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The word hostage may be a little dramatic but, there is real drama in shutting down most of the transportation construction in the United States. Confused, well I am too. I can not understand why absolutist wingnut lawmakers would want to eliminate six million jobs when unemployment hovers around ten percent. Don’t get me wrong. As you are probably aware, I feel healthcare reform is and should be one of our highest priorities. It is also of paramount importance to get healthcare reform which actually reforms healthcare. Lawmakers however, have been at this for nine months. It is time to quit deliberating and start legislating.
A few legislators will tell you they have passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund transportation projects until the complete transportation reauthorization can be passed. What they don’t tell you is the current CR funds transportation for one month at a time. So, in my state, the resulting funding is one-twelfth our normal funding. Our budget which normally approaches one billion dollars is reduced to around 83 million. This is in a world where most construction projects end up around 30 million a piece. Our state department of transportation is faced with funding three projects statewide or a handful of really small projects. No state DOT will take the risk of having to use local monies to fund large projects until Congress fully funds transportation programs.
The effect of a one month CR on states and cities is to stop bidding and constructing projects until they are assured funding in a multi-year transportation bill.
As the left wing insists on a public option and the right wing tries to eliminate it, construction companies everywhere are handing out pink slips. As the right holds out for liability caps for doctors, engineering firms who design transportation projects are going under. As the left tries to eliminate the Medicare Advantage Program and the right continues to tell seniors they are losing their Medicare coverage, materials producers are idling their facilities. Steel, concrete, asphalt and stone producers are sending employees home. Finally, because little federal gas taxes are making their way back to the states, states are considering furloughs and other methods to reduce state staff.
That’s right, we have already paid for road maintenance and improvement projects at the pump. Our money is being held hostage in Washington. We are paying to watch our transportation industries and our bridges crumble.
So as the politicians revel in political one-upmanship, you should be worried about the bridge you travel over every day. Sadly however, that’s not the only thing you could be worried about. Investment banks on Wall Street are busily over extending themselves again. The financial industry and transportation are just the tip of the iceberg. The business of the people grinds to a halt while the wingnuts stymie the debate. It’s become a funny joke to use the Otto von Bismarck quote, “laws are like sausages, it is better not the see them being made.” It is not so funny when people are starving to death waiting on that sausage.
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Who does it hurt when a right wing politician bashes the government? After all, politics and rhetoric are only a fun parlor game, Right? Government is inept, incompetent and evil so it should be ok to say as much, shouldn’t it? Why should the right wing be deprived of this cheap and easy way to avoid the complex problems of the day. The problem with an absolute stand that government can never be a part of any solution is how it affects those who serve in government. The implication of anti-government rhetoric is those who work in government are also always absolutely inept, incompetent and evil.
This rhetoric coming from the right has become so common place many politicians in power are beginning to abuse public servants as evidenced by an executive order issued by the Governor of Alabama this week.
This week, the governor of Alabama, Bob Riley (R-AL), scored some cheap points with government haters everywhere when he greatly expanded his State of Alabama - Open.alabama.gov website to include the exact salaries of all state employees. This action was supposed to be an improvement on a normal Freedom of Information request. Typically, after a citizen made the request, the State Finance Department would provide a job description and salary range for any employee. What would have been wrong with a website which supplied the same information? Couldn’t citizens ferret out overpaid employees just as well with a job description and pay range? Maybe, however, I am missing the point.
As we ponder the point of this action it is worth noting Riley didn’t even arrive at this idea himself. He follows other red-state wingnuts like Mark Sanford (R-SC) who post this information. Riley however, improved on the idea stolen from Sanford and others by including all employees down to the guy who empties the garbage. Usually corruption starts at the top but, Riley and his wingnut friends seem to be worried about something else. By the way, after 20 years of service the man who empties the garbage and mows the grass makes about $22,000.00. I am sure those jobs near the poverty line are rife with corruption. I guess that’s why is it ok to take away his dignity by posting his salary on the internet?
The dignity of those who have committed to public service is apparently easily sacrificed by absolutists who hate all government. Like other wingnut philosophies however, this one has self-fulfilling implications. By making public service unattractive, wingnuts insure government institutions have to recruit from the bottom of the barrel. They deny themselves the better, cheaper and faster government they say they want.
Wanting government to do everything or nothing is a question we as a society must answer. There is no doubt we must have a discussion about the role of government in the United States. We shouldn’t however, use public servants as pawns in this discussion just because we can. Wingnut politicians who claim to have the moral high ground shouldn’t have to use public servants to prove their point. Any valid arguments in a national discussion about more or less government should stand on their own without terrorizing the people who work in that government.
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There was a captain with whom I served in the Army who might be the dumbest human being I have ever met. Moreover, he was positively the most egotistical man I have ever met. The combination would have surely gotten people killed had the Russians and East Germans ever crossed the border. He lacked respect for non-commissioned officers. He could not read a map. He regularly sucked all the motivation from my soldiers. It was a constant battle to respect the two bars on his collar. It was a constant battle to maintain my soldier’s respect our commander. It was made worse by his lack of respect for his chain of command.
At the end of the day however, I always waded through his crap with the respect his office deserved. I ALWAYS addressed him as sir.
Tonight on live national television in the hallowed halls of Congress someone called the President of the United States a LIER. Those halls have seen wars from without and wars from within. In those halls, good men and women who we elected have discussed the bill of rights, war, civil war, slavery, women’s suffrage, terrorism and impeachment. Those men and women were just as diametrically opposed as they were tonight yet, people didn’t call each other liars. They especially did not call the President of the United States a liar to his face.
I have disagreed with Presidents. I have been violently opposed to the policies of many Presidents. A certain recent President who defamed the house we let him borrow made me both livid and sad at the same time. After all, the White House was never designed to be the President’s sex palace. I never called him a liar.
Maybe I am being over sensitive but, I believe a Congressman who believes it is ok to call the President of the United States a liar under these circumstances has no capacity for compromise or moderation. I believe his constituents should be embarrassed. I think all Republicans should demand an apology in writing tomorrow.
Shy of that demand for an apology and a rethink by conservatives of how the public trust should affect their behavior, I am sad for our country tonight. I wonder if the Congressman and those who support him are capable of the civility required to run this country. I wonder what other things the same rationalization which allowed the Congressman to call the President a liar, will allow he and his supporters to do.
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What the crap are some Roman Catholic Bishops thinking when they decided this week to help legislate healthcare reform. When Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Bishop Robert Finn wrote a joint pastoral statement on the subject this week, they sounded more like some right-wing think tank than spiritual leaders. This is in spite of the Associated Press reporting the letter “was not meant to scuttle reform or help Republicans.” Naumann and Finn were not alone. Many other Catholic Bishops who agree seem to also be more worried about costs and out-year deficits than morality. Naumann and Finn write:
The writings of recent Popes have warned that the neglect of subsidiarity can lead to an excessive centralization of human services, which in turn leads to excessive costs, and loss of personal responsibility and quality of care.
If Bishops were concerned about abortion issues or end of life issues, I could understand why they would be obligated to give guidance on the morality of such sections of the legislation. I however, think they should rethink their political stance. Centralization may be producing better results than they might think.
Since the bishops are now policy wonks and have mentioned Medicare insolvency by 2019, I am confused by what is said later:
A hasty or unprincipled change could cause us, in fact, to lose some of the significant benefits that Americans now enjoy, while creating a future tax burden which is both unjust and unsustainable.
The key to Medicare solvency and our nation’s ability to reduce its debt is the reduction of exploding healthcare costs. They mention the exploding costs while seeming to advocate the status quo. They are also silent regarding healthcare profiteers and what I believe are immoral profits by insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Protecting the status quo for profiteers is sadly what right-wingers do. These Bishops and their supporting peers seem to have caste their lot in with the right wingers. They latch on to a few items in a bill which has not even been voted out of committee in the Senate and try to scare us to death about healthcare reform. Unlike the right wing politicians however, they do this with the vestiges of the Roman Catholic Church.
The moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church can be a powerful catalyst for change. Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped bring down Apartheid and Pope John Paul the Second helped bring down the Soviet Union. This power however, brings with it, at a minimum, a social responsibility. Using the church’s clout to make political hay seems beneath the Bishops. Maybe they should keep in mind the Catholic Church has also been a part of other governments in history with less than stellar results.
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Labor Day has become the last chance to go to the beach before the kids go back to school instead of a celebration of our blue collar work force. With the decline of labor unions, we seem to have forgotten the power of motivated, intelligent and well paid workers. In the global economy, it has become increasingly clear our kids will be forced to get some education past high school. With good reason, parents are urging their kids to go to college and steering them away from a life of blue collar labor. This is understandable because blue collar workers are under siege from all sides today. Since, all but the most innovative and complex items will be manufactured in China for the foreseeable future, why would a parent wish for a life of layoffs and shrinking wages for their child. Why is the blue collar class even necessary in the new global economy?
Why should we care about our blue collar work force? Wouldn’t it be better for the United States if all blue collar workers were sent back to school to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and scientists?
Doctors, scientists and engineers are critical for US success in the global market place (a column for another day) but, we dismiss the blue collar worker at our peril. During World War II, we overpowered our enemies not only with our military but, with pure unadulterated industrial might. A pilot who survived a shoot down in that war would have a brand new plane the next day. This allowed total air supremacy in Europe and near air supremacy in the Pacific. The blue collar work force was so important in this effort we put our wives, daughters and mothers to work outside the home for the first time. The same is true to a certain extent today.
We need to maintain our ability to build military equipment in our country. Some would say our strategic partners like the European Union will be happy to build our tanks and planes for us. Let’s say, for example, we need to bomb Dilbert’s favorite place, Elbonia, into submission for harboring terrorist. For this example however, the EU has economic ties to Elbonia. Without a blue collar work force trained to build planes required for the war on Elbonia, the EU could simply cut us off.
The strongest argument, beyond defense, for the maintenance of a healthy economic middle class may be the situation we find ourselves in today. In previous recessions, the American blue collar worker was there to buy our way out. Cars, washers and big-screen TV’s were the economic engine which made life better for all. Today, with blue collar workers the victim of falling wages, increasing healthcare costs and credit extended to them by unscrupulous financial markets, they are simply not able to help. They work harder, smarter and productivity has never been higher. Blue collar workers, however have taken a beating and are sadly not up to the task. Many economist will tell us the 2009 recession will be long and deep because the blue collar worker is not there to bail us out.
So as you soak up the last rays of summer or fire up the grill, I am sure one of your free market worshiping absolutist friends will be there. They will tell you Darwin was right and economies work best on the principle of “survival of the fittest.” They will tell you it is natural, no, required, for blue collar workers to lose their jobs to cheaper Chinese workers. They will tell you business should be free to systematically exterminate blue collar workers who want to organize or demand a part of the stockholder’s dividend. After all, they will say, companies owe them nothing.
I might tell them to give the blue collar worker a break at least on Labor Day.
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The praise heaped on the late Senator Teddy Kennedy this week reminded me of another man lost to history for most of us. Kennedy, despite his faults, was loved and respected by his conservative, moderate and liberal peers. By his constituency he was known not only for his unbridled compassion but, also as a man who could get things done. How could someone so apparently liberal stay on good speaking terms with conservatives and actually pass legislation?
Ole Teddy stole a page from someone’s playbook whose name I’ll bet you have never heard.
The man’s name was George Mason. Mason was one of the five most frequent speakers at a little gathering held to write a constitution for a new nation. This constitution would be cut from whole cloth. There had been nations and nation-states which were governed with similar values but, this convention would end up constructing a government never before seen. Mason however would not sign the new Constitution of the United States of America.
Mason believed the Constitution gave the government too much power. He lobbied for a Bill of Rights but, was overruled by the federalist including the future president James Madison. Civility, in the face of bitter disagreement was the mark of our founding fathers and especially Mason. Madison was quoted as saying, “was chiefly on occasional visits to Gunston (Mason’s home on the road between Williamsburg, Virginia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) when journeying to & fro from the North, in which his conversations were always a feast to me.” This was apparently true because in one of his first acts as an inaugural congressman, Madison introduced the Bill of Rights which was very similar to the Bill of Rights Mason penned for the State of Virginia and championed at the Constitutional Convention.
Convention, to be sure, was never Teddy Kennedy’s trademark. He befriended his political foes, took his political lemons and made the best lemonade bill possible. In general, Kennedy was the master of civility and believed fully in the art of compromise. To truly compromise as our founding fathers did, Kennedy understood the value of giving his political foes the benefit of the doubt. He was honest about his dreams for America and expected the same from people like Senator Orrin Hatch who said:
“…And he had more control over the Democrat Party base than anybody else. He’s the only one who could bring them along on issues that were — you know, that were down the middle and really bipartisan, but he could bring them along. They would have to listen to him. And part of that was because he led so many purely liberal battles on the floor, lost a lot of them, but he also won on a lot of them, too.”
Kennedy was much like Mason. He had the conviction of his ideas. He thought he could actually bring even Hatch around. On many occasions Hatch and others did lend their support. He was patient and never missed the chance to make even a rival a friend.
The moderate in me celebrates the life of Teddy Kennedy. Not because I completely agree with his vision of America but, because he practiced the best in the art of the compromise. It worked for Mason on perhaps one of most divisive and important documents ever drafted. I hope, for the sake of our country, Senator Kennedy’s spirit will bless our next generation of leaders. I hope those leaders regardless of political ideology will practice the fine art of compromise.
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This week I attended a town hall meeting in Florence, Alabama hosted by my “Democratic” Congressman Doctor Parker Griffith (D? –AL). I think someone handed him the wrong talking points because for a minute I thought I might have stumbled into a town hall hosted by Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ). It was all there. He promised he would support no public plan. He went on to tell us tort reform and insurance across state lines would fix our healthcare ails. In a nutshell, he told us 85 percent of us were happy with our healthcare and it was a matter of tweaking the system. He said all this after beginning the conversation so beautifully. He began by telling us about a woman he had treated for cancer too late.
As he relayed the all too common story woman with a master’s degree who had lost her job and health insurance, I thought about the good a choice north Alabama had made by electing a doctor to Congress in the midst of a healthcare debate. He told us how she waited because of the lack of insurance as the lump to grew in her breast, I thought he would be tired of dealing with mountains of paperwork from insurance companies. I thought he would be tired of low Medicaid reimbursements and how the healthcare profiteers rob badly needed dollars from the system for obscene profits. I thought he would want to get rid of incompetent doctors who smear his profession. I thought there would be well planned attacks on problems of the uninsured, bad doctors, low Medicare reimbursement and healthcare profiteers.
Instead, we were told our healthcare system needed only to cover a few more Americans with an intellectual appeal only Rush Limbaugh could love. He told us it was Henry Waxman’s fault that we did not have a good house bill.
To be sure, many in the red-state right-wing crowd cheered. He was giving them what they wanted. Those in the crowd had heard weeks of lies and some were still mad about President Obama being elected. He told them exactly what they wanted to hear. It’s what it takes to win elections, right?
Maybe his election as a Democrat was a calculation. Since there was apparently little difference between he and his right wing challenger, maybe he decided the coattails of President Obama were just enough to push him over the edge.
President Obama is on the edge of historic healthcare reform and his biggest challenge may be those right-wing wannabes in his own party. I am beginning to understand how consensus is fleeting in Washington, especially when supposedly moderate “Blue Dogs” sound more like right wingers. I would have assumed a Blue Dog would have at least mentioned cost containment.
Griffith’s right wing stands weren’t limited to healthcare. He told us the first consideration in immigration reform would be to “shut down that border”. I am sure he didn’t mean the Canadian border. Oh, wait, maybe he wasn’t talking about immigration at all. Perhaps he referred to shutting the Canadian boarder to drug imports.
It would seem the Blue Dog’s have collectively decided to be a part of the no crowd. Instead of being the moderates they hold themselves out to be and legitimately trying to reduce healthcare costs, they have decided to stop any real reform. I hope they reconsider because the out-year deficits which they crow about so much could be greatly reduced if they decide to be part of the solution instead of the problematic no crowd.
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Talking heads all over the news shows today eulogized healthcare reform. Many were right-wing Republicans with crappy grins on their faces. A few were liberal Democrats who think the President should ram legislation through which includes a public option. They feel this should be done with the reconciliation process designed for votes on budgets. The reconciliation process would allow no debate or amendments and pass with fifty-one votes. Shy of the reconciliation option, liberal Democrats would rather have no legislation at all.
During the President’s vacation I think he should consider a process he talked about in his campaign.
September 8th, President Obama should publicly invite the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, House Majority Leader, House Minority Whip, a spokesman for the Blue Dog Coalition, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Senate Majority Whip, Senate Minority Whip, Chairmen of the five committees who have heard testimony on healthcare legislation and the ranking members of those committees to the White House. He should call C-SPAN and tell them the entirety of the proceedings will be on air. He should instruct both parties to have, in hand, a real plan for fixing healthcare. The plan should include numbered priorities. The meetings should begin on the 10th.
Neither party should have trouble meeting the deadline of the 10th because, according to their interviews, they have all the answers. The President should play the honest broker and alternate from one party priority to the other. No stakeholders like the insurance companies, doctors or pharmaceuticals should be there. They have already spread enough money around to the attendees. The stakeholder voices have been heard loud and clear.
Clearly, this meeting will be manageable because only twenty people will be in attendance. If the President has other pressing business, he should be excused and Vice-President Biden may stand in his place. Otherwise, attendees will be excused only to eat and sleep. No staff will be allowed. Questions for staff and their responses will be read allowed and posted on the internet. No communication with lobbyist should be conducted in the halls during bathroom or lunch breaks and phone call logs should be published while the members are at their residence.
The Blue Dog Coalition will be there in a non-voting advisory capacity only. Each priority will be voted on. All ties will result in both parties returning with alternatives to the proposed legislation which created the tie.
C-SPAN should split screen the person speaking with their top twenty campaign donors. They should also give the topic of discussion along with the speaker’s name and state. Side negotiations should also be televised on one of the other C-SPAN networks. C-SPAN should also rerun the program in its entirety overnight.
No one should be dismissed until a concurrent bill is agreed on.
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Some of the people who have helped form opinion on the healthcare debate apparently do not believe what they are saying.
It makes me cringe when normally reasonable people quote me something said on The Glen Beck Show. I cringe because it is just that, a show. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ed Schultz and Bill Moyers are interested in something beyond the truth. Granted Moyers is more cerebral than the rest but, he pushes an agenda like no other. No one really knows their motivation. I can tell you however, they are not really interested in hashing out the problems of the day. I think the fictional President Andrew Shepherd said it best:
…whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.
This is not a movie or a sideshow for entertainment purposes. Healthcare spending threatens our economy and our very democracy.
A democracy depends on an educated or at least aware electorate. Do your part. Read the bill(s). Better yet, go to moderate websites like this one and ferret out some real information. Start with the Congressional Budget Office. The problem with some Americans is that they are too lazy to read the charts and graphs. They like their politics simple. The “Liberal good, conservative bad,” absolutist approach is the easy way to take a position on any question. Just be careful who installs your label.
Asking an entertainer to label an idea is dangerous and beneath the American people. We have reached an age where popularity has been confused with wisdom and knowledge. Because an entertainer says so, some have attended town hall meetings with doctored pictures of the President of the United States sporting a Hitler mustache. Does anyone really believe Obama is/was/want’s to be Hitler? He is trying to solve a problem. He needs our help.
The President seems to be getting little help from Capitol Hill. I have a feeling there are a few lawmakers who are less certain about their absolutist approach than Glen Beck. I think, as I have blogged before, many are motivated purely by political self preservation and campaign contributions. Those lawmakers need our help too. They don’t need Hitler pictures and shouting matches. They need a real effort, on our part, to understand the issues and discuss them intelligently. They certainly won’t be helped by a citizen regurgitating the view of an entertainer who may not believe his own propaganda.
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Healthcare, Chess and Unintended Consequences
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