How Can One Guy Get So Worked Up Over A Measly Little Letter To The Editor?

Well, some three weeks ago a short letter of mine was published in The Denver Post Sunday Perspective section, and it was like dozens of people went ape shit - as diagnosed from their comments in the e-edition of it. I'm not going to recite all the assorted blather which typically followed the usual conservative or libertarian lines we've all come to know.

No, my attention is not to harp on any e-reply but instead to critique an actual snail mail letter received merely three days ago (clearly delayed because the mail was withheld until our return from Bim).  What kind of a person, indeed, actually takes the time to search out your address then actually write to you? ( Actually the letter itself was addressed to the Editor of the Post but clearly never published, perhaps explaining why this fervent character "Lou Schroeder"  wanted to be sure I saw it. Good bet,  because I mostly dismissed and never read the online replies.)

Anyway, the letter of interest is shown below and readers can judge for themselves if the reaction is appropriate::



Of interest here is that Schroeder not only disagrees with my letter "vehemently" and "completely" - fair enough, but also "violently".  That simply doesn't ring up in terms of full mental stability and a grasp of the issues. After all, I did not propose a takeover of all health plans by the government, or the nationalization of all health insurance companies. I simply voiced the view that health care is a right under the ninth amendment - specifically as an unenumerated right.  This POV is also strengthened when one factors in (unlike Schroeder) the general welfare clause in the Preamble to the Constitution.

To remind those who may have forgotten that clause:

"We the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….”

This passage has been a source of incessant squabbling over every issue from states’ rights, to the degree of control vis-à-vis the individual vs. the collective or common good. Much of this, I believe, is unnecessary and merely discloses an inability of current citizens to think or even conceive of the community or the commons. So brainwashed have we become by the screeds of either ‘rugged individualism’ or Social Darwinism.

Let’s begin by quickly dispatching some of the more common canards, often circulated by the Right's darlings, like the Tea Baggers. One is that the clause refers only to military defense, or that "no positive social rights inhere in the Constitution". (All rights are ipso facto, "negative",  expressing what gov't may not do).This conveniently excludes any basis for social spending, but is erroneous on inspection.

The reason is that the phrase – “provide for the common defense” is separate from that to “promote the general welfare.” Hence, the two have no commonality in terms of language, unless one supposes the writer was deliberately redundant.

Another common error is to invoke the ‘fallacy of division’ in this case, disputing that “promotion of the general welfare” refers to anything other than the United States as the entity whose ‘welfare’ is being considered. This again is falsified on inspection. Note that the Preamble begins:

“We the PEOPLE…”


Not “The United States”. In fact, the United States is itself an artifact of the people’s will and their creation, as elucidated say in 'The Federalist Papers', by James Madison, i.e. comparing the federal system to the solar system.. The Constitution, composed by the “people”, engendered the United States as a new national entity. In the context, therefore, the United States as this manufactured entity and abstraction cannot of itself possess a “general welfare”. Only PEOPLE (citizens) can possess or aspire to a general welfare. Not people as disparate individuals, but as a collective or commonality aspiring (in common cause) toward a good.

This is a point that totally escapes Mr. Schroeder, though again, this could be because he isn't as familiar with the logical basis of the Constitution as he believes.
Schroeder in his last paragraph also blathers about "a citizen's right to another citizen's property or labor" invoking the libertarian canard that taxes amount to use of force or "theft". Which is total bullshit. Much of this libbie codswallop likely got revved up with Charles Murray's tract What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6):

“It is wrong for me to use force against you, because it violates your right to control of your person....I may have the purest motive in the world. I may even have the best idea in the world. But even these give me no right to make you do something just because I think it's a good idea. This truth translates into the first libertarian principle of governance: In a free society individuals may not initiate the use of force against any other individual or group”

This is also where the pet libertarian canard“taxes = theft’ originates. But look at it objectively, this is arrant twaddle and illogical to boot. Further, it takes no note of actual political and social reality which may make these perceptions even more egregious.

I mean “libertarian principle of governance”?  This is an oxymoron! Governance presumes and demands the non-passive act of governing, which means the projection of force for enforcement of laws.  (The opposite of which is NOT "freedom" but anarchy). Someone is invariably and actively setting standards of expected action, and also providing the means to uphold the standards. In other words, force inevitably backs up governance. Why do you think cities maintain police forces, and the nation a large volunteer standing army - along with assorted weapons to control crowds?  It is to sustain coherent and FORCE-ful governance. The libertarians, then, espouse a philosophy which cannot possibly work in the real world - because that world implicitly recognizes and declares government the primary agent of force, i.e. to enforce laws. Look around for a "force-less" government, i.e. which retains adherence and respect for its laws with no use of force. I defy you to name one!

If governments aren't enabled to enforce their laws , what’s the point? It’s all an exercise in mental masturbation. People can do whatever the hell they want!  Set up sex store emporiums or pot shops next to schools, or sell cocaine  and semi-automatic weapons in open stalls on the sidewalks of major cities!  Freedom thereby becomes perverted into a veritable "free for ALL". In other words, unless governance declares limits to actions - and someone (coercively) enforces governance, a functional society becomes  impossible. Now, maybe there IS a docile libertarian principle of “governing suggestion”- but this in no way is the same as “governance”! I also warrant such "suggestion" will always remain that and never be adopted.

If Schroeder is so "violently" opposed to my letter then truly his only response must be to refuse to pay taxes. (In the same way I would argue is justified to avoid my having to pay for wars of choice which I do not approve).  The fact he does not refuse to pay taxes (which he knows must also be going to support Medicare, Social Security) discloses he doesn't disagree with my points as violently as he proclaims.  None of which detracts or diminishes my central thesis that health care is a right, especially as the U.S. itself was a signatory to a 1994 UN Declaration that health care is a right - which it cannot be if one can be bankrupted by accessing it.

Perhaps the best takedown of Libertarian thinking and arguments was provided by Prof. Ernest Partridge  in his 2012 article, ‘Liberals and Libertarians’:

“Now consider the implications of this denial of the "independent existence" of "the public" and "society." If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility." It then follows that government has no role in mitigating "social injustice" or promoting "the public interest," since these terms are fundamentally meaningless. Poverty and racial discrimination, for example, are individual problems requiring individual solutions”.

 Schroeder (and compatriots) might wish to ponder those points before "violently" disagreeing again. They could also acknowledge they are the ones "misled, misguided, and uninformed" - mostly by rightist propaganda.

Bernie Scores A Resounding Win in NH: Can He Go All The Way?

It was gratifying last night to see Hillary delivering her concession speech for the New Hampshire primary with the clock not having even reached 7.30 p.m. Mountain time. By the time of her concession Sen. Bernie Sanders had amassed a nearly 21 percentage point lead in the count (59% to 40%) or very close to the margin that the polls had forecast.

Bernie's victory speech - televised in full on MSNBC and FOX (split screen - share dwith the Trumpies waiting for their own winner)  embodied all the themes he's sounded in this campaign so far, including the corrupting presence of campaign finance contributions from Wall Street's high rollers  (see also my post yesterday). One intriguing stat was that females in NH went for Sanders by 53% to 47% with younger women (18-45)  favoring the 74-year old by nearly a 69%-29% margin. It appeared the brash putdowns by Hillary surrogate Madeleine Albright ("A special place in hell is reserved for women who don't support other women....blah, blah") didn't have their intended effect and in fact may have backfired.

To the electrified, energized crowd gather in the victory venue, Bernie said:

"It is a political revolution that will bring tens of millions of our people together. It will bring together working people who’ve given up on the political process; it will bring together young people who’ve never participated.”

He then delivered his website, www.BernieSanders.com 

to which supporters can donate - noting "this is my campaign fund raiser". Today he will be in New York, including for guest appearances on the network shows.

Has he achieved any respect from his momentous win? A little. But as is their wont, the Neoliberal media is still unprepared to award an unqualified victory - any more than they allowed it in Iowa where Hillary surrogates gamed the outcome -  literally - with at least 6 coin tosses (prompting a call for investigation by the Des Moines Register). Their belief, expressed also last night, is that he achieved his wins in two "white states" but would have serious problems in the South or anywhere else.

As UK Guardian writer Lucia Graves pointed out:

"He is going to need more than just those young voters in the weeks to come: he has picked up plenty of delegates in the small, overwhelmingly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire because of them, but it’s not clear if they alone can carry him to continued victories as the election moves south."

But unlike the U.S. Neoliberal media she did caution against belittling his Iowa caucus and NH primary success:

"There are a lot of pragmatic reasons that Sanders and his team ought to feel trepidation looking at the long primary season and Clinton’s polling leads – but a pragmatic man probably wouldn’t have challenged her to a primary in the first place. And if pragmatism was winning over Democratic voters, they wouldn’t be voting in droves for the candidate promising a revolution."

Bingo! And as NH exit polls showed, an increasing fraction of Dem voters are demanding character over "experience". (By about 32 percent to 27 percent).  I believe this trend will continue as more and more is learned  about Hillary's Wall Street speeches, for which transcripts are sought. After all, as a presidential candidate who promises to rein in the money boys, we have every right to know what she told them after being paid $675,000 (by Goldman Sachs).

Lastly, the other outsider, Donald Trump, did congratulate Bernie before taking the stage for his own victory speech - but in a way it was back-handed. He told his own supporters "Bernie wants to give away everything free" but that in fact perverts the facts.

Making a single payer health care plan available to all citizens is not "giving away everything for free" given the U.S. was a signatory to a UN 1994 Declaration making health care a RIGHT. Too few people now recall that salient fact. And, if it is a RIGHT, then it must be accessible to all citizens, not unaffordable (driving people into bankruptcy) or selective.  Hence, Bernie is merely seeking to honor that edict as opposed to neglecting it as U.S. leaders have done the past 21 years. He is asserting that if and when this country is a signatory to a UN Declaration it means something. This as opposed to not being worth the paper printed on.

As for the expansion of Social Security, to ensure our elder citizens aren't scrounging the rest of their lives, that comes under the General Welfare clause of the Preamble to the Constitution, e.g.

“We the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare..."

For more on this, and why more conservatives (like Trump) need to study it, see: 

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/08/parsing-general-welfare-clause.html

 As for Bernie's continued primary challenges I believe he will meet them head on, even as the fight intensifies. The only proviso I would make is don't take any weapon off the table. And if Hillary continues to bash him as "unelectable" because of his democratic socialism - well, then it is time to play the email card!

See also:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/10/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-new-hampshire-primary-anti-establishment-outsider-campaigns

Bernie Schools Hillary On What It Means To Be Progressive

Bernie Sanders makes a forceful point to shatter Hillary's progressive delusions.

"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future."   -- John F. Kennedy

Last night's MSNBC debate (moderated by Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow)  between Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton probably had more fireworks than earlier ones-  as it should - since intensity must increase the more Hillary tries to blur distinctions by painting herself as a progressive. She isn't. She's a "moderate"  or in common political parlance, a Neoliberal right centrist Dem. For those who haven't been around the last 60 years or so - and that is roughly 80 percent of Americans - the Democratic Party has steadily mutated from its New Deal origins and basis into something most of us (Kennedy liberals) no longer recognize. Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to bring the Party back to its roots, while Hillary wants to take it further to the Right.

In essence, that is what this whole debate was about, irrespective of the particular topic: health care, Wall Street's influence, immigration, corporate campaign contributions, climate change or national security. There IS a correct Progressive or Liberal position on all of these, and anyone who attempts to blur over the differences is an obscurantist pure and simple. So let's not mince words.

In this blog entry I am not going to pick over every issue or segment of the debate, but provide an overarching framework of what it means to be a progressive and readers can DVR wind back the Dem debates - or any parts thereof- and see which candidate's claims and arguments meet the criteria.  

The true progressive or liberal then, will embrace each of the following and do so consistently, not ditch any when it becomes politically convenient:

   1) Taxes are of BENEFIT to Society and Increased Taxes are GOOD not BAD!

Instead, too many progressives flee from the T-word out of political expedience or chicanery, despite the fact it is higher taxes that can support the domestic programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid)  they are supposed to back, as well as allow for mega-projects we need like major infrastructure repair. (The Flint lead -in -the- water incident is just the 'canary in the coal mine' of what lies in wait if we don't act.)

The must-read article ‘The Next Tax Revolt’ (American Prospect, June, 2009, p. 37) held progressives’ feet to the fire by making them partly responsible for playing into the Reepos ‘no new taxes’ bandwagon.  Part of this is the natural desire to try to protect the lower income quintiles from higher taxes, which leads to gamesmanship – in using the tax code for political leverage. Thus, the author notes:

“a platform of no tax increases for the bottom 95 percent can win elections but it reinforces rather than debunks the Right’s fundamental view of the tax question: that public services aren’t worth paying for- and merely suggests getting someone else to pay for them.”

Many of us saw this at the time, which is why we vociferously pleaded for the Bush Tax cuts NOT to be extended, period, for ANYONE- both the high fliers, and the lower, middle class tier. The reason is that we knew from several analyses that only getting the wealthy to forego them would not cut the mustard. We needed everyone to sacrifice, since the necessary revenue can’t be found merely by soaking the rich (which also gives the Reepos ammo that the Left always attacks the wealthy)..

But sadly, progressives sabotaged their own cause by arguing for tax hikes only on the richest. Their moral center had thereby been obliterated on the issue because they played right into the Reeps’ mitts. In the most recent manifestation of this tendency we beheld Pelosi denying any increase in taxes would be part of the D-platform this year (thereby undermining Bernie's agenda) and also Hillary vowing she'd never raise taxes on the middle class. But when it comes to cuts to Social Security, you can be your sweet bippy she and Pelosi will be first in line to enable it!

2)     Environmental Threats Must Be Confronted – Not Dodged!

Thus, to forge a coherent moral center and abiding progressive position there can be no divergence of interest regarding environmental threats.  This leads to a series of elementary actions that can’t be disputed - at least not by genuine progressives (as distinct from the situational or 'cafeteria' variety):

-        The Keystone XL pipeline must be permanently mothballed never to arise again

-        Fracking must be cut back given its deleterious effects on  the water supply (especially given how water intensive it is, and 55% is done in the most drought –ravaged states).

-        Carbon taxes, either via front end (e.g. tax on production) or back end (tax on gasoline at the pump) must be implemented to prevent our hitting the 551 gT limit of carbon deposition, which would lead to going over the critical 2 deg C threshold.

-        Deep sea drilling must also be scaled back and much more rigorous regulations must be put into place to prevent a repeat of the BP oil disaster from ever occurring again.

The danger to the progressive moral center will come-  as it usually does – from unions -   objecting to “loss of  jobs”. But they have to be made to see that these jobs are worthless if people later pay a higher cost in untreatable cancers, or disasters that can affect large swaths of population.

3)     Wars Must Never Be Launched Unless the Nation is Truly At Risk

The obvious standard here is World War II and the threat from the Axis Powers. In other words, if there is no threat comparable to that threatening our immediate security, we do not ramp up the war machinery nor do we launch or instigate invasions, occupations or even cruise missile attacks- because we understand the consequences of those actions can only lead to more violence. Nor does a real progressive vote on war and invasion as Hillary did back in 2002.

This is also why none other than Chalmers Johnson noted it was our aggressive policy decisions, including keeping militarized bases in Saudi Arabia, that provoked the “blow back” of 9/11.  In other words, neither Afghanistan or Iraq ought to have been entered into – the first was misplaced, since it was 19 Saudis that were responsible for 9/11, the second was entirely contrived based on flawed WMD information from an Iraqi defector named “curve ball”.
 

In the judicious application of a coherent liberal-progresive ethics no war would be casually conducted by a random presidential edict, or pseudo-doctrine (i.e. 'Bush doctrine'). Instead, we’d have an actual declaration of war by congress. This would give congress the opportunity to exercise its constitutional duty, while imparting moral and ethical authority in rendering a war truly just. In this light, we'd have no more Vietnams, Iraqs, Afghanistans or other adventures of choice, finagled outside the parameters of congressional authority. For too long wars have been waged through the back door  at great financial and moral cost to the U.S.  The Iraq invasion, for example, never would have been allowed had an actual declaration of war been demanded by congress, as opposed to it meekly rolling over for the executive branch.

 

4)     The National Security state as it is presently configured is inimical to constitutional rights
 

This is  based on the Snowden- released files, hence we need to scale back the intrusiveness because no truly progressive person can defend or justify a mammoth dragnet sweep program that essentially renders everyone guilty. This disrespects the cornerstone of our republic – the 4^th amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Thus, no true progressive ought to have been in support of the NSA PRISM, Xkeyscore, Muscular or other programs. If you're a  right wing militarist, pro-security state fetishist, it's understandable you'd hump for security over liberty, but not as a progressive. And bear in mind any of those rights lost today will not be recovered later.

5)     Multinationals Must be Checked – Starting with GMO Foods.

Author and academic George Lakoff was quite correct  a year or so ago when he wrote that GMO foods are “horrible” so why is this even an issue for some progressives? You mean because they’ve bought the codswallop that GMOs will “help feed the world”. They need to do more research, and grasp how a tiny bump in larger crops – but which later lead to a range of cancers- is no gain. Not at all.  You’re exchanging 50 million hungry people for 500 million with terrible cancers in 30-40 years. How does that help the overall picture? Oh wait, yes! Immediate gain trumps the future pain! The mantra of Neoliberal capitalism!

6)    Wall Street Influence in Political Campaigns and 'Dark Money' Must Be Checked

Bernie has been all about this in every town hall meeting and in the D- debates. He invokes it because it is critical. So long as Wall Street money infects the political process it will be corrupted: the endless cycle will continue whereby citizens vote and instigate the latest money power coup for putative "leaders" (benefiting from the campaign largesse) and then those allied powerful interests redirect the government to their own ends as opposed to the citizens'.

Douglas Rushkoff, in his superb book, Life Inc. - How Corporations Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back, has a special chapter on money (Chapter 6, 'To Whom Credit Is Due') and ought to be required reading for every citizen. As he points out: "Money is not a neutral medium - it favors some types of behavior while discouraging others."    In the case of the influx of money from Wall Street  the dynamic favors behaviors such as: weakening of banking laws (making it more likely citizens will again bail out banks, credit agencies, insurers etc.), greater advantage to select traders at the expense of ordinary investors, and lower corporate and other taxes accompanied by less regulation - making us more supporters of corporate welfare than the general welfare mentioned in the Preamble of the Constitution.  

 NO progressive worth his or her salt should therefore be taking money from Wall Street - whether for speaking fees or direct campaign donations via Super Pacs.

One wonders if indeed Americans, even most who claim to be progressive Democrats, really have the moxie and courage to follow that path to the hilt: the one Bernie Sanders advocates. Sometimes I wonder when I hear so many yapping about "pragmatism" or "Sanders can never get it done". If we adopt that mindset we never will, but then we can't bellyache about the deplorable condition of the country we're left with if we can't summon the will for real - as opposed to cosmetic - change!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/65852/if-you-want-to-win-go-progressive

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/65854/is-a-socialist-really-unelectable-the-potential-significance-of-the-sanders-campaign

Ok, Maybe The 3rd Time's the "Charm" - Re: SNAP Benefits Spending

It appears a fellow blogger who believes I am a "pretty good chess player" (I am, I nearly always beat my 'Grandmaster Chess' program at the grandmaster level) has misconstrued my recent post on limiting SNAP benefits. He appears to mistake the external claim of gov't "largesse" and perceived welfare - as applied to all gov't benefits to being my own. But let me make this clear, they are emphatically not.

When I referred to VA benefits, Social Security (including SSI and regular S.S.) as well as Medicare being lumped in the same category as SNAP benefits I was not referring to how I perceive them but to how they are seen by the austerity hawks. Of course, S.S. is "earned" as those of us receiving it had to pay into it over years we didn't just have it handed to us. Vets, meanwhile, earned their benefits by putting themselves on the line to defend their country (never mind many of the 'wars' were bogus - they still complied!). Also Medicare was earned by the same qualifying rules as for S.S. 

My point was that none of this matters to those like Peter G. Peterson, David M. Walker, or Richard Haas- who uniformly see all of them more or less in the same "wheel house" as general welfare benefits because: a) they issue from the tax commons, and b) all add to the federal deficit.

This is why Michelle Caruso Cabrera argued on 'Real Time' for Social Security privatization - again not that I would defend such a thing-  my past posts show I do not, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-social-security-privatization.html

 but rather that SHE and her ilk see things that way. That is, one would need a separate privatized account to justify spending however one wants. Of course this is nuts, but that is how THEY see it. I merely report it as the messenger.

Here is where the problem lies for my blogger friend: No benefits are 100 percent secure - even his SSI and VA benefits. Any can be repealed at any time, on any whim or for any congressional bogus reason or tantrum. Whether specific "spending rules" apply to one subset of gov't benefits or not is in the large sense immaterial to the fact ALL benefits are subject to cutbacks, or even cancellation.

As one website (http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html ) notes:

The fact that workers contribute to the Social Security program's funding through a dedicated payroll tax establishes a unique connection between those tax payments and future benefits. More so than general federal income taxes can be said to establish "rights" to certain government services. 

This is often expressed in the idea that Social Security benefits are "an earned right." This is true enough in a moral and political sense. But like all federal entitlement programs, Congress can change the rules regarding eligibility--and it has done so many times over the years. The rules can be made more generous, or they can be made more restrictive. Benefits which are granted at one time can be withdrawn, as for example with student benefits, which were substantially scaled-back in the 1983 Amendments

I point this out, again, not to be a pain in the ass, but to make the salient point that no beneficiary is sitting pretty as far as security goes no matter how much he or she may believe they "earned their benefits".  In effect, even VA benefits can be rescinded or cancelled, as the recent repuke congress in fact tried to do. The harsh fact in these United States is that like the myth of "private property" (which can always be taken under some ruse, say like eminent domain claims) the myth of secure benefits doesn't wash. Any benefit can be removed at congressional whim at any time. We keep those benefits at the pleasure of whatever congress (and President) we get at the time and well, if they turn out to be craven rat assholes, we're all sunk - as much as all those on SNAP or welfare would be.

In effect, if a Supreme Court can rule (as in Flemming v. Nestor) that there is no contractual right to receive Social Security then this can be extended to any other government benefits, including VA disability and medical benefits, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. But the fact most of those now living haven't observed such drastic actions doesn't mean they can never occur.

Again, I am in firm defense of these government benefits but unlike those who adhere to the "submerged" idea of preferential benefits, I insist they need to be protected for ALL - not just  special subsets. The idea of "fairness" again, only entered the picture in the sense that ALL benefits of whatever form are viewed as "welfare" by the austerity hawks and this indeed, isn't fair. So my blogger friend was right to have his outrage evoked when his VA benefits were noted, but that is not MY doing but the perceptions of the austerity hawks. So, if he wishes to vociferously defend his right to those benefits he needs to write the likes of David Walker, Richard Haas et al and take it up with them.

Rather than play the game of beneficiaries fighting one another over who has "the most right" to their own benefits, why not join together in common cause and defend the right to benefits for all - with NO strings attached?  Thus, the state laws declaring SNAP recipients can only spend so much on such and such ought to be shelved, the same way other artificial laws (and all laws in the end are somewhat artificial in that they were generally created by power brokers for their own benefit, with money contributions) ought to be  - including those for eminent domain. Not to mention the recent spate of laws in many cities making homelessness a crime. No place to rest or sit, or one is arrested, as in Denver. This is bullshit and I am glad to see the ACLU and others taking the issue up.

The overriding law ought to be the Constitution and that ought to trump all penny ante state laws set up by temporary political whores who happened to get elected because they gerrymandered their states to enable it.  Thus, the preamble to the Constitution bears the only welfare declaration that matters and it plainly states:

We the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….”

This passage has been a source of never-ending squabbling over every issue from states’ rights, to the degree of control vis-à-vis the individual vs. the collective or common good.

Much of this, I believe, is unnecessary and merely discloses an inability of current citizens to think or even conceive of the community or the commons. So brainwashed have we become by the screeds of either ‘rugged individualism’ or Social Darwinism.

Let’s begin by quickly dispatching some of the more common canards, often circulated by the Right's darlings, like the Tea Baggers. One is that the clause refers only to military defense, or that "no positive social rights inhere in the Constitution". (All rights are ipso facto, "negative",  expressing what gov't may not do).This conveniently excludes any basis for social spending, but is erroneous on inspection

The reason is that the phrase – “provide for the common defense” is separate from that to “promote the general welfare.” Hence, the two have no commonality in terms of language, unless one supposes the writer was deliberately redundant.

Another common error is to invoke the ‘fallacy of division’ in this case, disputing that “promotion of the general welfare” refers to anything other than the United States as the entity whose ‘welfare’ is being considered. This again is falsified on inspection. Note that the Preamble begins:

“We the PEOPLE…”


Not “The United States”. In fact, the United States is itself an artifact of the people’s will and their creation, as elucidated say in 'The Federalist Papers', by James Madison, i.e. comparing the federal system to the solar system.. The Constitution, composed by the “people”, engendered the United States as a new national entity. In the context, therefore, the United States as this manufactured entity and abstraction cannot of itself have a “general welfare”. Only PEOPLE (citizens) can possess or aspire to a general welfare.

And THAT, I argue, also inheres in the benefits they are entitled to whether VA disability, Social Security or SNAP. And none of those benefits ought to have artificial limits appended! Instead, the recipients are enabled to use their benefits for whatever they wish - but of course they must be cognizant of the limits or they will run out before the month expires. (Another reason, as Emily Badger of the WaPo noted, the idea of SNAP people running wild buying beer, gambling etc. is bogus as a three dollar bill, because of the limited money they have to start!)

But neither can separate individuals possess a “general welfare”! Since, to say so is to mix the particular with the general. Clearly then, general welfare and its promotion must refer to something essential to the general collective and its good, which also would contribute to the goals set out in The Constitution.

What are these goals, that we might give at least one example of the general welfare?

One is “the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness”.

What  manner of “general welfare” might be associated with this?

Without a doubt, one form is “health care”. Why? Because the accessibility to health care (of a form that doesn’t bankrupt) implies a prerequisite for the opportunity to pursue “life, liberty and happiness.” Without the potential to access such affordable care, a person – say with a severe back injury or chronic disease – cannot pursue the goal. And assuming s/he can, it will not be a pursuit with achievement at the end, in all probability.

But another aspect of this happiness pursuit is it must not be sequestered for some special subsets of citizens while excluding others. ALL citizens are entitled to pursue it whether they are poor or rich!  To limit their pursuit using artificial laws is against the Constitution!

Thus, even SNAP recipients must be enabled to pursue happiness even on a limited scale - and this must be defended as their RIGHT under the ninth amendment. That means they ought to be able -  bogus state law or no - to enjoy a bit of luxury when they need to and if they have enough left from taking care of immediate needs to afford it.

Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights.

The Ninth Amendment states that “the people retain unenumerated rights.” "The people:"  here refers to flesh and blood citizens, not to a bunch of contractual abstractions (states), or to corporations, as Mitt Romney seems to believe.. As Wills emphasizes and underscores (ibid.):

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

My argument then is that the unenumerated rights of citizens trump any specious rights claimed by states, OR their prerogatives. This is also why I reiterate again Charles Reich's words to do with welfare:

"The claim that government is free to reduce or cut off welfare and other forms of support for people in economic need is totally mistaken. Welfare is not a gift, nor is it, despite frequent assertions, a transfer from those who earn a living to those who are not.  Welfare is rather an obligation from society – and from those who are working- to those who have been deprived of work and the opportunity to earn a living."


I hope that my blogger friend now understands why it's in his interest to defend the rights of SNAP beneficiaries to their benefits, as much as he aggressively defends his own. We are all in this together and to the extent we allow the state to split us apart we all become vulnerable to having our rights - and benefits - taken away!
---------------------------------------
Update: My fellow blogger asks me to address the question: "If everyone is jumping on the bandwagon - then who is left pulling the cart?"   First, not "everyone is jumping on the bandwagon" - i.e. for SNAP benefits, only the most needy citizens are. A position that ANY of us could be in if - god forbid - we're struck by a horrible disease, or injury or disability from an accident. Thereby making it impossible to earn enough to support ourselves.

Second, the rest of us need to pick up the support slack by enabling a greater pool for the tax commons, so that 16 million kids (also under the SNAP program) don't have to go to bed hungry each night. Thus, if enough were made available for these benefits programs - less for military and wars - there would be no problem, and we wouldn't face these constant cuts for budget reasons - as we saw in November, 2013.

In the end,  all the difficulties of not enough "pulling the cart" arise because our priorities are misplaced. We are giving much too much to  overseas military involvement in places we shouldn't be and not enough for domestic needs. We need to be building bridges and new water mains in Skokie and Buffalo not in Ramadi or Kandahar.  We need to be increasing SNAP benefits, not paying good tax dollars for even more F-35 cost overruns.


See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/22/white_americas_gwyneth_paltrow_problem_how_its_playing_games_with_the_lives_of_poor_people/

Excerpt:

Conservative disdain for the poor has reached new heights with the recent passage of the HOPE Act in Kansas earlier this month. This bill, signed into law by Governor Sam Brownback, prohibits those who receive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) from using funds to go to movies, to go swimming, to go theme parks, to gamble, to visit strip clubs or bars.

Many Americans fundamentally believe that one’s income bracket should determine one’s access to fun, pleasure, and entertainment. The resentment and the lack of empathy that undergirds most of the social policy that emerges from the right prove just how out-of-touch and mean-spirited such social policy is.

....Rather than attend to the systemic causes of poverty, they remain firmly committed to a stance that has no political integrity: that poverty is caused by laziness – not by poor schools, over-criminalization, the outsourcing of jobs, and a lack of living wage. And lazy people, the thinking goes, don’t deserve any forms of pleasure.

GOP & Tea Baggers Want You To Get Sick From Fouled Water

We know from past history that the shtick of the GOP and its Tea Bagger faction is to sink government in a bathtub if they can get enough dumb people to believe they can do it. The primary principle or precept is that "big gubmint" is bad and dammit, we're going to stop it from protecting workers' interests - say from slaving away in a mine filled with methane, or people drinking water from a lake laced with cryptosporidium.

The GOP and its conservo Huns who assert the Constitution is their main book (but can't tell you the difference between the 9th and 10th amendments and the meaning of unenumerated rights) thus would rather you die from being gassed in a mine, or from cryptosporidium than that the government extend its power to protect you, the citizen. (But, the same lamos won't blink when gov't is perverted to protect the interests of corporations).

Enter now House bill, H.R. 5078, which overrides a rule proposed in March by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to clarify two Supreme Court decisions that had made it difficult to determine whether waterways that are dry for part of the year are protected by the Clean Water Act — confusion that polluters have readily taken advantage of.  (As seen in several recent cases including in West Virginia and North Carolina - where tens of thousands were left without drinking water for weeks)

The new rule would give the EPA regulatory authority over millions of acres of wetlands along with about 2 million miles of small streams, the latter of which feed into rivers, lakes and reservoirs that provide drinking water for more than 115 million Americans (all of whom, presumably, prefer that water to be pollution-free). It would also protect critical fish and wild habitats.


The EPA emphasized (quite ardently) that it would not be expanding the Clean Water Act, only reasserting its authority over water sources that have historically been protected.

”We are clarifying protection for the upstream waters that are absolutely vital to downstream communities,”

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in March, going on to point out - as if it was really necessary - though these days you have to wonder:

"Clean water is essential to every single American, from families who rely on safe places to swim and healthy fish to eat, to farmers who need abundant and reliable sources of water to grow their crops, to hunters and fishermen."

 How much cancer H.R. 5078 will generate is hard to say, but over time it's a good guess that at least 1 in 10 of the 115 million affected will develop a cancer of the liver, kidneys, pancreas or bladder, and possibly brain - not to mention leukemia. Will the GOP lay out their big pocket books to pay for all those cancer treatments? I somehow doubt it. Hell, they even have a boner to kill Obamacare. So why would they give a damn if some destitute farmer in the Appalachians were to develop cancer?

They wouldn't.

Then there is the illness we know will spread from fouled water, including from pollutants as well as the sort of red algae pollution that recently fouled the water of Lake Erie - not to mention the violent illness from crypto-sporidium. Ask the 490,000 people of Milwaukee who became ill from such an outbreak back in 1994.

It seems quite evident to me that if people seriously want their water protected - and with it their health interests- they will have to besiege the House and its anti-government buffoons with letters, emails, cards, whatever..... and let them know in no uncertain terms that their override is unacceptable.

Unless, of course, they have no problem with getting ill and having to deal with the inevitable mess and medical bills all by themselves. Which option is kind of incredible even given the purported Yankee affinity for "self reliance" - and the fact that the corporations meanwhile are laughing all the way to the bank over all the help the government is giving them. (For example, monumental corporate welfare to the tune of $180b each year, including tax "inversion".)

Europeans, by contrast,   would never tolerate such nonsense. They demand and expect their governments to have THEIR interests at heart which is why - for example - one beholds much greater degrees of data protection, as well as health costs covered. Oh, and having all GMO foods labeled, which Americans have been convinced (by their own gov't and corporations) isn't necessary.

Will Americans ever wake up to insisting that their government - and ALL political parties - protect their interest, otherwise known as the "general welfare"?

Doubtful, given that many don't even know the general welfare clause exists and is clearly stated in the Preamble of the Constitution. Maybe these Americans need to re-read it sometime.

"Cut Them Food Stamps & Medicaid More!"- Doug Lamborn Wants Military Funding Protected

It always amuses me how so-called "fiscal conservatives" ,  numbered among the Repukes,  have no qualms about splurging gazillions on military toys, defense contracts and make -work for those in their districts.  They will be hell-bent against any infrastructure spending - despite bridges, water mains and roads crumbling in front of them - but bring on them F-35 bombers at $600m each! The more the better!

Enter now the city of Colorado Springs, long a shameless suckling on the teats of government to the tune of billions a year for military support and expenditure. The irony is most of its burgers are ideological (social-economic) conservatives who find no irony in bitching, moaning and pissing about the economically vulnerable, kids or homeless receiving food stamps- though they themselves collect hundreds of times as much in terms of fat military contracts, special benefits, pensions or spinoff largesse.....which is essentially the same thing. So while they bemoan the "Nanny" state to which the poor are driven, they overlook the "Pappy" state which sits them on its knees and doles out goodies galore.

The  'doyen'  of the Springs, continually re-elected because of the military welfare he provides,  is Doug Lamborn, who was quoted yesterday in The Denver Post ('Defense Cuts Put Lamborn in Tough Fight'. p. 5A):

"Defense is my top priority. I say that without apology because it's the top priority of the federal government.  When you read the Constitution, defense spending and national security is mentioned more than anything else. It's the highest priority so it will be my highest priority."

Which is bare bollocks, and also provides a nifty cover or excuse to further gut domestic spending - including food stamps for hungry kids - in the next round of the sequester in January.

To me, priority is defined by what comes first. If Lamborn really knew the Constitution he'd also have known that the Preamble comes before all else and it clearly stipulates the government is to PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE.  Not "military welfare" or "corporate welfare" - and that general welfare embodies all those domestic spending components that Lamborn and his ilk would piss on: health care, infrastructure maintenance, social insurance for the poor. Those are also the things, interestingly, that contribute most directly to domestic security. You have a Bird Flu contagion and you really want to see 47 million sick and without care because they can't afford it? Only a nut would argue that is less of a security threat than a localized terror attack.

But this is the shtick Lamborn uses to continually grabbing largesse for his 5th Congressional District, which pulled in $1.2 billion in federal contracts through the 3rd quarter of the 2012 fiscal year, according to the Post article. Moreover, Lamborn isn't satisfied, he still wants more, in the form of  $1 billion for a dubious combat air brigade (CAB) that's putatively there to "support operations in Afghanistan by training Apache helicopter pilots".  

This despite the fact that an ongoing environmental assessment hasn't even been completed, and hey - we're supposed to pulling out next year!  Meanwhile, hundreds of questions need to be addressed, including: How is such a unit to be accommodated on the given location and what will be the training parameters? How many flights per day? At how much social, environmental cost? What if two choppers crash into homes per month? How much fuel can be dumped if need be and where? Who will pay for any damages and what about insurance? What are all the impacts associated with this? Of course, the Army could escape all responsibility despite the 285-odd questions that demand to be addressed by simply issuing a FONSI ('Finding of No Significant Impact').

The Post goes on to note that the bulk of the $1.2 b already provided is tied to the military and  the military contractors. In other words, the Springs is now the "hub" of the Military Industrial Complex like Dallas was back in 1963. This is according to the Center for Effective Government.  This included a $246 million contract to Northrop Grumman and $97.6 million to Lockheed Martin. Meanwhile, Springs' roads are pot-holed, the water mains are 100 years old and haven't undergone major refurbishing, and bridges are near collapse in several places.  Oh, and the schools are over-crowded from having to close several middle and high schools last year owing to lack of funds.

Is Lamborn bothered? Hell no! He wants to go full tilt come January when further defense cuts are on the block,  and according to the Post, "intends to find other places to chop, including entitlements like food stamps and Medicare, to shield the military."

Never mind tens of millions of kids across the nation are already having to go to bed hungry thanks to the existing sequester, now having been combined with the end of a SNAP stimulus Nov. 1. I am sure all those kids, appreciate Dougie's manifest "Christian" concern, not to mention all the seniors on Medicare who Lamborn wants to pay more for their drugs, treatments and therapies. Cancer? Hell, let the old farts throw the dice, we can't afford to allow radiation treatments, chemo or anything else. Better them dead than my military defense contracts!

Speaking of which - and according to the Post (ibid.):

"Lamborn receives his heftiest campaign contributions from military contractors. Just in this election cycle, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman- both with offices in Colorado Springs - gave him a combined $10,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has also received contributions from Honeywell International and Boeing."

Of course, this embodies the very core of the corruption Eisenhower warned about in his January, 1961 Farewell address, referencing the "Military-Industrial Complex" and its "undue influence in communities throughout our nation."

Does Dougie care that roads are falling into potholes, that 11,000 kids in the Springs have to go to school every day on empty bellies, or that sewer lines regularly burst because of disrepair or the schools themselves are over crowded? Dougie's predictable response, as quoted in the Post:

"My votes on the military are for national security first and foremost ....and then I think about the district."

Thanks a heap, Doug. It's too bad we have too many stupid fuckers living in this burg who don't realize what side their bread is buttered on and keep voting your sorry, parasite ass into office.

Corker's Correct on ONE Thing: Left & Right Underestimate Cost of Government

I will be upfront and honest that, as a Socialist, I don't have much truck for any Republican of the modern -day extreme Right breed. They are all nutso, and - apologies to the Demo blogs & media (who compare those of us on the unrepentant, vocal Left to 'Teabaggers' using the pejorative 'Firedog-baggers') you've got your analogies all screwed up.  For those not in the know, 'Firedoglake' is a hard Democratic Left blog that argues for Democratically elected reps to grow a spine for once, and support what the voters indicated they wanted on Nov. 6. Meanwhile, what I call the 'wussie' -Corporate Democrats, say "Oh no! We must not do that- we must COMPROMISE! We must display bipartisanship" 

Yes, in the long held tradition of Grover Norquist, who used the term "date rape" for reaching bipartisanship with Dems. By the looks of some Dem Corporate blogs, a lot of them must love being "date raped" by the likes of Norquist and his Republican followers.

Anyway, I digress a bit. Bob Corker (R-TN) was on CBS this morning and went on a longish rant (which they had to cut short) on the upcoming "fiscal cliff" and the need for Americans to prepare. I tuned out most of his jabber but he did hit one note correct: Both the Left and the Right in this country underestimate the full cost of government. (Though, truthfully, I will say a LOT of this is because of politicos, presidents not being honest with them! For example, Bush Jr. telling Americans to go out shopping after 9/11 and then starting two lengthy occupations and not asking them to sacrifice by paying higher taxes for them.)

Anyway, Corker noted that even with people like me on Medicare, 40% of the total benefits which accrue to us -  whether in the form of treatments (say like for my prostate cancer) or preventive items like colonoscopies - are unpaid for. This means debt accumulates as a result.

Corker then went off on his high horse using the above to assert there hasn't been enough attention to spending cuts, especially on "entitlements".

Not one elaborating word came that his Right wing bunch, including Teabaggers, are also oblivious to the true cost of their pet projects, namely military -defense spending! This means that Corker regards - or seems to - those costs as 'freebies' that the rest of us must pay, but he's deluded. This has never been done before and as my late dad used to point out to me, during WWII sacrifices not only had to be made on the home front with rationing but higher taxes too.

Flash forward to the year 2012 and what do we see? The United States currently maintains 702 military 'installations' in 63 foreign countries (it has 4,471 bases altogether), according to the Defense Department's annual budget statement. These figures don't include bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total cost for all this support, including what has been consumed in Iraq and Afghanistan is upward of $4.5 trillion.  This dwarfs what's been taken in from Social Security payroll taxes over the past eleven or so years (about $1.8 trillion) but no mention is made that most of that money taken in by S.S. has been used to support those "wars" and defense.

Note here, as I said before - a number of times - Social Security is prohibited by law from adding to any deficit. More to the point, Social Security itself can't go "bankrupt" because it has no external creditors who can impose "collections". Other domains of government, however, DO have monetary obligations to Social Security -  on account of using that money, which now must be paid back. (Oh yes, it must - and don't let anyone tell you any different. It is the total of these paybacks that the Neolib press has referred to as "unfunded liabilities")

So what the hell is Corker yelping about?  Well, mainly that the Left doesn't understand how much it's getting for "free"- especially in terms of Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps etc. but again, no word on the Right not understanding: a) how much military stuff and "wars" they've gotten for free (including Iraq and Afghanistan, neither paid for by higher taxes), and b) how much they've raided from the top "entitlement" they hate - Social security - and have had a major boner to kill since the 1930s.

In this sense, Corker's complaints against "entitlements" can't be taken seriously and come across merely as a convenient smokescreen to gut those social benefits. But truthfully, military spending on all the bases and military installations I noted above, is what really needs cutting! They now consume an ungodly 58 cents of every current federal dollar and this is what's driving us to borrow ever more from China, Japan, etc.

So yes, both Left and Right underestimate the costs of their pet projects - but at least Social security is being paid for via payroll taxes - which btw, ought to be increased after the past two- year "payroll tax holiday" people enjoyed. The reason is that if you're not willing to pay those payroll taxes then you will have to look for congress each year approving a S.S. budget! Do you really want that? I don't!

The bottom line in all this is that Americans, given what they demand -  whether in terms of social insurance benefits or military defense-  are definitely paying way too little in taxes. "Spending cuts", meanwhile, is a Mcguffin created by the likes of nincompoop Repubs and Grover boy, but make no sense for a modern industrial nation that owes its citizens not only the 'promotion of the GENERAL WELFARE" (see the Preamble to the Constitution) but adequate defense in the modern world.

Thus, spending cuts for a nation this large - with over 300 million people, and with social as well as defense standards to meet, is simply a non-starter. I do admit that spending could be cut on nonsense and fat (say like 2,300 F-35s at $0.3b each) , and we should always do what we can to extract the most from each dollar. But to apply sweeping spending cuts, say to "entitlements" the way the pinhead Neolibs and Reepos wish to do, while letting our gargantuan military budget basically sit untouched,  is both foolish and self-serving. Nations that do that usually don't last very long.

It's now time that people, especially our elected officials, use some common sense and understand that any "cliff" solution that is to be meaningful, HAS to have higher taxes and yes ...on BOTH the middle class and upper classes! Middle class people can't continue to be pampered like the politicos are wont to do, say with extending the Bush (now Obama) tax cuts. They need to understand they have 'skin' in the game too, with their future benefits. Do they want those future Medicare benefits? Or would they rather pay $42, 700 for a prostate cancer treatment- like I would have had to do without Medicare?

I believe any right-thinking middle class person will suck it up in terms of higher taxes, and demand his reps vote for them, rather than be faced with draconian cuts or even god-awful Paul Ryan style vouchers down the road.

On that note, it's time we all grow up for once and understand we only get the government we pay for. If we choose to pay only chump change, then get set to live in a third world America!

Romney Loses it, Picks Obersturmführer Ryan as VP

Even as Romney’s Zombies burn their hair and send up ‘code red’ reactions in the wake of the Priority USA PAC's Soptic ad (which as Rachel Maddow noted last night has never been televised – but only shown on the net - until Goopers started getting their panties in a snit and drew attention to it) their standard bearer has shown this morning he’s either certifiable or desperate beyond sensibility. The reason? Selecting Obersturmführer Paul Ryan as his running mate. I mean what is this guy thinking? Even arch –conservative Richard Viguerie last night said a Ryan choice would be a flat out mistake, and merely offer a tempting target to the Left. Well, DOH!


I watched only a few minutes of Ryan’s acceptance spiel this morning because, frankly, I was in the middle of eating breakfast and I couldn’t tolerate more than 5 minutes. As he stood in front of the battleship ‘Wisconsin’ I did hear lots of calls and appeals to ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ – always good sound bites to get the sheeple to applaud, and they did. But the man knows nothing of real freedom, or liberty. (Note: When I use the term ‘liberty’ I mean it in the broader context of the unenumerated rights that inhere in the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights.)

Ryan spoke of “liberty” but eschews government as any driving force, unless for military expansion – hence why he plans to increase the Pentagon budget by 40%. He also speaks with forked tongue: indicating the need for spending control, but quite happy to make exceptions for the military and the wealthy plutocrats who will thrive on his tax cuts, embodied in his “Ryan budget”.

Any imbecile knows that plutocrats who seek to control this nation love the overuse of the terms “individual liberty” or “personal freedom” because the thoughtless and less intelligent to whom the phrase is addressed don’t process the underlying meme. But the oligarchs do! Their primary doctrine is that there’s nothing we as citizens hold in common, or for which we ought to pull together – say in the interests of one another. There is NO commonweal in other words. To the plutocrats and their lackeys, like Paul Ryan, the commonweal is a myth, or a sign of softheadedness and weakness ….an inability to stand on one’s own feet and be “independent”. Citizenship becomes merely a series of transactions between independently acting individuals – each with his own self-interest.


Of course, the testimony of our own history belies this skewed notion of freedom, which at its base is the form promoted in ads by the billionaire Koch brothers and their “Americans for Prosperity” – because they hope most Americans will be stupid enough to buy it. But go all the way back to the Mayflower Compact and you will find the declaration that “these just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices …shall be thought most meet and convenient for the GENERAL GOOD.”

Go next to the Preamble of the Constitution and find the words “to promote the GENERAL WELFARE” as a prime function of government. Look closely, because it’s not “military welfare” or “corporate welfare”, or “oligarchic welfare”, but GENERAL.

Needless to say the purpose of the individual liberty screeds, whether in ads by the Kochs or spiels by Paul Ryan, is to blinker the mind of the listener to believe the commonweal and its mode of delivery – the government - is something separate and apart from us. The myth is then erected that we are ourselves a “sovereign people” and government is a creature apart and inimical to our interests. Thereby a state of mind is encouraged which is destructive of the commonweal itself. And to the extent citizens buy into it, they are accomplices to its destruction.


The sad and inescapable fact is that with Paul Ryan now Romney’s Veep, Romney will be committed to go full tilt toward implementing Ryan’s budget, which will leave this country in a shambles.

Ryan talks about “liberty” but what kind of liberty will our citizens have after military spending (which is already greater than all other nations put together) is increased by 40% and double its current share of GDP? Do people seriously believe they have any chance of securing their Social security, social security disability, VA pensions, Medicare, Tri-care or other benefits? If they do they are dreaming or delusional! Even the most logically deficient person can process that if Romney and Ryan plan to amp up military spending by $1.5 trilllion over four years – and bankroll $7 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest, something has to give! That “something” is social insurance benefits, the very foundation of freedom.


Because with those benefits gutted, the middle class will be hurled into an economically needy, necessitous future, of a type most glaringly articulated by Donna Smith on her blog at Smirkingchimp. And as FDR once said: “Necessitous men cannot be free men”.

For a person like me with cancer that requires treatment, Ryan’s budget- if implemented -will mean serious Medicare cuts and costs that I may not be able to pay. Oh he and Romney insist their scheme doesn’t apply to anyone 55 or older but don’t believe this bull pockey for a second. The true fact is the Medicare impacts will have to strike those of us past 55 in order to deliver the spending cuts Ryan needs, that (partially) balance his mammoth $8.5 trillion 4-year spending increases.

This will mean definitely increasing the Medicare age to 67, from 65, and also cutting Medicare via “the back door” by using the Chained CPI to redefine the Social Security COLA. In this way, the 3% yearly losses of benefits in S.S. will translate into 3% yearly higher cost to Medicare, since the monthly Medicare premiums are taken out of Social Security. Add to that a likely increase in Medicare premiums, of perhaps 10%, and you have the makings of a lot of suffering. If the Ryan-Romney Axis also implement cuts (or much higher offset prices, e.g.  in special treatments, such as my radiation therapy) or abolition of free preventive services - now allowed under ‘Obamacare’-   then we are all for the high jump.


But I am confident the Dems are aware of all of these facets and will use them like a sharp Bowie knife to take down these two stand-ins for the plutocrats. In that sense, Romney – in his desperation – has handed us the very present we need to ensure Obama gets 4 more years, and likely in a landslide rivaling the one Reagan had over Mondale in 1984.

Those who want to learn more about Ryan's perverse budget, can go to:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3731

Parsing and processing the information in the preceding link will show, as Economics Professor Fiona Scott Morton aptly put it (TIME: ‘The Market Can’t Cure Medicare’, May 2, 2011) that Ryan’s plan, and indeed any such premium support plan, is merely a demand shedding plan. As Morton puts it, in terms of Ryan's proposed Medicare vouchers:

“there’s no evidence many companies will be rushing in to provide health coverage to ailing boomers with competition that ought to lower any premiums"


She adds:

"The Republican plan is not solving the problem. It’s solving the problem of the cost of government health care. You have people who can’t afford it and they’ll just die. Economists call that demand shedding”.

Thus the “Medicare revolution” proffered by Ryan (and Romney) is NOT to engender market competition to "lower health premiums for seniors", but to shed market demand (by seniors) so they'll be unable to enter or access any private health care, period. And since no government help or insurance will be available (other than a meager voucher of maybe $10k a year at most),  to try and purchase private insurance in an open market,  the senior will have no choice but to die. I mean, Hitler couldn't have conceived of a better long term plan to eliminate the aged.

As for Medicaid, the 54 million poor and moderate income citizens now on that will also find themselves hostage to Ryan's fascist economics as he and Romney cut the federal component (which is now 'halfsied' with states) and offer only minimal state grants. Then, to even have a chance of getting access to Medicaid, you will likely have to be below $1,000 a year in income, if that.

Apart from that, we know health care purchasing isn’t like buying a car, or i-pad or TV. The elements of objective and cool rational choice aren’t available mainly because the time when people most need health care is when their lives may be on the line: after a serious auto accident or fall, or appendicitis, or contracting pneumonia....or prostate cancer! Then, they simply need care and cost may not factor into it given that we know costs vary across large geographical regions, see e.g.


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-cant-colorado-follow-grand-junction.html

As shown in that blog, there is a way to control medical costs, but it doesn't depend on "premium support". It requires a provider network that mandates FIXED pricing for each procedure irrespective of what insurance vehicle one has....or doesn't. In this way, the delivery of care is rendered uniform without wild geographical variations in costs, and in addition, costs can be controlled - especially in terms of unnecessary procedures.

Now....if you think all this is bad, and bear in mind food stamps will also be likely cut to barely $280 a month on average, then consider the future if Romney croaks for whatever reason, and Ryan becomes PRESIDENT. Think also of him having GOP control of both houses of congress to play around with.
Or maybe I am just being overly pessimistic.  ....NOT!!

Right Wing Blogosphere Goes Nuts as Roberts Upholds Constitutionality of Health Care Law

"I have a message for Chief Justice Roberts! The power to tax is the power to destroy!" - Dean Clancy of Freedomworks

"It’s a terrible day for the American people! This was an activist court that rewrote the law to make it even more ineffectual, and even more expensive" Michelle Bachmann

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional. " Rep. Rand Paul (TN)

“Chief Justice Roberts was the worst part of the Bush legacy,”   Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com


I didn't blog earlier on the Supreme Court decisions to do with "Obamacare" (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)  because obviously there was vast confusion as to what it meant. The pundits as well as legal wizards were still scratching their heads and likely butts. CNN - to its everlasting shame- jumped the gun with the crawl screen: "Individual Mandate Struck Down" - which had the expected response of generating (initially) massive wet dreams for Rush Limbaugh's cheerleaders and Faux News followers.

But not so fast! As time went on a second decision became imminent, and in that key one Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the 4 liberals on the court asserting the individual mandate was: a) constitutional and b) passed muster based on the government's "tax authority:" In other words, if citizens opt not to purchase any insurance, they can certainly be hit with a tax penalty. (Though if I had my 'druthers I'd just increase taxes uniformly, by 5% to pay for the implementation, while also sunsetting the Bush tax cuts. )

Someone has to pay for the wider processing and acceptance, and if it doesn't happen by way of taxes it must unfold some other way. No, you can't make people actually purchase something they don't really want - at a particular time - but in the context of a law which hinges on shared income to achieve its assorted goals, you can resort to the paramount revenue generator which is TAXES!

A lot of this goes back to a subject on which I've blogged before: the American aversion to taxes, specifically any tax increases!

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/04/americans-need-to-get-over-their-tax.html

This is also irrational given that tax rates now are their lowest as a percentage of GDP in more than 40 years. But the problem is too many have been misled by anti-tax PR generated by the likes of Gasbag Grover Norquist and dozens of parroting Republican congress critters.

Worse, the party (Democrats)  that ought to be defending taxes as the means by which government can work for all typically punts rather than offering a full -throated defense. Worse, they even choose to side with the enemy on its memetic wicket, by promoting tax cuts (at least for the middle class - but two years ago they helped pass all the Bush tax cuts putting us in another $600 billion hole! )

This (Dem) party knows damned well the perilous impact of deficits on future social benefits, but rather than meet it head on, they yap about possible cuts to "entitlements" - the very thing which makes them merely Republicans Lite and drives people away from voting for them. Instead of simply opting to halt the Bush tax cuts (thereby saving $3.7 trillion over ten years), they emulate crack addicts who can't wait to get another "line" into their snouts - and pass all the tax cuts, instead of explaining to the middle class why it can't have BOTH tax cuts and future benefits.

What exactly is so damned difficult about that?

So, yes, what I liked most about the Roberts' Court decision is the way it stripped away all the subterfuge, crappola and camouflage....basically saying in so many words (in the 5-4 part where Roberts joined the court liberals): "Yes, look.... this law is constitutional but pay for it via revenues. Taxes. Not by forcing purchases. Penalize those who dodge insurance responsibility with taxes but maybe better, increase the tax load overall to pay for the benefits ALL Americans hope to obtain. Not only from this Health care overhaul but Social Security and Medicare, as well as Medicaid too."

Indeed, that paraphrased take was reinforced in a secondary decision that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could not force states to raid already weakened budgets to pay for expanded Medicaid coverage as demanded under the law. (The penalty being that the federal matching Medicaid contribution would be withheld). In other words, the states didn't have to delve into their coffers (which are largely in the red thanks to the continued recessionary environment) to pay to add residents to the Medicaid rolls as demanded under the law.

The solution again? Increase federal taxes to pay for a larger population using Medicaid in the states.

The Roberts Court is basically telling both parties not to tapdance around the central issues, but to be honest and forthright. If people want any kind of benefit - whether health care, or to preserve future Social Security COLAs -   they had better be prepared to pay for it in some way. There's no free ride. You cannot have your cake and eat it!

The government has the power and authority to tax and now it better damned well use it - whether in launching another war (or occupation), expanding a social -medical benefit or paying for infrastructure repair.

Those who go against the proper use of government - which is underscored by the 'general welfare' clause in the Preamble to the Constitution?   Well some would use the term anti-taxers, "Groverites" or naysayers. I have a much simpler one: Domestic Security Traitors! If you recognize the extent to which taxes -enhanced revenue undergirds our domestic security yet choose to do nothing to shore it up, what else can you be?