Senator Tom Coburn, on yesterday's Meet the Press, stated that there is no need for stronger gun restrictions. He does not believe that the gun law is the problem.
Coburn believes -- are you ready for this? -- that the problem is in the mental health system.
Jared Lee Loughner was obviously unstable. We all agree on that point. He had crossed paths with authorities several times, from college administrator to military screener, and they all knew without a doubt that he was mentally ill. How could someone this blatantly troubled fall through the cracks?
Coburn believes that the mental health system is the problem. Loughner fell through the cracks "rather than somebody intervening and helping this individual."
You know, I wholeheartedly applaud Senator Coburn for this assertion. That is why I will be totally behind him when he introduces legislation to mandate mental health funding for every American. Because Loughner's mental health problems were a very long time in the making.
As a doctor, of exactly what I don't know, Senator Coburn surely is aware that families and individuals cannot simply be mandated to receive treatment. Troubled families and individuals may actually want help and not have the financial means to obtain it, much less the know-how to find an appropriate mental health professional. And then there is the treatment. Senator Coburn surely knows that for someone with paranoid ideation treatment is not quick or cheap.
It troubles me to have to rain on Doctor Senator Coburn's parade like this, but in the real world, it is people like Doctor Senator Coburn who are preventing people from reaching out to troubled individuals like Jared Loughner, because, frankly, they don't think they should have to pay for the treatment.
Now all we really need is for some sharp interviewer to ask Doctor Senator Coburn where the next Loughner should send the bill.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Still Held Hostage
Pardon me for being a cynic, but when all the hot air was rising above Washington in December it was hard for me to get excited. I had absolutely no delusions that the tax cuts for all Americans included me. You see, since I reduced my hours to part-time, I earn half of the already shameful $23,000 that I was making as an employee of Charleston County. I may be middle class in many ways, but I was not one of the people Obama or Congress were fighting over. So I thought, big deal, they're going to kill Social Security, and I'll get maybe a dollar or two. So hold me hostage. Big deal.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked at my first payroll statement for 2011, and found that there was an actual net decrease of $10 for the two-week period. Hopefully, that amount doesn't mean a lot to you, but believe me, it brought a lump to my throat.
Preliminary investigation in the form of an "I hope this is a mistake" email to the staff accountant revealed that it was indeed not an error. We will all be paying more federal taxes, to the tune of $400 per person, as a result of Congress failing to renew the Make Work Pay tax credit.
That's right, while we are raiding our children's social security fund, we are nonetheless doing our part to pay down the damned deficit.
David Dayen in a December FireDogLake article provides a chart drawn up by Nancy Altman of Social Security Works which shows dramatically just how bad a hand the working poor have been dealt by this tax cut trade-off.
The irony is, for most people in the low to minimum wage earner category, the details become obfuscated by other changes, for example, insurance deduction amounts, which of course usually increase. Also, with direct deposit and online payroll statements, it becomes less likely that the average worker will compare the last statement of 2010 with the first statement of 2011, line by line. Which is what I did.
My FICA did indeed drop from $34.61 to $25.56. But my federal taxes withheld increased from $.65 (remember I earn under $12,000 per year) to a whopping $19.99, which resulted in a drop in my bi-weekly net pay from $377.73 to $367.44.
It may seem crass to describe my salary in such detail, but I believe that this is a change that we Americans need to make in order to wake up from the somnolence of the march of the financial numbers that affect us dramatically. Friday I did something I have never done with my co-workers: I discussed in numbers what we gained and lost in our pay.
In my lifetime it has become perfectly acceptable to talk about sex, but not salary. (Prior to that, it was not permissable to discuss either.) Which has allowed all kinds of financial discrimination to flourish in the workplace. Which prevented the Obama administration from getting credit for cutting taxes for the middle class in 2009, but allows government in 2011 to take away from the middle class and especially the working poor and give to the wealthy, all the while plundering social security.
I don't believe I was alone in resenting President Obama's conceding to this plan by comparing it to a hostage situation. I would have gladly continued to pay in to Social Security so that he could stand firm on not renewing the tax cuts for the wealthy. What we have lost from this concession is inconceivable; the depletion of Social Security and Medicare, a long-sought-after goal of conservatives and big business, is just the beginning. My $215 annual loss in salary hurt, but what hurts more is knowing that this is just the first concession.
Talk about your hostage situation.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked at my first payroll statement for 2011, and found that there was an actual net decrease of $10 for the two-week period. Hopefully, that amount doesn't mean a lot to you, but believe me, it brought a lump to my throat.
Preliminary investigation in the form of an "I hope this is a mistake" email to the staff accountant revealed that it was indeed not an error. We will all be paying more federal taxes, to the tune of $400 per person, as a result of Congress failing to renew the Make Work Pay tax credit.
That's right, while we are raiding our children's social security fund, we are nonetheless doing our part to pay down the damned deficit.
David Dayen in a December FireDogLake article provides a chart drawn up by Nancy Altman of Social Security Works which shows dramatically just how bad a hand the working poor have been dealt by this tax cut trade-off.
The irony is, for most people in the low to minimum wage earner category, the details become obfuscated by other changes, for example, insurance deduction amounts, which of course usually increase. Also, with direct deposit and online payroll statements, it becomes less likely that the average worker will compare the last statement of 2010 with the first statement of 2011, line by line. Which is what I did.
My FICA did indeed drop from $34.61 to $25.56. But my federal taxes withheld increased from $.65 (remember I earn under $12,000 per year) to a whopping $19.99, which resulted in a drop in my bi-weekly net pay from $377.73 to $367.44.
It may seem crass to describe my salary in such detail, but I believe that this is a change that we Americans need to make in order to wake up from the somnolence of the march of the financial numbers that affect us dramatically. Friday I did something I have never done with my co-workers: I discussed in numbers what we gained and lost in our pay.
In my lifetime it has become perfectly acceptable to talk about sex, but not salary. (Prior to that, it was not permissable to discuss either.) Which has allowed all kinds of financial discrimination to flourish in the workplace. Which prevented the Obama administration from getting credit for cutting taxes for the middle class in 2009, but allows government in 2011 to take away from the middle class and especially the working poor and give to the wealthy, all the while plundering social security.
I don't believe I was alone in resenting President Obama's conceding to this plan by comparing it to a hostage situation. I would have gladly continued to pay in to Social Security so that he could stand firm on not renewing the tax cuts for the wealthy. What we have lost from this concession is inconceivable; the depletion of Social Security and Medicare, a long-sought-after goal of conservatives and big business, is just the beginning. My $215 annual loss in salary hurt, but what hurts more is knowing that this is just the first concession.
Talk about your hostage situation.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Health Care or Prisons
As we look back on the shooting in Arizona, one of the questions that comes up is that of how could this act have been prevented. And I have to admit, as cold as it is where I am, I appreciate the hot air. But what it comes down to is something nobody really wants to do. We need to put a great deal of effort, read, money, into mental health care.
Since Ronald Reagan saved us from ourselves by cutting budgets for psychiatric hospitals, throwing people with chronic mental illness on the streets, we alternate between trying to find bandages that won't cost much and ignoring the problem entirely, until the next crazed individual commits a violent act that cannot be ignored.
Understand, most of those psychiatric hospitals didn't work either. Because they were bandages, albeit very large ones, as well. After we found out that hosing people down and shocking them to within an inch of their lives didn't work, we found drugs. And some drugs in some cases worked miracles, allowing people to return to homes and communities and live productive lives. But in many cases drugs at best created compliance, and you know what? That was good enough for us.
Because mental health is expensive.
Mental health requires something we no longer value in this country: people.
It begins with a family that can afford good health care for their children. And schools with low teacher to student ratios and qualified educators that are paid appropriately for the important job that they do, with comfortable and adequately heated buildings, nutritious lunches, stimulating and up-to-date instructional material and plans. And parents to come home to, that are not working so many jobs for so little income that they are either not present or not emotionally available.
And since none of us is emotionally invulnerable, we need people there for when we slip. Who these days has a family member not so mired in their own emotional crises that they will open their arms when a person is in need? If you are not that fortunate, you are already among those at risk.
And yet we are fighting about whether or not health care should be provided to every individual in the country. We are debating whether the unemployed should be entitled to subsistence funds until their luck and the economy turns around. We are arguing about whether our moms and dads should have to work until they die, or simply break down.
So, if we can't even agree that people trying to function within society deserve to be fed, housed, and educated, and taken care of when they are sick, where does that leave the poor and poorly educated, those who lack the skills or support systems to help the family member with the psychiatric illness?
We have decided long ago to throw our limited resources at prisons rather than mental health care. I fear that today's debate will end the same way.
Since Ronald Reagan saved us from ourselves by cutting budgets for psychiatric hospitals, throwing people with chronic mental illness on the streets, we alternate between trying to find bandages that won't cost much and ignoring the problem entirely, until the next crazed individual commits a violent act that cannot be ignored.
Understand, most of those psychiatric hospitals didn't work either. Because they were bandages, albeit very large ones, as well. After we found out that hosing people down and shocking them to within an inch of their lives didn't work, we found drugs. And some drugs in some cases worked miracles, allowing people to return to homes and communities and live productive lives. But in many cases drugs at best created compliance, and you know what? That was good enough for us.
Because mental health is expensive.
Mental health requires something we no longer value in this country: people.
It begins with a family that can afford good health care for their children. And schools with low teacher to student ratios and qualified educators that are paid appropriately for the important job that they do, with comfortable and adequately heated buildings, nutritious lunches, stimulating and up-to-date instructional material and plans. And parents to come home to, that are not working so many jobs for so little income that they are either not present or not emotionally available.
And since none of us is emotionally invulnerable, we need people there for when we slip. Who these days has a family member not so mired in their own emotional crises that they will open their arms when a person is in need? If you are not that fortunate, you are already among those at risk.
And yet we are fighting about whether or not health care should be provided to every individual in the country. We are debating whether the unemployed should be entitled to subsistence funds until their luck and the economy turns around. We are arguing about whether our moms and dads should have to work until they die, or simply break down.
So, if we can't even agree that people trying to function within society deserve to be fed, housed, and educated, and taken care of when they are sick, where does that leave the poor and poorly educated, those who lack the skills or support systems to help the family member with the psychiatric illness?
We have decided long ago to throw our limited resources at prisons rather than mental health care. I fear that today's debate will end the same way.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Toning Down the Rhetoric
Words really can't express the horrific nature of the violence wrought in Arizona over the weekend, although everyone wants to keep trying. But for every politician or pundit that sincerely talks about toning down the rhetoric, there is at least one other one that makes sure to stand his/her ground, re: how wrong the other side is and how hard they have to keep fighting to make sure the other side doesn't do horrible things to our democracy.
For example, on This Week with Christiane Amanpour yesterday, fake Tea Party windbag Dick Armey, in response to the question about toning down the angry rhetoric, went on and on ad nauseum about "the important critical issues of public policy that must be sorted out", and that "this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from their duty but to redouble it". And if that garbled nonsense wasn't clear enough, he added that we "must do out duty to defend our liberties in this great country."
And to what liberties are you referring, Dick? Maybe the freedom to call the President of the United States names and accuse him of lying? Or how about creating paranoia by claiming the proposed health care bill would create death panels?
Politico.com talks about John Boehner's efforts to calm and reassure Americans as well as colleagues in Congress during a massive conference call:
“At a time when an individual has shown us humanity at its worst, we must rise to the occasion for our nation and show Congress at its best,” Boehner said on the call.
I can't help but be cynical. Not that Boehner et al are not being sincere. But we have had the Kumbaya moments, the most notable being on the steps of Congress after 9/11. And that ended up with Democrats linking arms with Republicans all the way down the road to Iraq, with the Patriot Act guiding the way.
Let's not forget that Boehner is leading the party that believes in cooperation, as long as you go along with their plan.
So listen carefully. Lots of people are going to be singing the song about getting together and loving each other right now. But let's hope we don't end up on another wild ride because we wanted to prove we trusted people who are really not saying anything different.
I do have a suggestion for Mr. Boehner.
How about changing the name of that idiotic "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act"? While the rest of us may have seen it for the nonsense it is, there are some who may have truly been scared and angered by the violent rhetoric. Just to give an example.
For example, on This Week with Christiane Amanpour yesterday, fake Tea Party windbag Dick Armey, in response to the question about toning down the angry rhetoric, went on and on ad nauseum about "the important critical issues of public policy that must be sorted out", and that "this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from their duty but to redouble it". And if that garbled nonsense wasn't clear enough, he added that we "must do out duty to defend our liberties in this great country."
And to what liberties are you referring, Dick? Maybe the freedom to call the President of the United States names and accuse him of lying? Or how about creating paranoia by claiming the proposed health care bill would create death panels?
Politico.com talks about John Boehner's efforts to calm and reassure Americans as well as colleagues in Congress during a massive conference call:
“At a time when an individual has shown us humanity at its worst, we must rise to the occasion for our nation and show Congress at its best,” Boehner said on the call.
I can't help but be cynical. Not that Boehner et al are not being sincere. But we have had the Kumbaya moments, the most notable being on the steps of Congress after 9/11. And that ended up with Democrats linking arms with Republicans all the way down the road to Iraq, with the Patriot Act guiding the way.
Let's not forget that Boehner is leading the party that believes in cooperation, as long as you go along with their plan.
So listen carefully. Lots of people are going to be singing the song about getting together and loving each other right now. But let's hope we don't end up on another wild ride because we wanted to prove we trusted people who are really not saying anything different.
I do have a suggestion for Mr. Boehner.
How about changing the name of that idiotic "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act"? While the rest of us may have seen it for the nonsense it is, there are some who may have truly been scared and angered by the violent rhetoric. Just to give an example.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Capital Violence
I was planning on writing a humorous entry today, about the irony-filled 112th Congress. I really really needed a laugh.
But the news from Arkansas got here first. I almost said, "shot that down". How violent this country has become -- again. We're told it is because of emotions raw because of the economy, but it is not people who have lost jobs and homes that are taking guns to streets and rallies. It is those who still have health care, retirement, a roof over their heads.
Yet they have been filled with the fear and helplessness of seeing others facing catastrophic loss. Helpless because it could happen to them. They need to know that it can't happen to them. They need to know that it was the fault of the homeless, the uninsured, the unemployed. They need to have something to do to protect themselves. They need to know that their security isn't going to be taken away from them.
Enter the Michele Bachmanns, the Glenn Becks, the Sarah Palins, the Jan Brewers to fill in the blanks. The government is your enemy. The government, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, are going to take your health care away from you, will take your job, your home. The words, the ideas, are stupid, and reek of paranoia, but they echo the fears in the souls of those who have, but not too much. Those who also could lose everything.
And meanwhile, the corporations are feeding the flame of those fears with their anonymous, patriotic sounding websites, tour buses and rallies. The government is fascist, socialist, communist, atheist. The hispanics -- no, the illegals -- will cross the border, carrying drugs, take your jobs, and kill you. Health care for all really means death panels. Are you going to let them get away with it? Are you???
And people who are stupid, but shrewd, greedy, power hungry, use words and phrases about gun sights and the right to bear arms. Voters approve idiotic amendments to state constitutions that insure that their guns won't be taken away. And while they are making sure they have the right to shoot, they also want to make sure none of those illegal aliens vote, so they'll add a new amendment to the US Constitution, and waste resources on voter id's that will deny the most powerless in our country their right to vote.
Why?
Follow the money. Watch those mouthpieces on t.v. and in Congress get rich. And see whose pockets they are in. Their allegiances are to the largest corporations, the wealthiest of the wealthy. Who know that the problem with this country is not hispanics, or health care. But as long as we are fighting to take our rights away from each other, they are free to continue to run our country and its citizens into the ground.
And in Arizona, yesterday, that happened literally.
But the news from Arkansas got here first. I almost said, "shot that down". How violent this country has become -- again. We're told it is because of emotions raw because of the economy, but it is not people who have lost jobs and homes that are taking guns to streets and rallies. It is those who still have health care, retirement, a roof over their heads.
Yet they have been filled with the fear and helplessness of seeing others facing catastrophic loss. Helpless because it could happen to them. They need to know that it can't happen to them. They need to know that it was the fault of the homeless, the uninsured, the unemployed. They need to have something to do to protect themselves. They need to know that their security isn't going to be taken away from them.
Enter the Michele Bachmanns, the Glenn Becks, the Sarah Palins, the Jan Brewers to fill in the blanks. The government is your enemy. The government, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, are going to take your health care away from you, will take your job, your home. The words, the ideas, are stupid, and reek of paranoia, but they echo the fears in the souls of those who have, but not too much. Those who also could lose everything.
And meanwhile, the corporations are feeding the flame of those fears with their anonymous, patriotic sounding websites, tour buses and rallies. The government is fascist, socialist, communist, atheist. The hispanics -- no, the illegals -- will cross the border, carrying drugs, take your jobs, and kill you. Health care for all really means death panels. Are you going to let them get away with it? Are you???
And people who are stupid, but shrewd, greedy, power hungry, use words and phrases about gun sights and the right to bear arms. Voters approve idiotic amendments to state constitutions that insure that their guns won't be taken away. And while they are making sure they have the right to shoot, they also want to make sure none of those illegal aliens vote, so they'll add a new amendment to the US Constitution, and waste resources on voter id's that will deny the most powerless in our country their right to vote.
Why?
Follow the money. Watch those mouthpieces on t.v. and in Congress get rich. And see whose pockets they are in. Their allegiances are to the largest corporations, the wealthiest of the wealthy. Who know that the problem with this country is not hispanics, or health care. But as long as we are fighting to take our rights away from each other, they are free to continue to run our country and its citizens into the ground.
And in Arizona, yesterday, that happened literally.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Let's Give It a Try
The voters have spoken. We now have a republican House and an even less democratic Senate than we had last year. The philosophy of the lawmakers will govern the land.
So I think we should be more philosophical about this. And less rigid. And, as Speaker Boehner has put it, we should start acting like grown-ups.
So I propose that we all adopt the republican economic plan within our own families. After all, they really believe it will work, so in the spirit of cooperation, we should give it a try.
Children need to stop assuming that they are "entitled" to all those extras, like education and health care. When you make those things readily available, they will start to expect that you will provide bikes, movies and clothing.
Teenagers are just going to have to grow up and contribute their fair share. Maybe an extra after school job. Cut back on the number of years of teenage social security, moving it from 18 to, say, 12. They will need to pay a more reasonable share of their income toward household expenses, for example, the mortgage and groceries. Increased productivity will certainly improve the overall wealth of the family.
Which leaves the most important family members, the CEO's if you will. If the above all goes according to plan, the parents, the people with the most worth, will be free to expand the family interests. They will have the economic freedom to buy that new car, take that vacation, invest in that summer home.
And that wealth will of course trickle down to the rest of the family.
But, you argue, the middle and lower classes will end up with less education and possibly poorer health. They will be less likely to reap the financial rewards of their parents.
Not true. Because, since we have republicans running Congress, we can be assured that when Mom and Dad die, the kids will get every penny that's left.
So I think we should be more philosophical about this. And less rigid. And, as Speaker Boehner has put it, we should start acting like grown-ups.
So I propose that we all adopt the republican economic plan within our own families. After all, they really believe it will work, so in the spirit of cooperation, we should give it a try.
Children need to stop assuming that they are "entitled" to all those extras, like education and health care. When you make those things readily available, they will start to expect that you will provide bikes, movies and clothing.
Teenagers are just going to have to grow up and contribute their fair share. Maybe an extra after school job. Cut back on the number of years of teenage social security, moving it from 18 to, say, 12. They will need to pay a more reasonable share of their income toward household expenses, for example, the mortgage and groceries. Increased productivity will certainly improve the overall wealth of the family.
Which leaves the most important family members, the CEO's if you will. If the above all goes according to plan, the parents, the people with the most worth, will be free to expand the family interests. They will have the economic freedom to buy that new car, take that vacation, invest in that summer home.
And that wealth will of course trickle down to the rest of the family.
But, you argue, the middle and lower classes will end up with less education and possibly poorer health. They will be less likely to reap the financial rewards of their parents.
Not true. Because, since we have republicans running Congress, we can be assured that when Mom and Dad die, the kids will get every penny that's left.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The Price Is Right
Uncompromising. The party of "no". Unyielding. These are the ways the republicans in the Senate have been described since the Democratic takeover in 2006.
But is this true?
What we have learned in the past two years is that even the republic party has its price.
They want their Christmas vacation.
For the past two years, the threat of having to work through the holidays has caused the unthinkable to happen: the Senate republicans have agreed to legislate. They have worked with the Democrats, albeit kicking and screaming and, yes, whining, toward completing a legislative agenda.
Of course, the Democrats, always willing to compromise, have ended up agreeing to allow the people who own the country to continue to hoard resources which should be used to fuel needed governmental services like bridges and education while decreasing the national debt, but this is another story.
The big event is that republicans will not only pass legislation that they have agreed on but blocked, but will actually even compromise in order to pass legislation.
Because they want their Christmas vacation.
Imagine if the party of no were willing to continue to say no through the holiday season. They truly would have reached their goal of crippling the federal government. Fortunately, everyone does indeed have a price. And the republicans come a lot cheaper than we thought.
All it takes is making them work through the holidays.
Imagine how little they must be willing to accept from their corporate sponsors to say no to bills that they have actually supported and even sponsored.
It boggles the mind.
But is this true?
What we have learned in the past two years is that even the republic party has its price.
They want their Christmas vacation.
For the past two years, the threat of having to work through the holidays has caused the unthinkable to happen: the Senate republicans have agreed to legislate. They have worked with the Democrats, albeit kicking and screaming and, yes, whining, toward completing a legislative agenda.
Of course, the Democrats, always willing to compromise, have ended up agreeing to allow the people who own the country to continue to hoard resources which should be used to fuel needed governmental services like bridges and education while decreasing the national debt, but this is another story.
The big event is that republicans will not only pass legislation that they have agreed on but blocked, but will actually even compromise in order to pass legislation.
Because they want their Christmas vacation.
Imagine if the party of no were willing to continue to say no through the holiday season. They truly would have reached their goal of crippling the federal government. Fortunately, everyone does indeed have a price. And the republicans come a lot cheaper than we thought.
All it takes is making them work through the holidays.
Imagine how little they must be willing to accept from their corporate sponsors to say no to bills that they have actually supported and even sponsored.
It boggles the mind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)