Obama deftly plays the debt card
April 20, 2011
Honey, we shrunk the government ... at least it is on our wish lists, crowed President Barack Obama and Rep. Paul Ryan last week.
They both embraced similar goals of reducing the debt and the deficits. GOP/Ryan plan would cut government spending by $5.8 trillion over 10 years while Obama's plan would reduce government spending by $4.6 trillion over 12 years.
Neither would eliminate the $7 trillion deficit projected over the next decade caused by spending more than the government is taking in, and both would still necessitate borrowing and increasing debt to make up the difference.
Progressives were wondering if Obama had swallowed tea served by the GOP when he signed on to shrinking government. They should not have been surprised. In May 2009 the president made it clear he believed the U.S. debt was unsustainable.
While the Democratic left wing grumbled, the president threw them meaty bones they could believe in: substantive cuts in defense spending, continued support of education and environment, and proposing to raise one dollar of taxes on the rich for every three dollars of cuts. The GOP dug themselves deeper into the fox hole of no new taxes and more tax breaks for the rich.
Why then did Obama only begin to prioritize debt/deficit reduction now? He said he waited until he felt the economy had recovered sufficiently from the Great Recession to tolerate a cut in government spending. There was fear until now that drastic cuts made too quickly would hurt U.S. economic growth.
Growing the economy (measured as gross domestic product, aka GDP) is one of the keys to making debt and deficits a smaller percentage of the total and less damaging. Obama proposes a lower/slower implementation of cuts as a way to cushion a negative impact. To grow the economy, Ryan relies on reducing taxes on the rich and corporations. Obama looks to investing in infrastructure, education, and alternative energy as a necessity for the U.S. to compete in the world while creating domestic jobs.
The president's timing of announcing his position on fiscal matters was most likely dictated by a political strategy. The president could be criticized for dithering decision making, but he could not be criticized for not being clever.
Timing was everything. The president presented his plan just before some crucial votes in Congress on raising the debt ceiling and debate on the 2012 budget and just after Ryan presented his proposal. Obama won the chicken wars by waiting until the Tea Party put enough pressure on the GOP to go first to propose deficit reductions, knowing that any proposals were bound to harm the interests of some group of constituents.
Republicans had tried to set a trap to force the president to go first by questioning his leadership abilities, but the looming deadlines forced the Republicans to walk into the trap themselves, force their hand, and throw away the key to the escape hatch, to boot. With all but four House Republicans voting on the record for the Ryan proposal last week, the plan has become more than Ryan's; it is now the GOP's. GOP candidates will now have to defend their recorded votes on issues that are potentially unpopular with swing voters, and even with some in the GOP's own base of middle-agers worried about affording retirement.
Clever, too, was Obama's strategy to take some large issues off the table: Less in play is the “whether” issue because there is some degree of agreement that the debt, deficits, and government spending and entitlements need to be cut. This clears the deck for campaigns to focus on the “how” and “what” red hot buttons such as tax policy fairness and privatization of Medicare. Republicans will now be forced to play on the Democrats' turf defending some proposals that polls show are not popular.
The president may also have laid to rest questions about his leadership style since “clever is as clever does.”
They both embraced similar goals of reducing the debt and the deficits. GOP/Ryan plan would cut government spending by $5.8 trillion over 10 years while Obama's plan would reduce government spending by $4.6 trillion over 12 years.
Neither would eliminate the $7 trillion deficit projected over the next decade caused by spending more than the government is taking in, and both would still necessitate borrowing and increasing debt to make up the difference.
Progressives were wondering if Obama had swallowed tea served by the GOP when he signed on to shrinking government. They should not have been surprised. In May 2009 the president made it clear he believed the U.S. debt was unsustainable.
While the Democratic left wing grumbled, the president threw them meaty bones they could believe in: substantive cuts in defense spending, continued support of education and environment, and proposing to raise one dollar of taxes on the rich for every three dollars of cuts. The GOP dug themselves deeper into the fox hole of no new taxes and more tax breaks for the rich.
Why then did Obama only begin to prioritize debt/deficit reduction now? He said he waited until he felt the economy had recovered sufficiently from the Great Recession to tolerate a cut in government spending. There was fear until now that drastic cuts made too quickly would hurt U.S. economic growth.
Growing the economy (measured as gross domestic product, aka GDP) is one of the keys to making debt and deficits a smaller percentage of the total and less damaging. Obama proposes a lower/slower implementation of cuts as a way to cushion a negative impact. To grow the economy, Ryan relies on reducing taxes on the rich and corporations. Obama looks to investing in infrastructure, education, and alternative energy as a necessity for the U.S. to compete in the world while creating domestic jobs.
The president's timing of announcing his position on fiscal matters was most likely dictated by a political strategy. The president could be criticized for dithering decision making, but he could not be criticized for not being clever.
Timing was everything. The president presented his plan just before some crucial votes in Congress on raising the debt ceiling and debate on the 2012 budget and just after Ryan presented his proposal. Obama won the chicken wars by waiting until the Tea Party put enough pressure on the GOP to go first to propose deficit reductions, knowing that any proposals were bound to harm the interests of some group of constituents.
Republicans had tried to set a trap to force the president to go first by questioning his leadership abilities, but the looming deadlines forced the Republicans to walk into the trap themselves, force their hand, and throw away the key to the escape hatch, to boot. With all but four House Republicans voting on the record for the Ryan proposal last week, the plan has become more than Ryan's; it is now the GOP's. GOP candidates will now have to defend their recorded votes on issues that are potentially unpopular with swing voters, and even with some in the GOP's own base of middle-agers worried about affording retirement.
Clever, too, was Obama's strategy to take some large issues off the table: Less in play is the “whether” issue because there is some degree of agreement that the debt, deficits, and government spending and entitlements need to be cut. This clears the deck for campaigns to focus on the “how” and “what” red hot buttons such as tax policy fairness and privatization of Medicare. Republicans will now be forced to play on the Democrats' turf defending some proposals that polls show are not popular.
The president may also have laid to rest questions about his leadership style since “clever is as clever does.”
Ryan plan would cost seniors
April 13, 2011
Felicia Muftic: GOP Medicare plan would cost seniors
Sky-Hi Daily News
Rep. Paul Ryan's and the GOP's plan to privatize Medicare is a theory resting on an illusion. Its success depends on market conditions that do not exist. It needs a serious reality check.
Republicans have repackaged a 40-year-old platform of privatizing Medicare with a proposal to give seniors vouchers (a government subsidized credit card or something similar) to buy private insurance in the free market. This privatization scheme is based upon a theory that the insurers would compete for your voucher, driving down costs.
The problem with that theory is that there is little free market in the health insurance business. In fact, there are few companies left in the market at all, making it easier for providers to set prices and terms of coverage among themselves. What it means for seniors is that they would have a limited choice of a couple of similar plans provided by companies who can offer customers a highest price premium with lowest benefits — and get away with it.
What? Isn't that kind of business practice illegal? No. Health insurers are exempted from antitrust/anti-monopoly prosecution: Competition in the health insurance industry across the country is already dominated by one or two insurers, according to the American Medical Association's 2010 edition of Competition in Health Insurance: A Comprehensive Study of U.S. Markets.
“The near total collapse of competitive and dynamic health insurance markets has not helped patients,” said AMA President J. James Repack, M.D. “As demonstrated by proposed rate hikes in California and other states, health insurers have not shown greater efficiency and lower health care costs. Instead, patient premiums, deductibles and co -payments have soared without an increase in benefits in these increasingly consolidated markets.”
This may explain why premiums have increased, yet the reform law is not fully implemented until 2014.
There is also no guarantee that vouchers would be subsidized enough to give seniors the ability to afford a policy that would offer benefits and deductibles similar to current ones. The amount of those subsidies is critical since insurance policies issued just for seniors would be very expensive. Senior care costs most because it covers deteriorating health. Government will be left with little choice but to cut costs by reducing the dollar amount of subsidies, sticking consumers with higher co pays and larger premiums.
Defunding health care reform legislation is on the GOP's agenda at the same time as privatizing Medicare, yet “Obamacare,” as Republicans tag it, is estimated to save Medicare $400 billion over 10 years.
There are surer, less harmful ways to save Medicare and reduce the deficit than privatization. The Simpson Bowles debt commission concluded the health reform law should be retained to help cut the deficit in the future. Simpson-Bowles also proposed increasing the eligibility age as an alternative to raising out of pocket expenses.
“Obamacare” will end the 13 percent markup private insurers charged the government to administer Medicare through the Advantage program. The new law also funds vigorous prosecution of fraud and abuse, and supports greater use of home health care and other efficiencies. It sets up “exchanges” that provide opportunities for real free market competition within them and that can become standards for other insurance plans to follow. By defunding Obamacare, the GOP would take a giant step backward from its goal of reducing the deficit.
One of the most indelible impressions I had attending town halls in the 2008 presidential campaign was the look of fear and anger on the faces of Tea partyers waiving signs: “Do not let the government take away my Medicare.” Let us hope they have realized Medicare is a government entitlement program by now.
To head off voter outrage in 2011, the GOP's plan would not affect seniors over 55. In 2011 the younger crowd ought to be the ones waiving signs: “Do not let the Republicans take away my Medicare because they will stick me with both higher costs and a lingering deficit.”
Republicans have repackaged a 40-year-old platform of privatizing Medicare with a proposal to give seniors vouchers (a government subsidized credit card or something similar) to buy private insurance in the free market. This privatization scheme is based upon a theory that the insurers would compete for your voucher, driving down costs.
The problem with that theory is that there is little free market in the health insurance business. In fact, there are few companies left in the market at all, making it easier for providers to set prices and terms of coverage among themselves. What it means for seniors is that they would have a limited choice of a couple of similar plans provided by companies who can offer customers a highest price premium with lowest benefits — and get away with it.
What? Isn't that kind of business practice illegal? No. Health insurers are exempted from antitrust/anti-monopoly prosecution: Competition in the health insurance industry across the country is already dominated by one or two insurers, according to the American Medical Association's 2010 edition of Competition in Health Insurance: A Comprehensive Study of U.S. Markets.
“The near total collapse of competitive and dynamic health insurance markets has not helped patients,” said AMA President J. James Repack, M.D. “As demonstrated by proposed rate hikes in California and other states, health insurers have not shown greater efficiency and lower health care costs. Instead, patient premiums, deductibles and co -payments have soared without an increase in benefits in these increasingly consolidated markets.”
This may explain why premiums have increased, yet the reform law is not fully implemented until 2014.
There is also no guarantee that vouchers would be subsidized enough to give seniors the ability to afford a policy that would offer benefits and deductibles similar to current ones. The amount of those subsidies is critical since insurance policies issued just for seniors would be very expensive. Senior care costs most because it covers deteriorating health. Government will be left with little choice but to cut costs by reducing the dollar amount of subsidies, sticking consumers with higher co pays and larger premiums.
Defunding health care reform legislation is on the GOP's agenda at the same time as privatizing Medicare, yet “Obamacare,” as Republicans tag it, is estimated to save Medicare $400 billion over 10 years.
There are surer, less harmful ways to save Medicare and reduce the deficit than privatization. The Simpson Bowles debt commission concluded the health reform law should be retained to help cut the deficit in the future. Simpson-Bowles also proposed increasing the eligibility age as an alternative to raising out of pocket expenses.
“Obamacare” will end the 13 percent markup private insurers charged the government to administer Medicare through the Advantage program. The new law also funds vigorous prosecution of fraud and abuse, and supports greater use of home health care and other efficiencies. It sets up “exchanges” that provide opportunities for real free market competition within them and that can become standards for other insurance plans to follow. By defunding Obamacare, the GOP would take a giant step backward from its goal of reducing the deficit.
One of the most indelible impressions I had attending town halls in the 2008 presidential campaign was the look of fear and anger on the faces of Tea partyers waiving signs: “Do not let the government take away my Medicare.” Let us hope they have realized Medicare is a government entitlement program by now.
To head off voter outrage in 2011, the GOP's plan would not affect seniors over 55. In 2011 the younger crowd ought to be the ones waiving signs: “Do not let the Republicans take away my Medicare because they will stick me with both higher costs and a lingering deficit.”
Why separation of church and state is such a treasure: forced religion? not a prayer:
April 6, 2011
Some of the most precious legacies left by our country's founders are separation of church and state and the freedom to worship.
Attacks on those constitutional rights surface time and time again. Most recent examples, subject to court rulings, are a voucher movement to allow taxpayer money to pay for the tuition for students to attend faith-based schools and anti-Muslim fervor proposing laws to restrict the right to practice a certain religion.
In Colorado's Douglas County the local school board voted to offer such vouchers. Others elsewhere wanted to ban mosques in neighborhoods and there have been attempts to restrict the rights to practice the Muslim religion.
Court rulings on the matter consume case law, laying down precedents which protect that legacy, but it does not stop others contesting its meaning and application. The political right, which embraces small government and professes to be libertarian in the matter of government intrusion into personal lives, has been the most eager to pressure governments to violate that separation on both the voucher matter and anti-Muslim laws.
Various countries have approached separation of church and state differently. Through brute political force, Kemal Ataturk turned Turkey into a secular state with secular laws, banning the fez, head covers, and the veil. In the past few years, women students who covered their heads were kicked out of schools and the conflict resulted in the emergence of Islamists gaining more political power as a cultural revolution against secularism got wings.
Post-Mubarak Egypt will be shaped by the conflict between those who desire secular laws and the Muslim Brotherhood who wants an Islamic legal system. One Brotherhood pitch against secularism is that a “secular system means Egypt could allow gay marriage.” Sound familiar?
We often hear those who fear institution of Sharia law as the law of the U.S. point to England which set up Sharia courts to resolve civil issues between mosques. In England, there is no separation of church and state: There is an official religion. It is the Church of England. English history is full of strife between official religions practiced by their monarchs and the religion of their opponents. It was in that frame of reference our founders included separation of church and state in the bill of rights. Contemporary Britain dealing with diverse immigration now has a practice of tolerance applied to all.
The French follow the secular model of Ataturk, banning the wearing of garb (including headscarves) and any symbols of any religion in public schools. The anger of the Muslim minority added to the frustration of discrimination flared up into scenes reminiscent of Watts during the '60s.
Here is the beauty of the American system that sets us apart and, so long as we uphold our system separating church and state, why some of those kinds of conflicts are less likely to happen here.
The U.S. system does not follow any of these models. Both Constitutional amendments protecting free speech and separation of church and state have taken some causes of conflict off the table. If a person wants to wear a headscarf, a Burka, a yarmulke, a ruffled cap, side curls, saffron robes, a turban, a cross, or a Star of David, one can in our America. Likewise no U.S. government can require anyone to subscribe to a religion. Taxpayer-supported vouchers to underwrite tuition to attend a faith-based school have been interpreted as government support of religion, violating the constitution's prohibition against government's establishment of official religions.
If an exception to these rights is made for one religion, the legal precedent would be established to allow for other exceptions in the future. So long as we uphold these constitutional rights to practice a religion freely, to strictly observe this sacred separation of church and state, forced adherence to certain religious laws or canons will not have a prayer in the U.S. of A.
Attacks on those constitutional rights surface time and time again. Most recent examples, subject to court rulings, are a voucher movement to allow taxpayer money to pay for the tuition for students to attend faith-based schools and anti-Muslim fervor proposing laws to restrict the right to practice a certain religion.
In Colorado's Douglas County the local school board voted to offer such vouchers. Others elsewhere wanted to ban mosques in neighborhoods and there have been attempts to restrict the rights to practice the Muslim religion.
Court rulings on the matter consume case law, laying down precedents which protect that legacy, but it does not stop others contesting its meaning and application. The political right, which embraces small government and professes to be libertarian in the matter of government intrusion into personal lives, has been the most eager to pressure governments to violate that separation on both the voucher matter and anti-Muslim laws.
Various countries have approached separation of church and state differently. Through brute political force, Kemal Ataturk turned Turkey into a secular state with secular laws, banning the fez, head covers, and the veil. In the past few years, women students who covered their heads were kicked out of schools and the conflict resulted in the emergence of Islamists gaining more political power as a cultural revolution against secularism got wings.
Post-Mubarak Egypt will be shaped by the conflict between those who desire secular laws and the Muslim Brotherhood who wants an Islamic legal system. One Brotherhood pitch against secularism is that a “secular system means Egypt could allow gay marriage.” Sound familiar?
We often hear those who fear institution of Sharia law as the law of the U.S. point to England which set up Sharia courts to resolve civil issues between mosques. In England, there is no separation of church and state: There is an official religion. It is the Church of England. English history is full of strife between official religions practiced by their monarchs and the religion of their opponents. It was in that frame of reference our founders included separation of church and state in the bill of rights. Contemporary Britain dealing with diverse immigration now has a practice of tolerance applied to all.
The French follow the secular model of Ataturk, banning the wearing of garb (including headscarves) and any symbols of any religion in public schools. The anger of the Muslim minority added to the frustration of discrimination flared up into scenes reminiscent of Watts during the '60s.
Here is the beauty of the American system that sets us apart and, so long as we uphold our system separating church and state, why some of those kinds of conflicts are less likely to happen here.
The U.S. system does not follow any of these models. Both Constitutional amendments protecting free speech and separation of church and state have taken some causes of conflict off the table. If a person wants to wear a headscarf, a Burka, a yarmulke, a ruffled cap, side curls, saffron robes, a turban, a cross, or a Star of David, one can in our America. Likewise no U.S. government can require anyone to subscribe to a religion. Taxpayer-supported vouchers to underwrite tuition to attend a faith-based school have been interpreted as government support of religion, violating the constitution's prohibition against government's establishment of official religions.
If an exception to these rights is made for one religion, the legal precedent would be established to allow for other exceptions in the future. So long as we uphold these constitutional rights to practice a religion freely, to strictly observe this sacred separation of church and state, forced adherence to certain religious laws or canons will not have a prayer in the U.S. of A.
Muslim phobia...leap of the faithless...and its irrationality
Muslim phobia in the U.S. is at an all-time high. It is being reflected in attempts to ban mosques in communities and in laws being passed by majorities of voters to ban Muslim Sharia law from being considered in court decisions. Fear is the factor driving so much of this anti-Muslim political action and fear can cause even the most rational to take a faithless leap into an Alice in Wonderland of illogic.
The missing link between being fearful and Muslims and Sharia law ever ruling the U.S. is explaining how such fears will ever become reality in this country with professed faith in the strength of democratic and Judeo-Christian traditions. How would an act of terror committed in the U.S. perpetrated by a young Muslim, who is either a sleeper planted some time ago, influenced by members of a local mosque or one recruited over the Internet, cause the US to embrace the Koran instead of the Bible and adopt Sharia law?
It certainly did not happen after Sept. 11 and instead, public opinion hardened and cable talkers boosted their ratings and income dwelling on irrational fears of their already skittish audiences. Jihadists became the new villains of fiction writers, and politicians gained supporters in passing useless laws outlawing Sharia law, condemning the building of mosques, holding hearings to gin up fear, and even trying to ban the practice of the Muslim religion.
Here is what I do not get: some of the practices of Islam are due to interpretations of the Koran to which not even most Muslims subscribe and certainly most in the U.S. do not. Even then, Muslims in the U.S. have little clout, constituting .6 percent of the population. They are very far from being a political force. Some parts of the Koran indeed are not in our U.S. Judeo-Christian cultural or religious traditions. Have those subscribing to Christianity lost faith that Islam would triumph if Americans were given a choice? Oh ye men and women of little faith, I just do not get it.
Also not getting it are those who fail to understand the basic concepts of U.S. law and our Constitution. For them, fear gives them justification to ditch the protection of religious freedom guaranteed in the Constitution or to ignore the fact that Federal and state laws trump any contradictory religious practices. While the Koran permits beating a wife, it is assault in the U.S. While some interpret the Koran to permit killing a spouse for infidelity, it is murder in the U.S. and has been so prosecuted here.
We do not need only to look at examples of the Muslim faith conflicting with secular laws to understand the concept of superiority of U.S. laws over religious practices: While some religions do not believe in medical treatment for their children, and the children die or nearly do, it is child abuse and neglect in the U.S. While some Mormons interpret their religion to permit them to marry underage children, it is considered rape by our laws. The old testament exhorts taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, yet if you try to take some one's eye or tooth seeking revenge, see where that gets you in the criminal justice system. Some think their Christian belief gives someone the right to take a life to stop abortions. That gets them convicted of murder. Some once believed they were doing their Christian duty by donning white robes and hanging black offenders, but today, such hate crimes are subject to severe penalties.
It is no wonder the courts put a hold on the law banning Sharia law as being unnecessary. Legislative anti-Muslim initiatives elsewhere ran into opposition because they were clearly unconstitutional. Nonetheless, anti-Muslims soldier on, ignoring these technicalities in their fear-driven zeal, fertilizing the fields of xenophobia and paranoia, and lacking faith in the strength of their country's religious and institutional traditions.
Searching for an energy policy even in Grand County
March 23, 2011
The Japanese nuclear disaster has revived some old conflicted thoughts and musings about quo vadis of our national energy policy.
Why are the still very viable nuclear rods still stored in the former Platteville, Colo., St. Vrain nuclear power plant? The plant ended nuclear power generation in 1992 and reopened in 1996 to generate power by gas, instead. The answer points to an unsolved problem.
How and where do you dispose of nuclear waste? No one wants such depositories in their backyard. Nevada has so far blocked the Yucca Mountain site, but the Japanese crisis, which also involves on-site storage problems, is causing the Obama administration to reopen the issue.
In the meantime, recycling or burial and storage on a plant's site are the only alternatives. We can only hope the unspent hot nuclear rods left in place at St. Vrain are safely contained.
I do understand nuclear power's advantages of a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels; I only want nuclear energy used safely. While the U.S. has not had any major accidents since Three Mile Island, and gas and oil drilling and coal all have their risks, that still is no excuse not to mitigate the threat of damage as much as we can.
Our foreign policy regarding the Middle East is held hostage by our heavy reliance on their oil. Much of the cause of jihadist terrorism can be traced to angry reactions toward U.S. policy of supporting oppressive governments to ensure our continued supply. President Obama's shift to more support of democratic movements there should help, but it also raises uncertainties about who will control our access to oil.
In the meantime at home, our energy policies are politicized. The tension between the energy industry and environmentalists remains. Some react by denying a relationship between energy policy and climate change; others place environmental concerns over U.S. economic wellbeing. There must be a middle ground somewhere.
Conflict is being played out in Grand County, too, as county commissioners oppose proposed oil and gas leasing on environmental grounds and the town of Kremmling supports, seeing a potential to their economic development.
These energy vs. environment vs. safety vs. economics issues tend to end up as partisan political footballs with mostly Democrats supporting environmental legislation and mostly Republicans opposing. Decisions should be based on science and engineering, not on party affiliation.
President Obama has been an advocate for alternative energy sources and has set aside funds in stimulus bills and made it a spending priority. He has also embraced nuclear energy as one of those alternatives, and no doubt much will be learned from the Japanese disaster. His next challenge will be to replace old standards and regulations based on what we have learned and to overcome industry objections to changes.
The controversy over fracking to spring loose natural gas has pinpointed conflict between environmentalists and searchers for cleaner fuels. It has fallen to partisan politics. Democrats support requiring fracking to meet standards of clean air and water acts. Republicans do not. Yet gas has its advantages as a fuel source since it is less environmentally damaging than petroleum, while solar/wind are the least environmentally damaging.
Both are abundant in the U.S. and would get us off dependency on foreign oil and the consequences of our foreign policy decisions so harmful for our national security.
In addition to fracking's controversial impact on air and water quality, drilling for gas is still a threat to the pristine Colorado mountain areas and we should insist that the most fragile areas should be protected. Our Colorado economy is heavily dependent on eco-tourism, hunting and beauty. We humans have a responsibility to be wise stewards of a beautiful state. We must not foul our own nest.
Economically speaking, we need a responsible policy that balances these two competing economic generators, our air and water clean, protecting as much wilderness as we can, yet allowing natural gas production to succeed as a viable alternative until wind and solar can dominate.
— For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com
Why are the still very viable nuclear rods still stored in the former Platteville, Colo., St. Vrain nuclear power plant? The plant ended nuclear power generation in 1992 and reopened in 1996 to generate power by gas, instead. The answer points to an unsolved problem.
How and where do you dispose of nuclear waste? No one wants such depositories in their backyard. Nevada has so far blocked the Yucca Mountain site, but the Japanese crisis, which also involves on-site storage problems, is causing the Obama administration to reopen the issue.
In the meantime, recycling or burial and storage on a plant's site are the only alternatives. We can only hope the unspent hot nuclear rods left in place at St. Vrain are safely contained.
I do understand nuclear power's advantages of a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels; I only want nuclear energy used safely. While the U.S. has not had any major accidents since Three Mile Island, and gas and oil drilling and coal all have their risks, that still is no excuse not to mitigate the threat of damage as much as we can.
Our foreign policy regarding the Middle East is held hostage by our heavy reliance on their oil. Much of the cause of jihadist terrorism can be traced to angry reactions toward U.S. policy of supporting oppressive governments to ensure our continued supply. President Obama's shift to more support of democratic movements there should help, but it also raises uncertainties about who will control our access to oil.
In the meantime at home, our energy policies are politicized. The tension between the energy industry and environmentalists remains. Some react by denying a relationship between energy policy and climate change; others place environmental concerns over U.S. economic wellbeing. There must be a middle ground somewhere.
Conflict is being played out in Grand County, too, as county commissioners oppose proposed oil and gas leasing on environmental grounds and the town of Kremmling supports, seeing a potential to their economic development.
These energy vs. environment vs. safety vs. economics issues tend to end up as partisan political footballs with mostly Democrats supporting environmental legislation and mostly Republicans opposing. Decisions should be based on science and engineering, not on party affiliation.
President Obama has been an advocate for alternative energy sources and has set aside funds in stimulus bills and made it a spending priority. He has also embraced nuclear energy as one of those alternatives, and no doubt much will be learned from the Japanese disaster. His next challenge will be to replace old standards and regulations based on what we have learned and to overcome industry objections to changes.
The controversy over fracking to spring loose natural gas has pinpointed conflict between environmentalists and searchers for cleaner fuels. It has fallen to partisan politics. Democrats support requiring fracking to meet standards of clean air and water acts. Republicans do not. Yet gas has its advantages as a fuel source since it is less environmentally damaging than petroleum, while solar/wind are the least environmentally damaging.
Both are abundant in the U.S. and would get us off dependency on foreign oil and the consequences of our foreign policy decisions so harmful for our national security.
In addition to fracking's controversial impact on air and water quality, drilling for gas is still a threat to the pristine Colorado mountain areas and we should insist that the most fragile areas should be protected. Our Colorado economy is heavily dependent on eco-tourism, hunting and beauty. We humans have a responsibility to be wise stewards of a beautiful state. We must not foul our own nest.
Economically speaking, we need a responsible policy that balances these two competing economic generators, our air and water clean, protecting as much wilderness as we can, yet allowing natural gas production to succeed as a viable alternative until wind and solar can dominate.
— For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com
GOP budget cuts put women and children behind a tree
March 16, 2011,
Looking at the GOP's proposed budget cuts, Republicans are careful not to harm their base. Instead, they zero in on women and children services ,education, homeless vets, and neighborhood health centers for the poor, as well as their long time ideological bugaboos, the EPA and NPR.
The late Sen. Russell Long's oft repeated jingle, “Don't tax you; don't tax me; tax that fellow behind the tree ...” is cynical enough, but the GOP's current budget platform could also read: I won't cut you (my esteemed voting base's interests); I won't cut me (or those who contribute to me); I'll cut those women, poor and kids behind the tree (they either do not vote or they vote for the other party).
I watched C-Span the other night as Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson presented their bold plan to reduce the deficit to a Senate committee. As both said, GOP's budget cuts and the Democrats' proposals do not even begin to put a dent into the deficit problem. It is going to take reforming entitlements. If so, both political parties have to look way past their closest trees and get serious, or else they will put many through needless pain.
Both parties watched their respective proposals die for lack of votes in Congress, but they met their campaign promises to make the effort for the record and have postured their ideologies ad nauseam. It is time to stop daring the other side to commit political suicide by being first to advocate making the hard choices on entitlements. The GOP squirmed out of their responsibility so far by calling Pres. Obama's low keying the budget conflict a “failure of leadership” ... daring him to make the first move. This reminds me of the childrens' bait tactic: sticking out a tongue, flapping ears and sing songing na na na.
The truth: Congress and the White House have demonstrated an equal reluctance to commit political suicide in tackling entitlements. Congress criticizing the president for lack of leadership is the pot calling the kettle black. If the proposals that will actually deal with long term deficits are politically too painful, all should take the fall together so that they either both get blame or get credit simultaneously.
Complicating the ability to make the hard choices is that the short term and long term solutions are at odds with one another. Cutting government expenditures now while we still have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, according to the economists at Goldman Sachs, would cost the U.S. 700,000 jobs and hurt our immediate recovery. On the other hand, GOP philosophy regarding government cuts has some validity in trickling down the economic levels to create jobs, but trickling down is a long term deal.
Obama's preparation for 2012 is to win the future. He will make the argument that while the short term economy is bad, we need to look beyond 2012 and not let the expediency of cuts in education, energy, and infrastructure destroy future job growth. It will be a difficult sell. Voters are not inclined to think in long term and usually focus on what ox is being gored du jour.
The GOP likes to counter Democrats in the trickle down versus government stimulus debate with some logic defying arguments: They claim “the stimulus failed because x number of jobs were lost.”
If we had followed the Republican trickle down, laissez faire philosophy in 2008, the number of unemployed would arguably have equaled the Depression rate of over 20 percent and our economy would have indeed fallen off the cliff. Remind a Republican of that and watch him/her quickly change the subject or simply restate the trickle down theory.
The Republicans claim government spending sucks up capital available for investment, but the problem is not a lack of capital. Plenty of private capital is sitting on the sidelines. The GOP blames uncertainty for that yet Republicans and Democrats, share the blame for the uncertainty as they gridlock over who behind the tree they cut.
King hearings could backfire
The late Sen. Russell Long's oft repeated jingle, “Don't tax you; don't tax me; tax that fellow behind the tree ...” is cynical enough, but the GOP's current budget platform could also read: I won't cut you (my esteemed voting base's interests); I won't cut me (or those who contribute to me); I'll cut those women, poor and kids behind the tree (they either do not vote or they vote for the other party).
I watched C-Span the other night as Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson presented their bold plan to reduce the deficit to a Senate committee. As both said, GOP's budget cuts and the Democrats' proposals do not even begin to put a dent into the deficit problem. It is going to take reforming entitlements. If so, both political parties have to look way past their closest trees and get serious, or else they will put many through needless pain.
Both parties watched their respective proposals die for lack of votes in Congress, but they met their campaign promises to make the effort for the record and have postured their ideologies ad nauseam. It is time to stop daring the other side to commit political suicide by being first to advocate making the hard choices on entitlements. The GOP squirmed out of their responsibility so far by calling Pres. Obama's low keying the budget conflict a “failure of leadership” ... daring him to make the first move. This reminds me of the childrens' bait tactic: sticking out a tongue, flapping ears and sing songing na na na.
The truth: Congress and the White House have demonstrated an equal reluctance to commit political suicide in tackling entitlements. Congress criticizing the president for lack of leadership is the pot calling the kettle black. If the proposals that will actually deal with long term deficits are politically too painful, all should take the fall together so that they either both get blame or get credit simultaneously.
Complicating the ability to make the hard choices is that the short term and long term solutions are at odds with one another. Cutting government expenditures now while we still have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, according to the economists at Goldman Sachs, would cost the U.S. 700,000 jobs and hurt our immediate recovery. On the other hand, GOP philosophy regarding government cuts has some validity in trickling down the economic levels to create jobs, but trickling down is a long term deal.
Obama's preparation for 2012 is to win the future. He will make the argument that while the short term economy is bad, we need to look beyond 2012 and not let the expediency of cuts in education, energy, and infrastructure destroy future job growth. It will be a difficult sell. Voters are not inclined to think in long term and usually focus on what ox is being gored du jour.
The GOP likes to counter Democrats in the trickle down versus government stimulus debate with some logic defying arguments: They claim “the stimulus failed because x number of jobs were lost.”
If we had followed the Republican trickle down, laissez faire philosophy in 2008, the number of unemployed would arguably have equaled the Depression rate of over 20 percent and our economy would have indeed fallen off the cliff. Remind a Republican of that and watch him/her quickly change the subject or simply restate the trickle down theory.
The Republicans claim government spending sucks up capital available for investment, but the problem is not a lack of capital. Plenty of private capital is sitting on the sidelines. The GOP blames uncertainty for that yet Republicans and Democrats, share the blame for the uncertainty as they gridlock over who behind the tree they cut.
King hearings could backfire
March 9, 2011
I thought I was reliving the McCarthy era in this Sunday morning's news programs when I heard Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is launching hearings to remind us of the danger of radical Muslims.
It is his goal to advocate for his position that Congress should not cut funds he wants for Homeland Security. Instead of the Red Scare of McCarthyism, we now have the Green Scare of the 21st century.
This criticism of the King hearings in no way means we should stop being vigilant in seeking out those home-grown radicals or nipping their violent plans in the bud. They do present a threat.
However, the hearings solely focusing on what we should fear could also cause us to take action again that would actually increase the threat to us both internally and externally.
There could be some other unintended consequences … and that is to paint the law abiding, loyal Muslim-Americans, 0.6 percent of the US population, with the same broad brush of the radicalism of a few. In a sense, this approach is as dangerous as the McCarthy era, which destroyed anyone who had a slightly pinko tinge.
Many careers were unfairly ruined because of black-listing. However, if it got out of hand, searching for a few bad actors within a group of adherents of a religion could give already fearful Americans more cause to view all Muslims as a danger.
It would further undermine our values of tolerance and our Constitutional protections. Blind, fear-driven, anti-Muslim legislation in Oklahoma and Tennessee already has been proposed or passed.
The winner in the King approach could be exactly the one King views as the enemy: al-Qaida and their ilk. Al-Qaida so far has failed to launch a major attack against the U.S. since Sept. 11, but to fight the devil of America by scaring the wits out of Americans helps them meet their goal of a small number's ability to terrorize us.
We should be careful that we do not empower al-Qaida by exaggerating their influence. Bin Laden must be sitting back in his Pakistan cave feeling emboldened by thinking so few can have so much of an impact on us.
Dangerous too is losing perspective as we develop national policy. If we are driven by an atmosphere of irrational fear, we might support policy decisions that that gets result opposite from what we intended. The King hearings could contribute to ginning up such fear.
The neo-cons in the Bush administration saw Saddam as their real enemy long before Sept. 11. They were able to convince us with a campaign of fear and misinformation that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 when there was no evidence. Their ruse rallied Americans in support of a diversionary action which permitted a resurgence of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and renewed Muslims' hatred toward the West, fueling the cause of jihadism for years.
The same neo-cons responsible for the Iraq invasion are at it again, urging us on cable talk this week to intervene in Libya , agreeing with Gadhafi, it appears, that the rebellion would lead to resurgence of al-Qaida there. There is far more evidence that the goal of the insurgents is for the end of corruption and a reign of terror. Like the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the rebels have not made anti-Americanism the cause of their uprising or supported the goal of jihadists to replace one dictatorship with a tyrannical Islamic state . American policy should work to keep it that way.
If not handled carefully, any American military intervention could play into the radicalization of many more Muslims outside the U.S. who already see us as the invaders, and it would further inspire our home-grown jihadists to action.
As we tune into King's hearings, let us keep the Green Threat grounded in reality and not be stampeded into ill thought out action by an atmosphere of irrational fear.
For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com. To comment, visit www.skyhidailynews.com
It is his goal to advocate for his position that Congress should not cut funds he wants for Homeland Security. Instead of the Red Scare of McCarthyism, we now have the Green Scare of the 21st century.
This criticism of the King hearings in no way means we should stop being vigilant in seeking out those home-grown radicals or nipping their violent plans in the bud. They do present a threat.
However, the hearings solely focusing on what we should fear could also cause us to take action again that would actually increase the threat to us both internally and externally.
There could be some other unintended consequences … and that is to paint the law abiding, loyal Muslim-Americans, 0.6 percent of the US population, with the same broad brush of the radicalism of a few. In a sense, this approach is as dangerous as the McCarthy era, which destroyed anyone who had a slightly pinko tinge.
Many careers were unfairly ruined because of black-listing. However, if it got out of hand, searching for a few bad actors within a group of adherents of a religion could give already fearful Americans more cause to view all Muslims as a danger.
It would further undermine our values of tolerance and our Constitutional protections. Blind, fear-driven, anti-Muslim legislation in Oklahoma and Tennessee already has been proposed or passed.
The winner in the King approach could be exactly the one King views as the enemy: al-Qaida and their ilk. Al-Qaida so far has failed to launch a major attack against the U.S. since Sept. 11, but to fight the devil of America by scaring the wits out of Americans helps them meet their goal of a small number's ability to terrorize us.
We should be careful that we do not empower al-Qaida by exaggerating their influence. Bin Laden must be sitting back in his Pakistan cave feeling emboldened by thinking so few can have so much of an impact on us.
Dangerous too is losing perspective as we develop national policy. If we are driven by an atmosphere of irrational fear, we might support policy decisions that that gets result opposite from what we intended. The King hearings could contribute to ginning up such fear.
The neo-cons in the Bush administration saw Saddam as their real enemy long before Sept. 11. They were able to convince us with a campaign of fear and misinformation that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 when there was no evidence. Their ruse rallied Americans in support of a diversionary action which permitted a resurgence of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and renewed Muslims' hatred toward the West, fueling the cause of jihadism for years.
The same neo-cons responsible for the Iraq invasion are at it again, urging us on cable talk this week to intervene in Libya , agreeing with Gadhafi, it appears, that the rebellion would lead to resurgence of al-Qaida there. There is far more evidence that the goal of the insurgents is for the end of corruption and a reign of terror. Like the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the rebels have not made anti-Americanism the cause of their uprising or supported the goal of jihadists to replace one dictatorship with a tyrannical Islamic state . American policy should work to keep it that way.
If not handled carefully, any American military intervention could play into the radicalization of many more Muslims outside the U.S. who already see us as the invaders, and it would further inspire our home-grown jihadists to action.
As we tune into King's hearings, let us keep the Green Threat grounded in reality and not be stampeded into ill thought out action by an atmosphere of irrational fear.
For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com. To comment, visit www.skyhidailynews.com
Shariaphobia v more likely threat to women
March 3, 2011
Terrified of Sharia law? We women only need to look closer to home to find some Republicans who want to put us back into the Middle Ages.
The Shariaphobia would be comical if it were not such a pervasive talking point in right wing media. Last November, citizens of Oklahoma voted to outlaw Sharia law in their home state. Execution of it was immediately put on hold by the courts as unnecessary. No one was ever contemplating considering Sharia law in court rulings.
Shariaphobia is spreading to more open minded states, as well. I received a mailing from conservative Colorado former Senator Bill Armstrong giving us a choice between our constitution or Sharia law. The thesis? Freedom of religion should not be extended to Muslims since they promote violence. Both the Oklahomans and Armstrong's writer exhibit extreme ignorance of the uneven and selective cherry picking application of Sharia law that varies from Muslim country to country. They also have a basic lack of understanding of the primacy of secular laws in the US.
For those not familiar with Sharia law, it is a system of religious based law not found in the Koran, but it was written by those who interpreted the Koran (some would argue falsely) to restrict the rights of women to own property, to divorce among other anti-women measures. Where Oklahomans and everyone else caught up in this paranoia go off the rails is that our Federal and State laws always trump local religious “laws.” Just ask the Mormon sect who try to get away with polygamy and rape of underage girls about that.
So long as women have the vote in the US, Sharia law stands a chance of becoming the law of our land less than an ice cube surviving in a cauldron of a volcano. Our secular democracy, with separation of church and state, is likewise our greatest protection from anything like Sharia law being imposed on us unwillingly as part of an established official religion. We need to guard that protection provided in our Bill of Rights with vigilance. Besides, Muslims constitute less than 1 percent of the US population and even if they were united in a goal to turn us all into Muslims, they have a long way to go.
What women ought to fear, however, is a home grown, real, and immediate threat: some members of the Republican Party and even in some cases, official GOP policy itself. Our gains we have fought for and won since the ‘60's are threatened by them now.
A Georgia state legislator wants to change the legal term for those who were victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence from “victim” to “an accuser.” Such female victims would no longer be referred to as victims, reviving the age old prejudice used as a defense by men that it was always the woman's fault. Glad he did not propose throwing stones at the “accusers.” At least that.
In Congress, Republicans have proposed that hospitals would allow a woman to die rather than perform a lifesaving abortion. Yesiree. They want to let government take away doc's and a woman's discretion to decide who would have a right to life.
Here's one for the Taliban books: Maryland Republicans ended all money for low income preschool programs because “women should really be home with kids, not out working.” Whatever happened to welfare reform that put welfare women to work? What are we back to: Nazi era “Kinder, Kuchen, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church)?
This one is great for horse lovers but not for female humans: In Congress, Republicans voted on cutting all federal funding from Planned Parenthood and are promoting eliminating all funds for federal family planning programs. However there is a bill introduced by a Republican to provide contraception for wild horses.
Just tell me it is not true, Republicans. Spare me from GOPhobia.
To comment go to www.skyhidailynews.com. Documentation is posted at www.mufticforum.com/footnotes.
The Shariaphobia would be comical if it were not such a pervasive talking point in right wing media. Last November, citizens of Oklahoma voted to outlaw Sharia law in their home state. Execution of it was immediately put on hold by the courts as unnecessary. No one was ever contemplating considering Sharia law in court rulings.
Shariaphobia is spreading to more open minded states, as well. I received a mailing from conservative Colorado former Senator Bill Armstrong giving us a choice between our constitution or Sharia law. The thesis? Freedom of religion should not be extended to Muslims since they promote violence. Both the Oklahomans and Armstrong's writer exhibit extreme ignorance of the uneven and selective cherry picking application of Sharia law that varies from Muslim country to country. They also have a basic lack of understanding of the primacy of secular laws in the US.
For those not familiar with Sharia law, it is a system of religious based law not found in the Koran, but it was written by those who interpreted the Koran (some would argue falsely) to restrict the rights of women to own property, to divorce among other anti-women measures. Where Oklahomans and everyone else caught up in this paranoia go off the rails is that our Federal and State laws always trump local religious “laws.” Just ask the Mormon sect who try to get away with polygamy and rape of underage girls about that.
So long as women have the vote in the US, Sharia law stands a chance of becoming the law of our land less than an ice cube surviving in a cauldron of a volcano. Our secular democracy, with separation of church and state, is likewise our greatest protection from anything like Sharia law being imposed on us unwillingly as part of an established official religion. We need to guard that protection provided in our Bill of Rights with vigilance. Besides, Muslims constitute less than 1 percent of the US population and even if they were united in a goal to turn us all into Muslims, they have a long way to go.
What women ought to fear, however, is a home grown, real, and immediate threat: some members of the Republican Party and even in some cases, official GOP policy itself. Our gains we have fought for and won since the ‘60's are threatened by them now.
A Georgia state legislator wants to change the legal term for those who were victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence from “victim” to “an accuser.” Such female victims would no longer be referred to as victims, reviving the age old prejudice used as a defense by men that it was always the woman's fault. Glad he did not propose throwing stones at the “accusers.” At least that.
In Congress, Republicans have proposed that hospitals would allow a woman to die rather than perform a lifesaving abortion. Yesiree. They want to let government take away doc's and a woman's discretion to decide who would have a right to life.
Here's one for the Taliban books: Maryland Republicans ended all money for low income preschool programs because “women should really be home with kids, not out working.” Whatever happened to welfare reform that put welfare women to work? What are we back to: Nazi era “Kinder, Kuchen, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church)?
This one is great for horse lovers but not for female humans: In Congress, Republicans voted on cutting all federal funding from Planned Parenthood and are promoting eliminating all funds for federal family planning programs. However there is a bill introduced by a Republican to provide contraception for wild horses.
Just tell me it is not true, Republicans. Spare me from GOPhobia.
To comment go to www.skyhidailynews.com. Documentation is posted at www.mufticforum.com/footnotes.
Round 2 of the great health care debate has begun
February 23, 2011
Round two of the great debate on health care reform has begun. The Obama administration won the first round. Their proposal is now law.
The second began last Friday in Congress as Republicans voted to defund it as part of the budget approval process. Since Democrats still control the Senate and the White House, this round is likely to be a draw.
GOP strategy for the third round, to use it as a campaign issue in 2012, is irresponsible, mostly ideologically based, and sometimes contradicts other conservative principles.
In January, the Senate voted down Republican efforts to repeal “Obamacare.” The GOP strategy appears to have shifted. The “replacement” element of last year's slogan of “repeal; replace” rarely crosses a Republicans' lips. Republicans have buried replacement proposals in the locker room of four House committees with no deadline to report out.
Instead, House leadership is doubling down on their “kill Obamacare” slogan, using this battle cry to elect more in 2012 who can deliver the knock out punch.
Last session, Republicans made some informal proposals to replace “Obamacare.” Those proposals have been evaluated by the nonpartisan, independent Congressional Budget Office as falling short of what “Obamacare” would achieve, including contributing to debt reduction two times more than anything proposed by the GOP so far or, adding 12 years to the solvency of Medicare, or funding consumer protection provisions. While previous Republican assertions have been health care costs can be lowered using other methods, the CBO figured GOP plans would make health care costs affordable to no more than the 3 million of the 30 million of those who cannot afford it now. Big deal.
Republicans voted Friday to defund “Obamacare” without presenting a comparable replacement plan. That is fiscally irresponsible. Without an effective plan to cut health care costs, families will soon pay half of their income for insurance and our national debt will be blown out of the water.
Instead, to avoid embarrassing cold arithmetic should the replacement proposals see daylight again, the GOP is making a pre-emptive punch below the belt. They are attempting to kill the messenger, the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republicans dismissed in advance of hearings as garbage in/garbage out any CBO projections that did not support their talking points while accepting other CBO estimates.
What about amending the law to make it more palatable? That was nowhere on the house agenda last week. According to Politico, Teaparty founder Dick Armey urged Congressional Teapartiers to reject any such attempts. He feared if the bill is made more popular, opponents would have more difficulty killing it.
The GOP is continuing to play to fears about government takeover and control, centering the debate on provisions mandating that all must have health insurance coverage if they do not have insurance through employers or other means.
What terrible insurance are the uninsured being mandated to buy? Insurance similar to the one Congressional members tap: It is a large pool group plan, but comprised of competing private, non governmental insurers and administered by the government. Such a plan seems OK for Congress members, but not for anyone else.
The constitutionality of the mandate issue will be decided by the Supreme Court. Killing mandates is popular to many, but also a provision popular with many is requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions. The mandate provisions makes coverage of pre-existing conditions fiscally practical.
To keep costs low require that the healthy are included in the pool and risks are spread around. The GOP bases their opposition on an ideology that opposes government requiring anyone to buy something.
Mandates also protect us from freeloaders who demand medical care without paying for insurance. They would stick the rest of us with their unpaid bills. Charity and expensive ER care costs get passed onto insurance subscribers. Since when has freeloading been a conservative value?
But no one ever claimed ideology must be practical or free of contradictions.
For more commentary, go to www.mufticforum.com; to comment, go to www.skyhidailynews. com
The second began last Friday in Congress as Republicans voted to defund it as part of the budget approval process. Since Democrats still control the Senate and the White House, this round is likely to be a draw.
GOP strategy for the third round, to use it as a campaign issue in 2012, is irresponsible, mostly ideologically based, and sometimes contradicts other conservative principles.
In January, the Senate voted down Republican efforts to repeal “Obamacare.” The GOP strategy appears to have shifted. The “replacement” element of last year's slogan of “repeal; replace” rarely crosses a Republicans' lips. Republicans have buried replacement proposals in the locker room of four House committees with no deadline to report out.
Instead, House leadership is doubling down on their “kill Obamacare” slogan, using this battle cry to elect more in 2012 who can deliver the knock out punch.
Last session, Republicans made some informal proposals to replace “Obamacare.” Those proposals have been evaluated by the nonpartisan, independent Congressional Budget Office as falling short of what “Obamacare” would achieve, including contributing to debt reduction two times more than anything proposed by the GOP so far or, adding 12 years to the solvency of Medicare, or funding consumer protection provisions. While previous Republican assertions have been health care costs can be lowered using other methods, the CBO figured GOP plans would make health care costs affordable to no more than the 3 million of the 30 million of those who cannot afford it now. Big deal.
Republicans voted Friday to defund “Obamacare” without presenting a comparable replacement plan. That is fiscally irresponsible. Without an effective plan to cut health care costs, families will soon pay half of their income for insurance and our national debt will be blown out of the water.
Instead, to avoid embarrassing cold arithmetic should the replacement proposals see daylight again, the GOP is making a pre-emptive punch below the belt. They are attempting to kill the messenger, the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republicans dismissed in advance of hearings as garbage in/garbage out any CBO projections that did not support their talking points while accepting other CBO estimates.
What about amending the law to make it more palatable? That was nowhere on the house agenda last week. According to Politico, Teaparty founder Dick Armey urged Congressional Teapartiers to reject any such attempts. He feared if the bill is made more popular, opponents would have more difficulty killing it.
The GOP is continuing to play to fears about government takeover and control, centering the debate on provisions mandating that all must have health insurance coverage if they do not have insurance through employers or other means.
What terrible insurance are the uninsured being mandated to buy? Insurance similar to the one Congressional members tap: It is a large pool group plan, but comprised of competing private, non governmental insurers and administered by the government. Such a plan seems OK for Congress members, but not for anyone else.
The constitutionality of the mandate issue will be decided by the Supreme Court. Killing mandates is popular to many, but also a provision popular with many is requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions. The mandate provisions makes coverage of pre-existing conditions fiscally practical.
To keep costs low require that the healthy are included in the pool and risks are spread around. The GOP bases their opposition on an ideology that opposes government requiring anyone to buy something.
Mandates also protect us from freeloaders who demand medical care without paying for insurance. They would stick the rest of us with their unpaid bills. Charity and expensive ER care costs get passed onto insurance subscribers. Since when has freeloading been a conservative value?
But no one ever claimed ideology must be practical or free of contradictions.
For more commentary, go to www.mufticforum.com; to comment, go to www.skyhidailynews. com
Breathing easier in Egypt
Feb. 15, 2011
It is Feb. 11, 2011: I was shedding a joyful tear when I heard the news that Hosni Mubarak had resigned and I felt as one with those in Tahrir Square.
Why? After all, the U.S.' national interest in the region may be affected, and not favorably. Instability is always dangerous and an unknown. I should be fearful. Instead, I cheered the revolutionaries' success and I have good reason not to fear the results.
I am no stranger to authoritarian regimes. I was a student in West Berlin from1958-1959 in the middle of the Cold War and I was able to visit East Berlin. The time was a tense one, just before the Wall was erected.
I met my Mike, my husband-to be, a medical student who was from Yugoslavia, in Berlin. The experience of being subjected to an iron-fisted government ruled by Tito was still part of his aura of fear and he was visited by the secret police, which resulted in his fleeing to Switzerland.
Nine years later, when the Yugoslavian communist regime declared amnesty for refugees, we with our family of young children made a visit to Dr. Mike's homeland, the first of many. At one airport he was pulled from the plane to identify his luggage. It was much to do about nothing, but he had nightmares about it for months. Fear of unfair persecution with no legal rights can be terrifying.
We in America don't know what it is like to have to guard every word we say or fear that some deviation from political correctness overheard by an informant might result in a midnight knock at the door. We have never had to retreat into a shell where the only outlet for safe personal expression is to cheer a sports team. As Dr. Mike said, it is enough to make you paranoid. It is a suffocating blanket that throws your subconscious into a low grade depression spiked by adrenaline rushes of fear.
Once before I had rejoiced when an authoritarian regime was toppled. I pulled my car to the shoulder of a Denver freeway to cry when I heard on the radio that the Wall had been pulled down. Like the East Germans, the heavy burden of fear had been lifted from young Egyptian shoulders and they now see the possibility of a bright future ahead.
The chances are very good that Egypt will not evolve into a permanent military dictatorship or an Islamist state.
The nature of the revolutionaries themselves would not tolerate a backslide to any kind of authoritarian regime, military or radical Islamist. Their numbers were their strength, and people from all walks of life participated. Their universally shared goal was secular democracy of the kind we in America enjoy, free from oppression and an end to corruption that was robbing economic development and limited their ability to find jobs. They were not demonstrating to form an Islamist state, nor did the Islamic Brotherhood play a pivotal role, since their agenda was not a secular democracy.
Demographics are a factor in any future elections. Young people, prime movers of the revolution, outnumber the older generations and the same demographics are reflected in Egypt's conscript military, a military that the generals cannot trust to fire on their own.
With the military in control during the transition period of six months, those same young people will have time to form a large enough voting block to offset proponents of radical Islam or continued military dictatorship. They have already demonstrated they have the self discipline and the and grasp of modern technology to organize peaceful civil disobedience quickly. If they could do that, they certainly have the ability to organize politically.
Revolutions will never be the same: Twitter, Facebook, and texting combined with the protest techniques of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are tools more powerful than any sword.
Why? After all, the U.S.' national interest in the region may be affected, and not favorably. Instability is always dangerous and an unknown. I should be fearful. Instead, I cheered the revolutionaries' success and I have good reason not to fear the results.
I am no stranger to authoritarian regimes. I was a student in West Berlin from1958-1959 in the middle of the Cold War and I was able to visit East Berlin. The time was a tense one, just before the Wall was erected.
I met my Mike, my husband-to be, a medical student who was from Yugoslavia, in Berlin. The experience of being subjected to an iron-fisted government ruled by Tito was still part of his aura of fear and he was visited by the secret police, which resulted in his fleeing to Switzerland.
Nine years later, when the Yugoslavian communist regime declared amnesty for refugees, we with our family of young children made a visit to Dr. Mike's homeland, the first of many. At one airport he was pulled from the plane to identify his luggage. It was much to do about nothing, but he had nightmares about it for months. Fear of unfair persecution with no legal rights can be terrifying.
We in America don't know what it is like to have to guard every word we say or fear that some deviation from political correctness overheard by an informant might result in a midnight knock at the door. We have never had to retreat into a shell where the only outlet for safe personal expression is to cheer a sports team. As Dr. Mike said, it is enough to make you paranoid. It is a suffocating blanket that throws your subconscious into a low grade depression spiked by adrenaline rushes of fear.
Once before I had rejoiced when an authoritarian regime was toppled. I pulled my car to the shoulder of a Denver freeway to cry when I heard on the radio that the Wall had been pulled down. Like the East Germans, the heavy burden of fear had been lifted from young Egyptian shoulders and they now see the possibility of a bright future ahead.
The chances are very good that Egypt will not evolve into a permanent military dictatorship or an Islamist state.
The nature of the revolutionaries themselves would not tolerate a backslide to any kind of authoritarian regime, military or radical Islamist. Their numbers were their strength, and people from all walks of life participated. Their universally shared goal was secular democracy of the kind we in America enjoy, free from oppression and an end to corruption that was robbing economic development and limited their ability to find jobs. They were not demonstrating to form an Islamist state, nor did the Islamic Brotherhood play a pivotal role, since their agenda was not a secular democracy.
Demographics are a factor in any future elections. Young people, prime movers of the revolution, outnumber the older generations and the same demographics are reflected in Egypt's conscript military, a military that the generals cannot trust to fire on their own.
With the military in control during the transition period of six months, those same young people will have time to form a large enough voting block to offset proponents of radical Islam or continued military dictatorship. They have already demonstrated they have the self discipline and the and grasp of modern technology to organize peaceful civil disobedience quickly. If they could do that, they certainly have the ability to organize politically.
Revolutions will never be the same: Twitter, Facebook, and texting combined with the protest techniques of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are tools more powerful than any sword.
Turkey could light the way for democracy in Egypt
Feb. 8, 2011
As Egyptians will find out, Democracy has its risks and the outcome may surprise them, but they can learn some lessons from what happened when Eastern Europe toppled their Communist rulers and Turkey evolved from military control to a more open democracy .
Those emerging from Communist dictatorships mistook democracy for economic and political anarchy. The old guard scrambled to keep economic power and privilege by taking advantage of the plums of enterprise fire sales and the habit of corruption of the past carried into the new order. It has taken a decade to get over the cowboy capitalism and political corruption that followed and it still a work in progress.
My hopes and fears for Egypt are shaped by some personal experiences. I cherish my 50 years of being in close and frequent contact with ordinary people who were friends and relatives I met through my husband, a native of the Balkans, a region that contains a significant Muslim population. For 500 years Turkey ruled Bosnia and the culture and values still shape their attitudes and lives throughout the Balkans, even during and after Communist dictatorships.
Egypt will still have to struggle with the vestiges of corruption that seem to be inherent in both Communist and military dictatorships. Croatia and Serbia are learning that exposure of corruption by a free press and protection of human rights provide a way of eventually mitigating corruption.
We do not know yet what the ultimate outcome will be of the Egyptian uprising. It was a spontaneous one, not led by those seeking religious dominance, but by the young and educated wanting jobs and freedoms described to them on the Internet. It was young, educated Tunisians who showed the disgruntled population in Egypt how it could be done.
This year in Istanbul I saw a vibrant economy and few headscarves and a bustling population of young people on the way to work and study. Muslim Turkey could provide the model for Egypt's future. Like Egypt, Turkey has been ruled by a military dictatorship since the days of Ataturk, with generals sometimes pulling the strings of government out of view and sometimes more publicly. Thanks to Ataturk's lingering imprint, Turkey has been secular, though their more liberal form of democracy has permitted the rise to power of more Islamist political parties. Nonetheless, it has remained an important NATO ally and has been a model of a successful moderate Muslim country.
Yes, indeed, the West has an enormous stake in protecting the oil transit through the Suez Canal. It is more than the Suez that is shaping European and U.S. policies toward Egypt. The U.S. especially has concern about protecting Israel and fears that Egypt could become the homeland of al-Qaida. The outcome could be a disaster for our own national interests.
There is reason for optimism. The revolution so far has focused on demanding the military powers giving more human rights and freedom. It has not yet asked for dismantling of the military; just the removal of Mubarak. Like Turks, Egyptians respect their military. Given the accepted power of the Egyptian military and Western support of it, and the fact that radical Islamists constitute a minority, a Turkish form of governance could even be a likely outcome.
In new democracies there is always a risk that those who represent a minority view can manipulate the political system and grab control of the election process. If pressure is maintained to make elections honest and open and free press and other human rights are observed, chances of this happening are diminished.
Citizens become less radical if their voices to address grievances are heard and they have the power to change their governance peacefully.
Much of what happens in the future of Egypt is beyond our control but we can continue to exert pressure to make good on promises to provide the kinds of freedoms the West enjoys.
— For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com; to comment, go the www.skyhidailynews.com
Those emerging from Communist dictatorships mistook democracy for economic and political anarchy. The old guard scrambled to keep economic power and privilege by taking advantage of the plums of enterprise fire sales and the habit of corruption of the past carried into the new order. It has taken a decade to get over the cowboy capitalism and political corruption that followed and it still a work in progress.
My hopes and fears for Egypt are shaped by some personal experiences. I cherish my 50 years of being in close and frequent contact with ordinary people who were friends and relatives I met through my husband, a native of the Balkans, a region that contains a significant Muslim population. For 500 years Turkey ruled Bosnia and the culture and values still shape their attitudes and lives throughout the Balkans, even during and after Communist dictatorships.
Egypt will still have to struggle with the vestiges of corruption that seem to be inherent in both Communist and military dictatorships. Croatia and Serbia are learning that exposure of corruption by a free press and protection of human rights provide a way of eventually mitigating corruption.
We do not know yet what the ultimate outcome will be of the Egyptian uprising. It was a spontaneous one, not led by those seeking religious dominance, but by the young and educated wanting jobs and freedoms described to them on the Internet. It was young, educated Tunisians who showed the disgruntled population in Egypt how it could be done.
This year in Istanbul I saw a vibrant economy and few headscarves and a bustling population of young people on the way to work and study. Muslim Turkey could provide the model for Egypt's future. Like Egypt, Turkey has been ruled by a military dictatorship since the days of Ataturk, with generals sometimes pulling the strings of government out of view and sometimes more publicly. Thanks to Ataturk's lingering imprint, Turkey has been secular, though their more liberal form of democracy has permitted the rise to power of more Islamist political parties. Nonetheless, it has remained an important NATO ally and has been a model of a successful moderate Muslim country.
Yes, indeed, the West has an enormous stake in protecting the oil transit through the Suez Canal. It is more than the Suez that is shaping European and U.S. policies toward Egypt. The U.S. especially has concern about protecting Israel and fears that Egypt could become the homeland of al-Qaida. The outcome could be a disaster for our own national interests.
There is reason for optimism. The revolution so far has focused on demanding the military powers giving more human rights and freedom. It has not yet asked for dismantling of the military; just the removal of Mubarak. Like Turks, Egyptians respect their military. Given the accepted power of the Egyptian military and Western support of it, and the fact that radical Islamists constitute a minority, a Turkish form of governance could even be a likely outcome.
In new democracies there is always a risk that those who represent a minority view can manipulate the political system and grab control of the election process. If pressure is maintained to make elections honest and open and free press and other human rights are observed, chances of this happening are diminished.
Citizens become less radical if their voices to address grievances are heard and they have the power to change their governance peacefully.
Much of what happens in the future of Egypt is beyond our control but we can continue to exert pressure to make good on promises to provide the kinds of freedoms the West enjoys.
— For more commentary, visit www.mufticforum.com; to comment, go the www.skyhidailynews.com
Politicians who tinker with medicare and social security could get burned
February 2, 2011
Heads up, seniors and future retirees: tinkering with “Obamacare” could be harmful to Medicare's health sometime in the relatively near future. And, Social Security eligibility ages could be increased if some in Congress have their way.
Polls show changing any policies regarding either of these programs is a political hot potato. Regardless, some Congress members will try, but it is also possible nothing will happen this session as politicians jockey for support from seniors in the 2012 general election.
On the other hand, seniors must realize that waiting until Medicare, Social Security and our country go broke is irresponsible and sometime in the relatively near future we must make changes.
How big is the social security problem? Not as big or as immediate as many advocating raising the retirement age to 70 or privatizing social security want you to believe. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a report of August 24, 2010, the trust fund is paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes and income taxes, but the alarm sounders who cite these statistics neglect to figure in the interest the trust fund is earning. According to the report, “Social Security continues to run annual surpluses and remains capable of paying scheduled benefits in full for nearly three decades.” The Social Security Board of Trustees last August expect full benefits can be paid out until 2037.
The deficit commission recommended eligibility be extended to age 70. The President in the State of the Union rejected the idea. Some Republicans advocate large cuts to the program; and the Republican leadership nearly fell all over themselves to reassure their constituents that anyone who is 55 years old would see no changes. Those who are younger than 55 years old need to sit up and take notice.
What if we tinkered with Social Security sooner than later? It makes sense to begin soon to avoid a big jolt later and to allow time to plan. There also ought to be some conditions we could attach to benefit our children and their children.
Whatever age we set as access to social security, we must not privatize it. If we have ever learned a lesson from the Great Recession it is that depending upon financial markets is sheer folly and we should oppose a plan that relies on the market for basic income that equals a social security check. The market is a gamble; basic living expenses provided by social security should be viewed as a safety net and should never be a gamble for anyone.
Any changes ought to be phased in slowly and those now planning retirement within the next 20 years must be grandfathered in since they have not had the ability to plan for other private retirement funds.
Anti-discrimination employment laws regarding age must apply to those up to age 70.
Options to retire at a fraction of full benefits should be extended to age 70. IRAs and other private retirement plans could be tapped at an even earlier date than now without penalties and at a reduced income tax rate levied when drawn downs are made.
What about Medicare? The key is to reduce its cost. The worst action we would take would be to replace “Obamacare” with some feeble substitute. Medicare's future is entwined with “Obamacare's” eliminating subsidies to private insurers to administer Medicare and by many other provisions such as more cost-effective home health care. A recent Medicare Trustees report finds that new payment reform demonstration projects, and productivity improvements in the new health care law will save Medicare $8 billion by the end of 2011, and $575 billion over the next decade.” The life of Medicare will be extended by at least 11 years to 2028. We should demand that Republicans explain how they plan to save at least as much and how their health reform version proposes to extend the life of Medicare.
Polls show changing any policies regarding either of these programs is a political hot potato. Regardless, some Congress members will try, but it is also possible nothing will happen this session as politicians jockey for support from seniors in the 2012 general election.
On the other hand, seniors must realize that waiting until Medicare, Social Security and our country go broke is irresponsible and sometime in the relatively near future we must make changes.
How big is the social security problem? Not as big or as immediate as many advocating raising the retirement age to 70 or privatizing social security want you to believe. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a report of August 24, 2010, the trust fund is paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes and income taxes, but the alarm sounders who cite these statistics neglect to figure in the interest the trust fund is earning. According to the report, “Social Security continues to run annual surpluses and remains capable of paying scheduled benefits in full for nearly three decades.” The Social Security Board of Trustees last August expect full benefits can be paid out until 2037.
The deficit commission recommended eligibility be extended to age 70. The President in the State of the Union rejected the idea. Some Republicans advocate large cuts to the program; and the Republican leadership nearly fell all over themselves to reassure their constituents that anyone who is 55 years old would see no changes. Those who are younger than 55 years old need to sit up and take notice.
What if we tinkered with Social Security sooner than later? It makes sense to begin soon to avoid a big jolt later and to allow time to plan. There also ought to be some conditions we could attach to benefit our children and their children.
Whatever age we set as access to social security, we must not privatize it. If we have ever learned a lesson from the Great Recession it is that depending upon financial markets is sheer folly and we should oppose a plan that relies on the market for basic income that equals a social security check. The market is a gamble; basic living expenses provided by social security should be viewed as a safety net and should never be a gamble for anyone.
Any changes ought to be phased in slowly and those now planning retirement within the next 20 years must be grandfathered in since they have not had the ability to plan for other private retirement funds.
Anti-discrimination employment laws regarding age must apply to those up to age 70.
Options to retire at a fraction of full benefits should be extended to age 70. IRAs and other private retirement plans could be tapped at an even earlier date than now without penalties and at a reduced income tax rate levied when drawn downs are made.
What about Medicare? The key is to reduce its cost. The worst action we would take would be to replace “Obamacare” with some feeble substitute. Medicare's future is entwined with “Obamacare's” eliminating subsidies to private insurers to administer Medicare and by many other provisions such as more cost-effective home health care. A recent Medicare Trustees report finds that new payment reform demonstration projects, and productivity improvements in the new health care law will save Medicare $8 billion by the end of 2011, and $575 billion over the next decade.” The life of Medicare will be extended by at least 11 years to 2028. We should demand that Republicans explain how they plan to save at least as much and how their health reform version proposes to extend the life of Medicare.
Do we have the will to tone down the rhetoric?
January 26, 2011
When the founders of our democracy constructed the form it would take, they were reflecting the age of their times … a belief that educated, rationally thinking people could engage in public discourse, debate legislation, and successfully shape the course of a nation.
While there were no talk show hosts in the late 1700s or emails and bloggers, there were pamphleteers and broadsheet newspaper publishers who provided an outlet for airing political passions. Our forefathers feared that the uneducated masses and mob mentality could cause instability, so they devised a representative democracy in which those masses elected the educated rationalists to thoughtfully carry out the wishes of their constituents.
Since then, most citizens have obtained a decent education, yet this nation has had its share of demagogues, sharp-tongued name calling, physical violence, and just plain rude, angry and insulting shout outs, even in the halls of Congress.
Every once in a while an event causes us to look in the mirror and wonder if the words we used contributed to violence or tragedy. Tucson was one of those events. It has made the word of the month “civility,” and some representatives are now trying to watch their tongues. They should. Our representatives we elect have the implied obligation passed down by our forefathers to be the most rational ones.
Some failed the “civil” test the other week: using hackle-raising allusions to Nazi tactics or a making the accusation that a legislative act would kill people. Those comments could have been re-worded to avoid the Nazi reference and violent terms.
The problem is rational words are not likely to get much public attention. The truth is, readers, viewers, and listeners find rational discussion a bore and those in media knows this; messenger and message receiver feed on one another. CNN's more centrist approach had cost them market share as FOX and MSNBC heated the rhetoric to appeal to their respective ideological bases.
How far should we go in muting a volume turned up high by anger and accusatory name calling? We should expect our elected officials to make the effort. Can we expect the media messengers to lower the provocative temperature of their rhetoric and to use other words to convey their passions?
Keith Olbermann's surprising show end last week may signal a change in tone at MSNBC. He had already put the kibosh on some of his more red meat features. Equally liberal, but less volatile hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell are slated to be moved to earlier time slots to fill the void. It remains to be seen what FOX executives will do, but they have achieved such rating success with their angry table thumping stars, they may not want to tinker with their talkers.
How can we spur any change in media tone? In some religious groups in our history, a device of “shunning” was used to change and punish unacceptable behavior. If enough of those in the center shun the angry flame throwers and deprive them what they crave the most, audience share, there just might be a change in heart.
Shunning does not mean tuning out just those with whom we disagree. One of our obligations as citizens is to listen to all sides and draw conclusions using reason. We also cannot expect cable TV or radio stations to change their appeal to groups who share an ideology. They have branded their product with a certain slant, their audience knows what they can expect, and their respective fans find a comfort level with their content.
We still have the responsibility in our democracy to seek out rational thinkers, even if their positions move us out of our comfort zone. We also have the power to surf channels and push the button on our radios. The question is: Do enough of us individually have the will to turn down the anger volume to collectively force a change in tone?
While there were no talk show hosts in the late 1700s or emails and bloggers, there were pamphleteers and broadsheet newspaper publishers who provided an outlet for airing political passions. Our forefathers feared that the uneducated masses and mob mentality could cause instability, so they devised a representative democracy in which those masses elected the educated rationalists to thoughtfully carry out the wishes of their constituents.
Since then, most citizens have obtained a decent education, yet this nation has had its share of demagogues, sharp-tongued name calling, physical violence, and just plain rude, angry and insulting shout outs, even in the halls of Congress.
Every once in a while an event causes us to look in the mirror and wonder if the words we used contributed to violence or tragedy. Tucson was one of those events. It has made the word of the month “civility,” and some representatives are now trying to watch their tongues. They should. Our representatives we elect have the implied obligation passed down by our forefathers to be the most rational ones.
Some failed the “civil” test the other week: using hackle-raising allusions to Nazi tactics or a making the accusation that a legislative act would kill people. Those comments could have been re-worded to avoid the Nazi reference and violent terms.
The problem is rational words are not likely to get much public attention. The truth is, readers, viewers, and listeners find rational discussion a bore and those in media knows this; messenger and message receiver feed on one another. CNN's more centrist approach had cost them market share as FOX and MSNBC heated the rhetoric to appeal to their respective ideological bases.
How far should we go in muting a volume turned up high by anger and accusatory name calling? We should expect our elected officials to make the effort. Can we expect the media messengers to lower the provocative temperature of their rhetoric and to use other words to convey their passions?
Keith Olbermann's surprising show end last week may signal a change in tone at MSNBC. He had already put the kibosh on some of his more red meat features. Equally liberal, but less volatile hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell are slated to be moved to earlier time slots to fill the void. It remains to be seen what FOX executives will do, but they have achieved such rating success with their angry table thumping stars, they may not want to tinker with their talkers.
How can we spur any change in media tone? In some religious groups in our history, a device of “shunning” was used to change and punish unacceptable behavior. If enough of those in the center shun the angry flame throwers and deprive them what they crave the most, audience share, there just might be a change in heart.
Shunning does not mean tuning out just those with whom we disagree. One of our obligations as citizens is to listen to all sides and draw conclusions using reason. We also cannot expect cable TV or radio stations to change their appeal to groups who share an ideology. They have branded their product with a certain slant, their audience knows what they can expect, and their respective fans find a comfort level with their content.
We still have the responsibility in our democracy to seek out rational thinkers, even if their positions move us out of our comfort zone. We also have the power to surf channels and push the button on our radios. The question is: Do enough of us individually have the will to turn down the anger volume to collectively force a change in tone?
No easy solutions in the Tucson shooting
January 19, 2010
It hit me in the pit of my stomach when I heard about the shooting of a congresswoman by a disturbed individual who took six innocent lives. Everyone who has ever been in media, in high-profile positions — whether in show business, sports, or politics on the local or national level — realize irrational and unanticipated or unpreventable acts by disturbed individuals happen.
The first reaction is to cast blame. The next is to devise some way to prevent a similar event from ever happening again. The latter is the hardest to construct, but there is still much we can do by taking our own personal responsibility.
There seems to be a streak somewhere in the human genome the produces insane behavior by some who see violent acts as a way to get revenge for a perceived wrong. Mass killers do it in a method guaranteed to bring attention to their actions.
Yes, the insane "become unhinged," as Dick Armey, the political operative associated with the Tea Party movement, said.. But I disagree with him that absolves us of any guilt.
Our media and pop culture dramatize the fantasies of violent outlets for personal and societal rage. Our politicians use metaphors of gun violence to make a point of how full of anger they feel. Others present conspiracy theories based on abstract deductive reasoning as fact, when little evidence exists.
We have inadvertently oiled the loose hinges of the paranoid and schizophrenics. There are other words and expressions that can be used to illustrate the depth of our feelings. We should use them.
My husband, a refugee from Communism, reacted to the political finger-pointing that followed the news: “ Here it comes ... restrictions on my Second amendment rights to carry a gun and someone ought to muzzle the rabble rousing, red meat throwing talkers and political fellow travelers of both parties.”
“Who should muzzle whom? The government?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Talk show hosts and journalists and bloggers ought to take responsibility themselves to watch their tongues, and the government ought to be more alert to those who may be a threat so that those threatened can take preventative and defensive action.”
As usual, he put his finger on the difficulty of the solutions.
What we parents, politicians, and media types can do is to take personal responsibility to be careful how we present our points and use analogies. We can also be aware of danger signals … including alarming postings on the internet. We should bring them to the attention of authorities. We can also support funding, information, and services for mental health treatment.
Initial reports are that the shooter could have had psychiatric intervention before he exploded. What would have happened if his parents had acted differently when learning of his problems? The community college could have alerted authorities off campus that he presented a threat to others, and those who read his writings on the internet could have done more than just to ignore him and had alerted law enforcement.
Arizona laws permit this kind of intervention, and no one took advantage of it, some in the name of protecting the young man's personal rights. This episode may be a teachable moment for us all.
Referring someone who appears to be a threat to others to professionals is only part of the issue. Widely recognized is the inadequacy of our mental health care system. The movement to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill in the mid-1970s resulted in a woefully underfunded public community-based health system.
Mental health services have not been equally covered by medical insurance, and charity services struggle for their share of donated dollars. At least the health care reform law will cover mental health services much as medical services are covered. What we can do is to support funding for mental health services so that the system is available, effective and accessible.
The first reaction is to cast blame. The next is to devise some way to prevent a similar event from ever happening again. The latter is the hardest to construct, but there is still much we can do by taking our own personal responsibility.
There seems to be a streak somewhere in the human genome the produces insane behavior by some who see violent acts as a way to get revenge for a perceived wrong. Mass killers do it in a method guaranteed to bring attention to their actions.
Yes, the insane "become unhinged," as Dick Armey, the political operative associated with the Tea Party movement, said.. But I disagree with him that absolves us of any guilt.
Our media and pop culture dramatize the fantasies of violent outlets for personal and societal rage. Our politicians use metaphors of gun violence to make a point of how full of anger they feel. Others present conspiracy theories based on abstract deductive reasoning as fact, when little evidence exists.
We have inadvertently oiled the loose hinges of the paranoid and schizophrenics. There are other words and expressions that can be used to illustrate the depth of our feelings. We should use them.
My husband, a refugee from Communism, reacted to the political finger-pointing that followed the news: “ Here it comes ... restrictions on my Second amendment rights to carry a gun and someone ought to muzzle the rabble rousing, red meat throwing talkers and political fellow travelers of both parties.”
“Who should muzzle whom? The government?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Talk show hosts and journalists and bloggers ought to take responsibility themselves to watch their tongues, and the government ought to be more alert to those who may be a threat so that those threatened can take preventative and defensive action.”
As usual, he put his finger on the difficulty of the solutions.
What we parents, politicians, and media types can do is to take personal responsibility to be careful how we present our points and use analogies. We can also be aware of danger signals … including alarming postings on the internet. We should bring them to the attention of authorities. We can also support funding, information, and services for mental health treatment.
Initial reports are that the shooter could have had psychiatric intervention before he exploded. What would have happened if his parents had acted differently when learning of his problems? The community college could have alerted authorities off campus that he presented a threat to others, and those who read his writings on the internet could have done more than just to ignore him and had alerted law enforcement.
Arizona laws permit this kind of intervention, and no one took advantage of it, some in the name of protecting the young man's personal rights. This episode may be a teachable moment for us all.
Referring someone who appears to be a threat to others to professionals is only part of the issue. Widely recognized is the inadequacy of our mental health care system. The movement to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill in the mid-1970s resulted in a woefully underfunded public community-based health system.
Mental health services have not been equally covered by medical insurance, and charity services struggle for their share of donated dollars. At least the health care reform law will cover mental health services much as medical services are covered. What we can do is to support funding for mental health services so that the system is available, effective and accessible.
Republican takeover of the House: Congressman Issa: The Good, the Bad, and the ugly
January 12, 2010
As the Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives, there is some good, some bad, and some ugly coming down the pike.
Good is John Boehner, House Majority Leader, tagging the House of Representatives “the people's house.” Ugly is that his appointee to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), turned his committee room into a home for lobbyists.
According to Politico, Rep. Issa sent out a letter to 150 business trade associations who fund the largest army of beltway lobbyists, fishing for evidence that government regulations caused loss of jobs.
Those trade association lobbyists must be salivating at this opportunity of the century. Business interests want nothing more than to shed themselves of having to comply with environmental and consumer protection regulations, and he has given them an opportunity to provide an unverified “estimate” how many more jobs they could create if they did not have to worry about such compliance.
It is plain ugly is that Issa has just further empowered lobbyists who represent trade associations, whose campaign contributions and influence have been considered by many as legalized corruption or at minimum contributing to business as usual in the beltway.
Democracy is about balance and tradeoffs and one-sided hearings only pander to political bases. It remains to be seen if Rep. Issa will also fish with equal zeal for comments in the waters of environmentalists and consumers, too, and issue subpoenas for their appearance before his committee.
Rep. Issa's political agenda is hardly a secret. In a Jan. 2 CNN interview he made it clear that he had a bias against an active federal government and was out to illustrate that big government is not in the public interest. One of his tactics is to make a case that big government is bad for job creation. While this approach is a matter of beauty for teapartiers, it is not without risk. The jobs picture has been steadily improving and creating jobs may not be the intense political issue in two years that it is now.
Issa has indicated he will try to tie the job creation issue to an attack on Obamacare. He may find what most experts say: The jobs created in the health care industry to provide services to 30 million heretofore uninsured may offset job losses elsewhere.
Another risk of linking jobs issues to his political agenda is that he will drown out attention to the remainder of his announced list of hearings, which includes some good topics that could lay groundwork for needed reform in the future.
Among Issa's planned probes is an investigation into the causes of the Great Recession, which resulted in the greatest loss of jobs since the Great Depression and the role Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae played in the meltdown. It is highly possible much of the fault found will be the lack of enforcement of regulation and inability of the government to wind down banks too big to fail. If so, this inquiry might bolster support for the Wall Street reform law.
All to the good, too, are the rest of Issa's hearing topics, including corruption in Afghanistan, the prevention of leaks of sensitive national security information to the public, and the failure of the Food and Drug Administration to prevent E coli and Salmonella outbreaks. Their airing could generate support to leave Afghanistan and to improve performance of regulatory agencies.
However, if Congressman Issa opts to probe health care reform to support the Republican goal to appeal and replace Obamacare, hearings will provide the Obama administration with a welcomed high profile public platform to make their case that $400 billion will be saved over nine years by eliminating the unnecessary subsidy of private insurers who now administer Medicare and to dramatize the findings of the Deficit Commission that continuation of Obamacare is essential if the deficit is to be reduced. Failure to reduce the deficit will be ugly indeed.
Good is John Boehner, House Majority Leader, tagging the House of Representatives “the people's house.” Ugly is that his appointee to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), turned his committee room into a home for lobbyists.
According to Politico, Rep. Issa sent out a letter to 150 business trade associations who fund the largest army of beltway lobbyists, fishing for evidence that government regulations caused loss of jobs.
Those trade association lobbyists must be salivating at this opportunity of the century. Business interests want nothing more than to shed themselves of having to comply with environmental and consumer protection regulations, and he has given them an opportunity to provide an unverified “estimate” how many more jobs they could create if they did not have to worry about such compliance.
It is plain ugly is that Issa has just further empowered lobbyists who represent trade associations, whose campaign contributions and influence have been considered by many as legalized corruption or at minimum contributing to business as usual in the beltway.
Democracy is about balance and tradeoffs and one-sided hearings only pander to political bases. It remains to be seen if Rep. Issa will also fish with equal zeal for comments in the waters of environmentalists and consumers, too, and issue subpoenas for their appearance before his committee.
Rep. Issa's political agenda is hardly a secret. In a Jan. 2 CNN interview he made it clear that he had a bias against an active federal government and was out to illustrate that big government is not in the public interest. One of his tactics is to make a case that big government is bad for job creation. While this approach is a matter of beauty for teapartiers, it is not without risk. The jobs picture has been steadily improving and creating jobs may not be the intense political issue in two years that it is now.
Issa has indicated he will try to tie the job creation issue to an attack on Obamacare. He may find what most experts say: The jobs created in the health care industry to provide services to 30 million heretofore uninsured may offset job losses elsewhere.
Another risk of linking jobs issues to his political agenda is that he will drown out attention to the remainder of his announced list of hearings, which includes some good topics that could lay groundwork for needed reform in the future.
Among Issa's planned probes is an investigation into the causes of the Great Recession, which resulted in the greatest loss of jobs since the Great Depression and the role Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae played in the meltdown. It is highly possible much of the fault found will be the lack of enforcement of regulation and inability of the government to wind down banks too big to fail. If so, this inquiry might bolster support for the Wall Street reform law.
All to the good, too, are the rest of Issa's hearing topics, including corruption in Afghanistan, the prevention of leaks of sensitive national security information to the public, and the failure of the Food and Drug Administration to prevent E coli and Salmonella outbreaks. Their airing could generate support to leave Afghanistan and to improve performance of regulatory agencies.
However, if Congressman Issa opts to probe health care reform to support the Republican goal to appeal and replace Obamacare, hearings will provide the Obama administration with a welcomed high profile public platform to make their case that $400 billion will be saved over nine years by eliminating the unnecessary subsidy of private insurers who now administer Medicare and to dramatize the findings of the Deficit Commission that continuation of Obamacare is essential if the deficit is to be reduced. Failure to reduce the deficit will be ugly indeed.
Snowstorms have burried more than a few political careers
Jan 5, 2011
A word of wisdom to mayors of major urban cities: Public works will bite politicians in the behind if they do not plan for infrequent worst-case scenarios. Denver and Chicago are famous for unhorsing officials who did not plan adequately for blizzards of epic proportions and failed to clear their streets in a reasonable time.
Mike Bilandic, mayor of Chicago, lost his seat after his failure to clear streets after the Chicago blizzard of 1979.
In Denver, long term mayor Bill McNichols did not get votes to make the next runoff when he failed to clean even the main thoroughfares after the Christmas eve blizzard of 1982. He refused to call out city workers, a base of his support, to remove snow. It was more important to him they were with families on Christmas Eve.
Temperatures plunged the following week and by the time he tried to remove snow, arterial streets were impassable frozen ruts that were the rule weeks after the event. McNichols had always received voter support because “the city worked”; he demonstrated he had lost his touch.
Now, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is under fire for failing to clear outer borough streets, resulting in some citizens' deaths because the snowplows took nearly a week to make streets passable for emergency vehicles.
Public works, roads and bridges, have the glitz of an old coat, but they are the fundamental service we expect from local and state governments. Day-to-day operations are usually funded and we take them for granted until the big one hits. Cities are reluctant to buy specialized snow removal equipment warehoused for occasional use.
Those of us who live in the mountains treasure frequent epic dumps and the national publicity it brings. It is the stuff our ski industry loves. We expect highways and passes to be closed short-term and we fund county road maintenance as a priority.
When we retired to our Winter Park home at nearly 9,000 feet, friends in Denver wondered if we had lost our minds, but our roads are better maintained in the mountains than large cities when it comes to snow removal. Our mammoth road graders and front-end loaders are worth every penny of taxpayer dollars and do double duty, maintenance and snow plowing. Berthoud Pass is often in better shape than the streets of Denver.
Mountains are special cases, but it takes some imagination for cities to deal with the problems of once-in-a-decade blizzards. After the defeat of Mayor McNichols, subsequent mayors Federico Pena, Wellington Webb, and John Hickenlooper put innovation to work. Citizens were warned to expect that side streets would be the last to be plowed, but snow emergency streets and highways got treatment from the fall of the first snowflake.
Mayors after McNichols fitted dump trucks and other public works equipment with plows and sanders and bought equipment that had multiple purposes of snow removal and street repair. Emergency preparedness centers opened and were staffed. The National Guard was mobilized to serve those needing medical attention and to bring essential public staff to their posts.
Even then, storms can intensify overhead unexpectedly. It happened in the Webb administration. Stephanie Foote, manager of public works, trapped at home, strapped on cross country skis, made it to a main thoroughfare and was transported to her post in city hall by a National Guard Humvee.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey deserves criticism for remaining in Disney World and permitting the lieutenant governor to be in Mexico during this December's historic blizzard. It may prove to be his Katrina moment. The moment was saved when the democratic president of the state Senate called an emergency the night before to get traffic off the streets.
Take note, Mayor Bloomberg. There are some good lessons to be learned from Colorado.
— Felicia Muftic has lived in Chicago, New York, and Denver and served in the administration of Denver Mayor Federico Pena in the 1980s. Visit www.mufticforum.com
Mike Bilandic, mayor of Chicago, lost his seat after his failure to clear streets after the Chicago blizzard of 1979.
In Denver, long term mayor Bill McNichols did not get votes to make the next runoff when he failed to clean even the main thoroughfares after the Christmas eve blizzard of 1982. He refused to call out city workers, a base of his support, to remove snow. It was more important to him they were with families on Christmas Eve.
Temperatures plunged the following week and by the time he tried to remove snow, arterial streets were impassable frozen ruts that were the rule weeks after the event. McNichols had always received voter support because “the city worked”; he demonstrated he had lost his touch.
Now, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is under fire for failing to clear outer borough streets, resulting in some citizens' deaths because the snowplows took nearly a week to make streets passable for emergency vehicles.
Public works, roads and bridges, have the glitz of an old coat, but they are the fundamental service we expect from local and state governments. Day-to-day operations are usually funded and we take them for granted until the big one hits. Cities are reluctant to buy specialized snow removal equipment warehoused for occasional use.
Those of us who live in the mountains treasure frequent epic dumps and the national publicity it brings. It is the stuff our ski industry loves. We expect highways and passes to be closed short-term and we fund county road maintenance as a priority.
When we retired to our Winter Park home at nearly 9,000 feet, friends in Denver wondered if we had lost our minds, but our roads are better maintained in the mountains than large cities when it comes to snow removal. Our mammoth road graders and front-end loaders are worth every penny of taxpayer dollars and do double duty, maintenance and snow plowing. Berthoud Pass is often in better shape than the streets of Denver.
Mountains are special cases, but it takes some imagination for cities to deal with the problems of once-in-a-decade blizzards. After the defeat of Mayor McNichols, subsequent mayors Federico Pena, Wellington Webb, and John Hickenlooper put innovation to work. Citizens were warned to expect that side streets would be the last to be plowed, but snow emergency streets and highways got treatment from the fall of the first snowflake.
Mayors after McNichols fitted dump trucks and other public works equipment with plows and sanders and bought equipment that had multiple purposes of snow removal and street repair. Emergency preparedness centers opened and were staffed. The National Guard was mobilized to serve those needing medical attention and to bring essential public staff to their posts.
Even then, storms can intensify overhead unexpectedly. It happened in the Webb administration. Stephanie Foote, manager of public works, trapped at home, strapped on cross country skis, made it to a main thoroughfare and was transported to her post in city hall by a National Guard Humvee.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey deserves criticism for remaining in Disney World and permitting the lieutenant governor to be in Mexico during this December's historic blizzard. It may prove to be his Katrina moment. The moment was saved when the democratic president of the state Senate called an emergency the night before to get traffic off the streets.
Take note, Mayor Bloomberg. There are some good lessons to be learned from Colorado.
— Felicia Muftic has lived in Chicago, New York, and Denver and served in the administration of Denver Mayor Federico Pena in the 1980s. Visit www.mufticforum.com
GOP's prescription for health care: freeloader protection act
December 29, 2010
Republicans of all stripes ran for election on a commonly shared platform plank in 2010: to repeal or replace Obamacare. We can expect them to try to make good on that campaign promise in 2011.
This is going to be a year of hours upon hours devoted to rehashing the issue in Congress and on cable talk. Grab the headache pain killers.
The first salvo has already been fired against the mandate provision that requires everyone to carry insurance by 2014. Two of three federal judges upheld the constitutionality of the law so far in ruling on suits brought by some Republican attorneys general. A year from now the U.S. Supreme Court will resolve the issue. Also, expect the Republican controlled House to try to strip the law of the mandate provisions.
Let us call these strategies what they are: freeloader protection. They are being sold in the name of protecting individual rights from requirements to carry health insurance. It is really an attempt to cripple Obamacare in disguise.
What I find annoying is the glee many express at the possibility of the freeloading ruling succeeding. It appears to me that they want health care costs to rise and they care not much about helping those with pre-existing conditions. Freeloaders will run up the tab, making it nearly impossible to insure those with pre-existing conditions, and the entire cost of the health care system will be increased. The only ones winning if the mandates are overturned are those who intend to freeload the system. The rest of us will have gotten screwed.
Freeloaders who choose not to participate will get sick sometime in their lives and go to the emergency room. As we know, use of the ER now is extremely expensive medicine. Patients who go there are usually already very sick, prevention is not included in ER treatment, and using it in place of a primary care doctor is expensive in itself.
Another factor increasing cost is the expense of covering those with pre-existing conditions. Without increasing the number of healthy paying into the pool, it will be impossible or very expensive to cover those with pre-existing conditions. One suggested alternative is to establish permanent pools for those with high risk of getting sick and to subsidize them with tax dollars. High risk pools have already been set up under Obamacare as a temporary measure until 2014. The price tag is a known factor and costs are kept down now by limiting the number of participants to a fraction of those who could use it and charging them an arm and a leg.
Republicans have proposed covering some health care costs by reforming malpractice or increasing cross-state competition. The recent informal report of the Debt Reduction Commission viewed the Republican proposed replacements of Obamacare as an additional help to debt reduction, not a replacement of the savings built into the already passed reform law.
Otherwise, the state-by-state exchanges composed of competing private insurers to cover the millions of currently uninsured, extending coverage to those up to 26 years old, and the consumer protections would continue . However, the state exchanges would have to exclude those with pre-existing conditions and taxpayers may not be able to afford dumping them into those expensive high risk pools. The increased burden on charity care and ER medicine would then kick back up the entire system, shifting costs again to our insurance rates.
House Republicans will also try to starve implementation through the budget process. Democrats will have to show one more time how sabotaging the law will result in harming so many different groups of people.
Want to see the GOP squirm over competing priorities? Democrats should require Republican “replacement” proposals or a return to the status quo 2008 to be evaluated by the CBO. Courtesy of the Debt Reduction Commission, we already know Republican proposals would add to the deficit.
— For more commentary, go to www.mufticforum.com. To comment, visit www.skyhidailynews.com
This is going to be a year of hours upon hours devoted to rehashing the issue in Congress and on cable talk. Grab the headache pain killers.
The first salvo has already been fired against the mandate provision that requires everyone to carry insurance by 2014. Two of three federal judges upheld the constitutionality of the law so far in ruling on suits brought by some Republican attorneys general. A year from now the U.S. Supreme Court will resolve the issue. Also, expect the Republican controlled House to try to strip the law of the mandate provisions.
Let us call these strategies what they are: freeloader protection. They are being sold in the name of protecting individual rights from requirements to carry health insurance. It is really an attempt to cripple Obamacare in disguise.
What I find annoying is the glee many express at the possibility of the freeloading ruling succeeding. It appears to me that they want health care costs to rise and they care not much about helping those with pre-existing conditions. Freeloaders will run up the tab, making it nearly impossible to insure those with pre-existing conditions, and the entire cost of the health care system will be increased. The only ones winning if the mandates are overturned are those who intend to freeload the system. The rest of us will have gotten screwed.
Freeloaders who choose not to participate will get sick sometime in their lives and go to the emergency room. As we know, use of the ER now is extremely expensive medicine. Patients who go there are usually already very sick, prevention is not included in ER treatment, and using it in place of a primary care doctor is expensive in itself.
Another factor increasing cost is the expense of covering those with pre-existing conditions. Without increasing the number of healthy paying into the pool, it will be impossible or very expensive to cover those with pre-existing conditions. One suggested alternative is to establish permanent pools for those with high risk of getting sick and to subsidize them with tax dollars. High risk pools have already been set up under Obamacare as a temporary measure until 2014. The price tag is a known factor and costs are kept down now by limiting the number of participants to a fraction of those who could use it and charging them an arm and a leg.
Republicans have proposed covering some health care costs by reforming malpractice or increasing cross-state competition. The recent informal report of the Debt Reduction Commission viewed the Republican proposed replacements of Obamacare as an additional help to debt reduction, not a replacement of the savings built into the already passed reform law.
Otherwise, the state-by-state exchanges composed of competing private insurers to cover the millions of currently uninsured, extending coverage to those up to 26 years old, and the consumer protections would continue . However, the state exchanges would have to exclude those with pre-existing conditions and taxpayers may not be able to afford dumping them into those expensive high risk pools. The increased burden on charity care and ER medicine would then kick back up the entire system, shifting costs again to our insurance rates.
House Republicans will also try to starve implementation through the budget process. Democrats will have to show one more time how sabotaging the law will result in harming so many different groups of people.
Want to see the GOP squirm over competing priorities? Democrats should require Republican “replacement” proposals or a return to the status quo 2008 to be evaluated by the CBO. Courtesy of the Debt Reduction Commission, we already know Republican proposals would add to the deficit.
— For more commentary, go to www.mufticforum.com. To comment, visit www.skyhidailynews.com
We've come a long way, but not far enough
Dec. 22, 2010
Over 40 years ago I ventured into politics and became a candidate for a local government office. I had held an appointed office, led a couple of citizen action groups on behalf of consumer and urban planning interests and believed what my closet feminist mother told me: Women can do everything men can do. The women's rights movement had been under way and I decided the time was ripe to venture onto the co-ed stage where no other woman had dared to step in Denver's history — a run for mayor.
I had my own standards regarding the gender issue: I would run on merits, not gender, and my unstated message was “do not elect me because I am a woman; elect me because I can do the job better than the other candidates and my vision for the city is a better one.”
Those standards were naïve for the times. In many eyes, the concept that women had the ability to succeed in powerful roles was yet to be accepted because few women had broken glass ceilings to demonstrate their capabilities. The race was also one of a reform-minded new generation pitted against an old style entrenched machine, so there were other factors at work. I made a good showing, gave the incumbent a fright ... and I lost.
Since the 1970s, women have been elected and appointed to positions of power and they have been able to demonstrate their abilities. However, elections and office holding are still not gender neutral. Women are often judged differently than men in similar positions.
I am especially disturbed by the current vilification of women who have risen to power in the U.S. One case in point is Hillary Clinton: Muttered under many breaths were comments that alluded to the b-word and there were whispers about her sexual preference because she was perceived to think the way men did and had the ambition to do it. She was able to establish in the 2008 election that she and other women were unquestionably capable of being president.
What would have happened had Hillary Clinton been elected president and not Barack Obama? I fear she would have become the same kind of voodoo doll the right has made of Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House. Earlier, Republicans had also used the personal vilification of first lady Hillary Clinton as a tactic to try to unhorse her husband and his popular policies. The Republicans in 2010 positioned Pelosi as the red meat reason to oust incumbent members of Congress. They demonized Pelosi to attack President Obama, whose personal popularity was still high, frequently visually linking the two.
The Republicans' publicly expressed attack strategy was that Pelosi was an extreme San Francisco liberal, but the agenda she so successfully shepherded was nearly identical to the President's. Pelosi's steely demeanor evokes a visceral reaction among some that is different than the reaction to others in similar powerful positions. I am hard pressed to find the same attitude toward equally steely faced partisan Republican or Democrat male counterparts: just old boy joshing about a sun tan or a public personality lacking in oratorical ability.
Sarah Palin has a very different approach to the “women in politics” quandary.
As mama grizzly she is turning stylistic differences with men into an asset, while promoting her instinctive identification with the mood of many with her great communication skills and dedication to family. Nonetheless, there are questions of her degree of sophistication about the complexities of the world stage and her ability to make decisions that would not have unintended consequences. Humans still top grizzlies in the food chain because of our desire to gain knowledge and to apply it to problem solving. It is now time we all become gender neutral and judge women candidates for national leadership on their grasp of the details and understanding of issues in addition to their personal appeal.
I had my own standards regarding the gender issue: I would run on merits, not gender, and my unstated message was “do not elect me because I am a woman; elect me because I can do the job better than the other candidates and my vision for the city is a better one.”
Those standards were naïve for the times. In many eyes, the concept that women had the ability to succeed in powerful roles was yet to be accepted because few women had broken glass ceilings to demonstrate their capabilities. The race was also one of a reform-minded new generation pitted against an old style entrenched machine, so there were other factors at work. I made a good showing, gave the incumbent a fright ... and I lost.
Since the 1970s, women have been elected and appointed to positions of power and they have been able to demonstrate their abilities. However, elections and office holding are still not gender neutral. Women are often judged differently than men in similar positions.
I am especially disturbed by the current vilification of women who have risen to power in the U.S. One case in point is Hillary Clinton: Muttered under many breaths were comments that alluded to the b-word and there were whispers about her sexual preference because she was perceived to think the way men did and had the ambition to do it. She was able to establish in the 2008 election that she and other women were unquestionably capable of being president.
What would have happened had Hillary Clinton been elected president and not Barack Obama? I fear she would have become the same kind of voodoo doll the right has made of Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House. Earlier, Republicans had also used the personal vilification of first lady Hillary Clinton as a tactic to try to unhorse her husband and his popular policies. The Republicans in 2010 positioned Pelosi as the red meat reason to oust incumbent members of Congress. They demonized Pelosi to attack President Obama, whose personal popularity was still high, frequently visually linking the two.
The Republicans' publicly expressed attack strategy was that Pelosi was an extreme San Francisco liberal, but the agenda she so successfully shepherded was nearly identical to the President's. Pelosi's steely demeanor evokes a visceral reaction among some that is different than the reaction to others in similar powerful positions. I am hard pressed to find the same attitude toward equally steely faced partisan Republican or Democrat male counterparts: just old boy joshing about a sun tan or a public personality lacking in oratorical ability.
Sarah Palin has a very different approach to the “women in politics” quandary.
As mama grizzly she is turning stylistic differences with men into an asset, while promoting her instinctive identification with the mood of many with her great communication skills and dedication to family. Nonetheless, there are questions of her degree of sophistication about the complexities of the world stage and her ability to make decisions that would not have unintended consequences. Humans still top grizzlies in the food chain because of our desire to gain knowledge and to apply it to problem solving. It is now time we all become gender neutral and judge women candidates for national leadership on their grasp of the details and understanding of issues in addition to their personal appeal.
One size never fits all
Dec. 15, 2010
Politics is about idealism, ideology and identification of winning strategies. If President Obama has not always toed the line on idealism and ideology, he may have gotten the third element right to the ultimate benefit of the idealists and ideologues in his own party. Case in point: the tax deal extending Bush tax cuts.
Ideally most Americans just want to be left alone to pursue life and happiness. “America, the land of opportunity” is the bread and butter of the American ideals. Unfortunately, the opportunity part escapes many. The lack of a good education and access to health care and even finding a job in an economic downturn have made American ideals unreachable for a large number.
The question of how to reach those ideals fuels a constant dialog within and between the political parties. One of the issues in the midterm was how much government should do to help Americans reach those ideals. The problem with dedicated keepers of ideology on the left or right is that they have a one size fits all approach when circumstances and winning politics call for something else.
The Tea Party took the extreme view that nearly any action the federal government takes is inferior to doing nothing at all and/or leaving problem-solving up to the overburdened, underfunded struggling states. They ignored warnings of most economists that given the fragile economy now was not the time to cut government spending. Ideological fear of the national debt increase had consumed the Republicans in the midterms, yet given a chance to extend tax breaks to the rich, their congressional leaders caved in on their right base's demands to cut government spending to offset the hit to the debt.
The left ideologues have their own “one size fits all” approach. They considered Obamacare without the public option an ideological failure. Never mind it met the goal of extending access to care to 30 million more consumers.
The left wing's tepid voter turnout in the midterms contributed somewhat to their diminished power in Congress. They are undermining their ability to be effective once again by getting hung up on the tax deal protecting the rich.
It is reality check time. Democrats lost power in the midterm mostly because the middle made a right turn. A consequence of the election is that the left also lost support of surviving centrist congressional Democrats. Obama has correctly identified a winning strategy in 2012. The middle must be won back and Obama's tax deal just may be the ticket to make it happen.
The tax deal Obama negotiated with the Republicans that passed the Senate and is now before the House is more or less a continuation of the 2008 stimulus package; low taxes and no cut in government spending, with an extension of unemployment, education and child care benefits. It is a pragmatic problem-solving approach given the slowly improving economy.
It is also good politics. Obama will get credit for any economic upturn, improving Democrats' chances for victory and preserving gains in health care and Wall Street reform.
What if the economy and the job picture remain grim? Republicans may have set a trap for themselves in 2012 by championing the rich at the expense of the other 98 percent and by promoting proven worthless economic policies.
Obama has shown adroitness by condemning the tax breaks for the rich while painting his “caving in” as a political necessity. In so doing, he has preserved his ability in the future to campaign on opposing permanent tax breaks for the rich. If he can couple the cost of permanent tax breaks with the concern about the long-term effects of the deficit, he may generate even more appeal to the middle.
Ideally most Americans just want to be left alone to pursue life and happiness. “America, the land of opportunity” is the bread and butter of the American ideals. Unfortunately, the opportunity part escapes many. The lack of a good education and access to health care and even finding a job in an economic downturn have made American ideals unreachable for a large number.
The question of how to reach those ideals fuels a constant dialog within and between the political parties. One of the issues in the midterm was how much government should do to help Americans reach those ideals. The problem with dedicated keepers of ideology on the left or right is that they have a one size fits all approach when circumstances and winning politics call for something else.
The Tea Party took the extreme view that nearly any action the federal government takes is inferior to doing nothing at all and/or leaving problem-solving up to the overburdened, underfunded struggling states. They ignored warnings of most economists that given the fragile economy now was not the time to cut government spending. Ideological fear of the national debt increase had consumed the Republicans in the midterms, yet given a chance to extend tax breaks to the rich, their congressional leaders caved in on their right base's demands to cut government spending to offset the hit to the debt.
The left ideologues have their own “one size fits all” approach. They considered Obamacare without the public option an ideological failure. Never mind it met the goal of extending access to care to 30 million more consumers.
The left wing's tepid voter turnout in the midterms contributed somewhat to their diminished power in Congress. They are undermining their ability to be effective once again by getting hung up on the tax deal protecting the rich.
It is reality check time. Democrats lost power in the midterm mostly because the middle made a right turn. A consequence of the election is that the left also lost support of surviving centrist congressional Democrats. Obama has correctly identified a winning strategy in 2012. The middle must be won back and Obama's tax deal just may be the ticket to make it happen.
The tax deal Obama negotiated with the Republicans that passed the Senate and is now before the House is more or less a continuation of the 2008 stimulus package; low taxes and no cut in government spending, with an extension of unemployment, education and child care benefits. It is a pragmatic problem-solving approach given the slowly improving economy.
It is also good politics. Obama will get credit for any economic upturn, improving Democrats' chances for victory and preserving gains in health care and Wall Street reform.
What if the economy and the job picture remain grim? Republicans may have set a trap for themselves in 2012 by championing the rich at the expense of the other 98 percent and by promoting proven worthless economic policies.
Obama has shown adroitness by condemning the tax breaks for the rich while painting his “caving in” as a political necessity. In so doing, he has preserved his ability in the future to campaign on opposing permanent tax breaks for the rich. If he can couple the cost of permanent tax breaks with the concern about the long-term effects of the deficit, he may generate even more appeal to the middle.
Reacting is not a good strategy for success
Dec 8, 2010
If I were a psychologist who had to analyze Americans' attitude toward war, I would sum it up as conditional schizophrenia. Americans are wannabe isolationists who are constantly jolted into wars by dramatic events and the revelation of game-changing information.
War for us is a gut reaction. Sometimes the outcome is in our national interest; other times it is not.
In 1941, Churchill had spent hours with FDR, imploring America to save Britain. Try as he might, Roosevelt could not get most of Americans to support entering the war in Europe. We remember Pearl Harbor Day, the day of infamy, as the event that kicked started us into World War II.
Nearly a hundred years before Wikileaks, there was a damning document slipped to the press that caused a quick swing of public sentiment from isolation to intervention. It was a document leak that sent our doughboys into the trenches of an already raging World War I. President Woodrow Wilson had just won re-election on the platform of keeping us out of the war. In January 1917 British intelligence intercepted a coded message sent by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Mexico. In the communication, Germany had proposed to support Mexico if it attacked the U.S. to regain Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Germany's interest: keep the US tied up in the new world and out of Europe. American sentiment changed overnight. In a fit of anger we declared war against Germany in April.
There is a real danger in relying on events beyond our control to shape public sentiment. Reacting with blind fear and anger is not necessarily a strategy for success. Sept. 11 was a gut kicker. Newly elected George W. Bush had put al-Qaida lower down his priority list as he concentrated on organizing his new administration and America basked happily in the peace dividend of the Cold War's end. Reaction to Sept. 11 eventually spawned a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Americans cheered at first. The attempt to link al-Qaida and Sept. 11 to Saddam was a farce. Making Iraq safe for democracy became a rationale for the unanticipated occupation later. Eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction dominated invasion battle cries. Our rush to war was egged on by our failure to verify in advance whether WMD ever existed.
The world understood why we were in Afghanistan. Our attacker was based there. This fall NATO endorsed combat troops until 2014. One real tragedy of our Iraq excursion was diverting attention from Afghanistan, prolonging that mission.
This month we have been given several opportunities to use our heads instead of waiting for some unforeseen surprises to force us into action for which we are not prepared.
North Korea and Iran are tempting us to launch pre-emptive strikes, given their potential for conducting nuclear war. We should take a page from the Cold War when obliteration was the price of nuclear aggression. It was a deterrent that worked when we had no leverage to control nuclear weapons production or use. Isolation, sweet talk and trade embargoes have failed. Our already stretched thin military makes invasion a non-starter. Russia and China are of little help. Making intentions clear and forming alliances with likewise threatened neighbors makes more sense.
It is also in our national interest to ratify the START treaty. There is bi-partisan assurance from the U.S. expert former cold warriors that the treaty gives us the ability to verify Russian nukes for once without relying on trust alone. Senate Republicans should quit holding treaty approval hostage to their domestic agenda or to the awarding of defense contracts to their constituents. START was not an issue in midterms yet there had been 14 months of hearings. The topic is not a hot one with voters.
Matters of nuclear war and foreign policy are just too serious for such political game playing. What are we waiting for: another gut kick?
War for us is a gut reaction. Sometimes the outcome is in our national interest; other times it is not.
In 1941, Churchill had spent hours with FDR, imploring America to save Britain. Try as he might, Roosevelt could not get most of Americans to support entering the war in Europe. We remember Pearl Harbor Day, the day of infamy, as the event that kicked started us into World War II.
Nearly a hundred years before Wikileaks, there was a damning document slipped to the press that caused a quick swing of public sentiment from isolation to intervention. It was a document leak that sent our doughboys into the trenches of an already raging World War I. President Woodrow Wilson had just won re-election on the platform of keeping us out of the war. In January 1917 British intelligence intercepted a coded message sent by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Mexico. In the communication, Germany had proposed to support Mexico if it attacked the U.S. to regain Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Germany's interest: keep the US tied up in the new world and out of Europe. American sentiment changed overnight. In a fit of anger we declared war against Germany in April.
There is a real danger in relying on events beyond our control to shape public sentiment. Reacting with blind fear and anger is not necessarily a strategy for success. Sept. 11 was a gut kicker. Newly elected George W. Bush had put al-Qaida lower down his priority list as he concentrated on organizing his new administration and America basked happily in the peace dividend of the Cold War's end. Reaction to Sept. 11 eventually spawned a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Americans cheered at first. The attempt to link al-Qaida and Sept. 11 to Saddam was a farce. Making Iraq safe for democracy became a rationale for the unanticipated occupation later. Eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction dominated invasion battle cries. Our rush to war was egged on by our failure to verify in advance whether WMD ever existed.
The world understood why we were in Afghanistan. Our attacker was based there. This fall NATO endorsed combat troops until 2014. One real tragedy of our Iraq excursion was diverting attention from Afghanistan, prolonging that mission.
This month we have been given several opportunities to use our heads instead of waiting for some unforeseen surprises to force us into action for which we are not prepared.
North Korea and Iran are tempting us to launch pre-emptive strikes, given their potential for conducting nuclear war. We should take a page from the Cold War when obliteration was the price of nuclear aggression. It was a deterrent that worked when we had no leverage to control nuclear weapons production or use. Isolation, sweet talk and trade embargoes have failed. Our already stretched thin military makes invasion a non-starter. Russia and China are of little help. Making intentions clear and forming alliances with likewise threatened neighbors makes more sense.
It is also in our national interest to ratify the START treaty. There is bi-partisan assurance from the U.S. expert former cold warriors that the treaty gives us the ability to verify Russian nukes for once without relying on trust alone. Senate Republicans should quit holding treaty approval hostage to their domestic agenda or to the awarding of defense contracts to their constituents. START was not an issue in midterms yet there had been 14 months of hearings. The topic is not a hot one with voters.
Matters of nuclear war and foreign policy are just too serious for such political game playing. What are we waiting for: another gut kick?