dwelling of the Lord among us and nor does it represent the Lord’s blessing on us. Still, it is a singular honor. We, the people of the United States, under the new leadership of our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, have returned to light the ways of peace and freedom and democracy and capitalist opportunity.

On Inauguration Day, 2009, a New Era began for America. An era that returned us to our former leadership role in the world. We relit that darkened light. Under the articulate leadership of President Barack Obama, America has reclaimed its position as that great beacon, in President Reagan’s misquotation of John Winthrop’s early speech, as “the shining city on the hill.”

Congratulations, to Barack Obama and all the people of the United States of America. And to those who disdain America’s escape from that brief, yet too-long era of Terror, please accept our enthusiastic regrets.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

__________

* For our source of Governor Winthrop’s sermon, on which President Reagan’s descriptive statement was based, see the following link: John Winthrop's City upon a Hill, 1630.  (Spelling has been modernized above.)

Fiscal Conservative Challenges Obama to a “Big Government” Bet

As an Unwavering Fiscal Conservative, I want America’s fiscal house put back in order. The question seems to be how we do it. For some good reasons, free-market competition in the health-insurance industry actually interferes with competition in the medical field. Our access to medical treatment continues to get worse, as the price continues to skyrocket, and our private insurance companies, despite their best efforts to squeeze down the cost of our dollars going to doctors and hospitals, instead just get in the middle and keep the profits for themselves.

The "Bet" in the Old Life Insurance Joke goes something like this:

Life insurance is where the insurance company bets you that you’ll live forever.
You bet them that you’ll die first.
You put up the money in advance.
Somebody else collects when you die.

Either way—you lose!

Competition Makes Our Free-Market System Work. But for too long in the world of catastrophic-health insurance, competition has gone missing. Texas, where I live, has a population of about 24-million swaggering cowboys and cowgirls, but that's clearly not a big-enough market for insurance competition to flourish. And tort reform—which was passed here quite a few years ago—hasn't done the trick of stopping unnecessary tests or high medical costs.

Insurance Companies Earn the Profits that they need to stay in business, while everyday Americans suffer from exorbitant premiums that keep salaries low, from policies that are withdrawn or used up just when they are needed most, and from policies that ration the care that the medical profession delivers—by demanding too little care in many cases, and encouraging too much waste in others. The medical profession gets shorted, the American people get shorted, and the insurance companies manage to eke out an immodest, but necessary profit.

Since Competition Is What We Want, let’s put health-care insurance to the free-market test of capitalism. President Barack Obama has proposed a tiny bubble of an insurance product, expected to cover less than 5% of the population. This “public option” will receive no tax dollars and will add not a dime to the national budget, but give those Americans who believe that government does some things best a chance to have their ideology tested.

Can Government Deliver Healthcare? Affordable healthcare? Without going broke? Or is this another foolish Liberal fantasy? 

Let’s Let the Free Markets Decide:

President Obama, America Issues You a Challenge. Either your “public option” can do the job of insuring Americans directly or of stimulating better competition throughout the country, or else you shut it down.

America Can Give You Five Years. We can afford this test, when the lives of so many Americans are at stake, but we can only afford so much. Whether the question is an ideology of entitlement or an ideology of greed, you’ve got five years from Day One of the passage of the healthcare reform bill.

But Then When This “Public Option” Fails, or blows through its budget, you owe it to the American people to shut it down.

The Clock on the “Public Option” Starts Ticking Soon.

You Have Five Years.....

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Calling Congressman John Boehner to Explain

Ohio District 8's Distinguished U.S. Congressman John Boehner said something odd in the White House Press Pool this past Thursday.

Speaking on the Subject of Healthcare Reform, Congressman Boehner interrupted a reporter's question to give an example of how the Obama plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest 3% might effect others. In the example, Rep. Boehner posited a hypothetical Subchapter-S corporation with income of $500,000.

In a Subchapter-S Corporation, all income passes through to the taxpayer, In Rep. Boehner's example, the taxpayer's income is only $150,000. But according to Rep. Boehner's implication, this hypothetical $150,000 taxpayer would pay increased taxes—on the total $500K,000 of the pass-through income.

This Is Not the Case. This is not the way the tax code works at all.

In Such a Situation, the Exact Opposite Is the Case: the taxpayer might earn $500,000 in his Subchapter-S corporation, but after deductions and exemptions, and credits, if his income came out on the 1040 tax form as $150K, he would not be affected by the Obama proposals. In fact, this taxpayer would pay less tax under the Obama healthcare plan.

As Promised During the Presidential Campaign.

Maybe Rep. Boehner Doesn't Know How the Tax Code Works. Or did he perhaps misspeak? Or did he intend to deceive or to scare us? Or is some other reasonable and logical explanation missed?

It Would Be Good to Know the Answer, and I trust the media in Ohio to investigate. What is the story in this seemingly odd hypothetical situation, that may fly under the radar of most Americans' understanding of the tax code.

This Situation Makes a Perfect Opportunity for media to demonstrate its value, by chasing down the answers. As I write, it is more than twenty-four hours since the incident. occurred. Are the newspapers and TV stations and bloggers of Ohio not paying attention?

Which Ohio Paper or Radio Station will be first to call Rep. Boehner to account?

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Citizens to Own Shares of Rescued Wall Street Companies

“WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top economic advisers have determined that they can shore up the nation’s banking system without having to ask Congress for more money any time soon, according to administration officials.

“In a significant shift, White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.

“Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank — and give the government a large ownership stake in return.

“While the option appears to be a quick and easy way to avoid a confrontation with Congressional leaders wary of putting more money into the banks, some critics would consider it a back door to nationalization, since the government could become the largest shareholder in several banks.”

—Edmund L. Andrews,
“U.S. May Convert Banks’ Bailouts to Equity Share,”
The New York Times, April 19, 2009

Channeling Barack Obama writes:

Republicans Are Predictably Outraged at this potential to “nationalize” American banks and turn America into “a socialist state.” But think about this:

If Republicans Would Pull Their Heads out of Their Ideology, and turn their thoughts toward constructive solutions—instead of always shouting out, “Just Say No!—just think what we could achieve.

Take This Proposal For Example:

The American Shareholder Plan

Now That President Obama’s Top Economic Advisors have begun turning taxpayer TARP loans into shares of common stock, it’s time to take another look at the ASP—the American Shareholder Plan.

(For Our Description of this taxpayer/shareholder proposal, see October 11, 2008:
“ASP: The American Shareholder Plan.”)

Conservative Americans Oppose Nationalization of publicly owned companies: Under the ASP corporate ownership gets taken out of the hands of government, and into the hands of private, American citizens.

Conservatives Oppose the “Moral Hazard” of rescuing profligate private companies such as A.I.G. and Citigroup. By giving ownership to individual taxpayers, the ASP makes sure that those on Wall Street who got us into the current mess pay the price—through loss of ownership. Thus, moral hazard comes at a real cost.

Liberal Americans Are Angry at the Investment Banks and Insurance Companies that have put the economy at risk, and countless Americans out of their homes and out of work. The ASP puts shareholder rewards in the pockets of the American taxpayer. Under the ASP, all citizens stand to benefit.

Americans Right and Left Share Concerns about Social Security. Republicans under the administration of President George W. Bush lobbied for private retirement accounts under the Social Security umbrella. The ASP can provide the basis for such private accounts—at no additional cost to the Federal Government and the American taxpayer.

For Once, Wall Street Need Not Benefit Alone from these historic excesses. Those who bear the real cost—the American taxpayers—receive the real benefit, in the form of stock-ownership that accrues toward each American’s retirement and education and health care.

If the American Shareholder Plan Raises Questions for You, please post a comment below or send an email to: channelingbarackobama@yahoo.com.

Otherwise, Please Write Your Senators and Representatives. If you’d really like to own a share of America, let your government officials know.

And If Your Congresspersons Happen to Be Republicans, please let them know about pulling their heads out of their ideology. It's time for the Republican Party to get back to work supporting America.

ASP: The American Shareholder Plan

Channeling Barack Obama writes:

The News out of Washington, D.C., Today came from Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. Among other information contained in the Secretary’s report on coming government actions related to the troubled international crisis, one thing stood out:

The American Taxpayer Is about to Become a Major Shareholder in the securities of troubled financial institutions. According to Secretary Paulson, in the appropriate or necessary circumstances, the taxpayers, through the agency of the national government, will receive actual shares of stock in the troubled banks and other institutions.

The Distribution of These Shares was not mentioned in the Secretary’s press conference, but we would like to suggest once again the possibility of an actual distribution of these shares into individual accounts for each individual shareholder.

Under the American Shareholder Plan (“ASP”), accounts can be opened for each American citizen and taxpayer, using the information on record with the Social Security Administration. These shares can then grow in the individual’s ASP account, for a wide range of purposes, such as home purchase, college tuition, health care, or retirement.

So Long as the Shares Are Kept in the ASP Account, their value will not be taxed, and nor will any dividends or other distributions be taxed. Just as with IRAs and Health Savings Accounts and other tax-advantaged investment plans, the ASP beomes the individual’s private investment acocunt, to use as he or she sees fit.

Under the Prospects of the ASP, the American taxpayer, currently bailing out Wall Street with tremendous sums of money, at a time of great financial duress, will stand to benefit completely from the eventual recovery of the financial markets. Whether the companies involved are banks or other types of businesses, the variety of income and capital return that each citizen might earn may eventually compensate the American taxpayers for the economic pain and suffering and risk that is currently underway.

Democratic Candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden ask for your vote on November 4, 2008. Please help make exciting new programs such as the American Shareholders Program become reality.



[DISCLAIMER: The ASP is not currently endorsed by Barack Obama or Joe Biden, who have not yet read this post.]

Citizen-Shareholder Bail-Out

[DISCLAIMER: The following post is not in any way associated with the Presidential campaign
of Barack Obama and the Vice-Presidential campaign of Senator Joe Biden.]

Channeling Barack Obama writes:

The Proposal to Privatize Social Security made many Americans nervous. The current situation in the financial markets shows why. With the stock market down more than 25%, anyone relying entirely on investments for retirement right now would be facing hard times.

The Financial Institution Bail-Out Gives America a Unique Opportunity. As long as the American people are bailing out the mortgage companies—and the investment companies—and the banks—and the insurance companies—the right thing to do is to compensate the taxpayers for the risk that we are taking on. That’s why an Obama/Biden administration, once each of these companies has been restored to economic good health, can take the bold step of distributing stock shares of these companies to the citizen shareholders

President Barack Obama, if elected, can see to it that each American citizen receives an equal number of shares of stock in that company. Within a short time of balance being restored in the American financial markets, every single American will share in the benefits of stock ownership: regular dividends, as well as the value of the price increase of their shares.

Under an Obama “American Shareholder Plan,” each American will be able to sell his or her stock on the stock exchanges—or deposit it, tax-free, in their own private retirement account.

On Both Sides of the Political Divide, we say that we are eager to work together. Now, challenging times have shown us a way to make this a reality. We can bail out those troubled institutions whose failure threatens us all, while at the same time, we get compensation for the risk that we are taking in these bailouts.

It’s a Win/Win Situation. And under an Obama/Biden presidential administration, that’s the way it’s going to be.

One Nation, Indivisible, with Justice—
and Investments—for All!