Well, if you think that the GOP has been belligerent, foaming at the mouth, over the top bat shit crazy in the last year, just wait until we get to Financial Reform.
Like you had to guess for one second who's side the GOP is on. Certainly not yours.
Not that the Obama administration has done a damn thing to regulate this sector, nor does the current Dodd bill go nearly far enough. It absolutely baffles me that it's been a year and a half since the Economic Collapse and nothing has been done.
All we have done is rebuild the deck of cards. The banks are back to their shady, risky derrivites games - betting the house with tax payer money - but who cares the Fed can always just print them more money if they blow it up again.
Republicans (and a few Democrats) have spent year after year tearing down Financial Regulation - decades of consumer protection largely enacted after the first Financial Disaster. Roosevelt's Reform's enacted after the Great Depression protected this country from major disaster for generations - and never failed until they were stripped down. Most importantly being the Glass-Steagall Act which prevents banks from making billions from the dealing desk with 300/1 leverage.
We know what happened when we stripped these protections, and we know that the banks are up to the same behavior, and doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. The fact that nothing is being done, and that ANYBODY would stand in the way of reform is delusional, and I certainly don't understand how this could possibly be a partisan issue.
Crony Capitalism = Privatized profits & socialized losses.
The banks are still too big to fail. They still are not freeing up credit to small business. They may be making money now, but again this is largely due to risky bets that will ultimately cause another calamity, and this time way may not have the resources to get us out of this.
Even scarier now, due to the Supreme Court ruling - the Financial Lobby can spend untold billions lobbying congress to essentially write their own legislation, or to elect candidates of their chosing. Republians were quick to capitalize on this as Eric Cantor & John Boehmer met with the banking heads devising a strategy to kill Financial Regulation. What's next - getting rid of the USDA? Since when is regulation a four letter word? Since when does regulation = socialism?
Did Madoff destroy 65 billion dollars worth of wealth because there was too much regulation? Or simply not enough. Not enough regulation, and not enough staff that actually understands financials.
Somebody explain to me that in 2009 - the year of the Great Recession, when trillions of dollars of wealth was eliminated, millions lost their jobs and their homes, we ADDED more millionaires in the US. The rich got richer and the poor got a lot poorer. Was that because of too much regulation?
The Right-Wingers in Europe (Merkel, Sarkozy) are fuming mad at us for allowing this to happen in the first place, and cannot fathom the inaction that is taking place right now. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. This is a no-brainer. The longer we pander to the wealthy, and the powerful corporations, the more and more we become Mexico - a wealthy powerful elite and a poverty-stricken super-majority.
I cannot wait to hear this debate get started. I have no idea how the GOP can look at Americans straight in the face and tell us why we don't need Financial Reform. But, the Republicans do a great job getting poor people to vote against their interests, just look at Health Care.
More to come soon!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Why We Should Pay f or Illegal Immigrant Health Care
Much has been said about the Health Care Legislation on insuring "Illegals" including Joe "You Lie" Wilson. The Tea Baggers would have you believe that this bill is making you pay for Illegals. The Republicans would distort this so much you'd think that we're handing out "Cadillac" style health insurance to undocumented workers in order to scare you away from voting for health care.
This bill goes so far to do quite the opposite, not only does it not cover illegals, it bars illegals from buying insurance on the open market. It even bars legal residents that aren't yet citizens from buying insurance on the exchange for the first five years. But I'm not here to convince you how far right this bill is on the issue of illegals. I;m here to tell you why you should pay for illegal health care.
First off, I'd just like to ask you what are you going to say when the Migrant Worker's kid with drug resistant TB kills your kid on the school bus because they didn't have access to health care? This is a national security issue. We are so vulnerable to outbreaks such as smallpox, swine flu, avian flu, TB and a plethora of other possibilities because we don't have national health care service.
Now, I know that you're just going to say, "well they shouldn't be here in the first place." We can discuss that issue on another blog. The reality of the situation is that they are here, and if they do kill your kid on the school bus - simply saying they shouldn't be here in the first place isn't going to bring your kid back now is it? Until we have INS trucks going door to door and rounding up the illegals - they're here, taxing our health care system.
You pay for them already. The 15 million illegals that live here that don't have access to health care will use the emergency room as primary care. Hospitals only receive 4% of all the services that they bill. This is largely due to care for those that are not insured. Hospitals then inflate the price of care and pass that on to your insurance company. Your insurance company passes those costs on to you and so on. You are already paying for illegal alien health care at a premium. Getting them insured saves us money, eases the deficit, brings health care costs down, and keeps your kids safe.
The whole point on Universal Health Care was to provide access to the 50 million people in this country without health care. This bill at best covers half of that and leaves out 15 million people that will continue to show up at emergency rooms across America and make you pay for them. And not even allowing them to buy insurance on their own is simply madness. They already have IRS deductions out of their paycheck in most cases, they pay Sales Taxes on purchases and we won't even let them BUY health care. What is this? Are we paving the way for an eventuality that will prevent all undocumented people from buying or selling anything in America?
Every other developed country understands these principles. If I were in France and I broke my leg or contracted Swine Flu, I would be cared for, treated and not even issued a bill. Even if I had been living there for five years under the radar. And France is much tougher on immigration than we are. But France understands that some things are just more important than treating illegals like a socially undesired lower caste group of people.
We are the wealthiest country in the world and we don't provide health care access to all people. Instead, we'd rather pay skyrocketing prices for our health care and pretend that we don't actually pay for everyone else at a premium in the most innefficient way possible.
We tell them to play by the rules, and legal permanent residents have to wait five years to buy health insurance on the exchange. So in essence, even the ones that play by the rules, we're telling them that they don't actually qualify to play by the rules. We make it sound as if obtaining citizenship is something so easy to do, that anyone here illegally is obviously doing it by choice and should be sent to prison (which you'll pay for to the tune of about $30,000/year) As someone that has lived in a border city (San Diego, 8 years) I can tell you nothing could be further from the truth. Our immigration policy is inherently racist and we just don't have the balls to say it. You can't take our job if it's a job that none of us are actually willing to do or pay a premium for (remember Mitt Romney being busted TWICE for hiring illegals to do his landscaping) but it's totally ok to take our GOOD jobs if your from India - hell we'll even give your company tax breaks to do so.
This Health Care bill is so Right Wing I can't stand it. But it's better than no bill at all and the CBO just scored it today at $850 billion and will reduce our deficit by $120 billion. And no, you won't pay for illegal health insurance.
This bill goes so far to do quite the opposite, not only does it not cover illegals, it bars illegals from buying insurance on the open market. It even bars legal residents that aren't yet citizens from buying insurance on the exchange for the first five years. But I'm not here to convince you how far right this bill is on the issue of illegals. I;m here to tell you why you should pay for illegal health care.
First off, I'd just like to ask you what are you going to say when the Migrant Worker's kid with drug resistant TB kills your kid on the school bus because they didn't have access to health care? This is a national security issue. We are so vulnerable to outbreaks such as smallpox, swine flu, avian flu, TB and a plethora of other possibilities because we don't have national health care service.
Now, I know that you're just going to say, "well they shouldn't be here in the first place." We can discuss that issue on another blog. The reality of the situation is that they are here, and if they do kill your kid on the school bus - simply saying they shouldn't be here in the first place isn't going to bring your kid back now is it? Until we have INS trucks going door to door and rounding up the illegals - they're here, taxing our health care system.
You pay for them already. The 15 million illegals that live here that don't have access to health care will use the emergency room as primary care. Hospitals only receive 4% of all the services that they bill. This is largely due to care for those that are not insured. Hospitals then inflate the price of care and pass that on to your insurance company. Your insurance company passes those costs on to you and so on. You are already paying for illegal alien health care at a premium. Getting them insured saves us money, eases the deficit, brings health care costs down, and keeps your kids safe.
The whole point on Universal Health Care was to provide access to the 50 million people in this country without health care. This bill at best covers half of that and leaves out 15 million people that will continue to show up at emergency rooms across America and make you pay for them. And not even allowing them to buy insurance on their own is simply madness. They already have IRS deductions out of their paycheck in most cases, they pay Sales Taxes on purchases and we won't even let them BUY health care. What is this? Are we paving the way for an eventuality that will prevent all undocumented people from buying or selling anything in America?
Every other developed country understands these principles. If I were in France and I broke my leg or contracted Swine Flu, I would be cared for, treated and not even issued a bill. Even if I had been living there for five years under the radar. And France is much tougher on immigration than we are. But France understands that some things are just more important than treating illegals like a socially undesired lower caste group of people.
We are the wealthiest country in the world and we don't provide health care access to all people. Instead, we'd rather pay skyrocketing prices for our health care and pretend that we don't actually pay for everyone else at a premium in the most innefficient way possible.
We tell them to play by the rules, and legal permanent residents have to wait five years to buy health insurance on the exchange. So in essence, even the ones that play by the rules, we're telling them that they don't actually qualify to play by the rules. We make it sound as if obtaining citizenship is something so easy to do, that anyone here illegally is obviously doing it by choice and should be sent to prison (which you'll pay for to the tune of about $30,000/year) As someone that has lived in a border city (San Diego, 8 years) I can tell you nothing could be further from the truth. Our immigration policy is inherently racist and we just don't have the balls to say it. You can't take our job if it's a job that none of us are actually willing to do or pay a premium for (remember Mitt Romney being busted TWICE for hiring illegals to do his landscaping) but it's totally ok to take our GOOD jobs if your from India - hell we'll even give your company tax breaks to do so.
This Health Care bill is so Right Wing I can't stand it. But it's better than no bill at all and the CBO just scored it today at $850 billion and will reduce our deficit by $120 billion. And no, you won't pay for illegal health insurance.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Reconciling Reconciliation
The Republican fear mongering machine has had a busy week. The GOP has been no stranger to re-inventing history as of late (e.g. Cheney's alternative history of the Bush policy on prosecuting terrorists) but as the President clearly favors using Budget Reconciliation to finish the Health Care Reform Act - we are seeing the Republican hypocrisy in full force.
If you have been watching Cable News, CSPAN or reading anything in the newspaper, based on what Republicans are saying, you would think that the use of Budget Reconciliation was some shady, sketchy socialist scheme that would undermine the fabric of our Democracy and it's "hardly ever been done."
In fact, Fox News has completely stopped referring to it as Reconciliation, but as something completely different; Nuclear Option. Again, I repeat - something COMPLETELY different. The only similarity between the two is that both methods would require a very democratic simple majority to pass legislation. However, Budget Reconciliation is actually quite common. It has been used 22 different times for major legislation since 1981, and a stunning 15 times by REPUBLICANS.
Oh Fox News; "Fair & Balanced."
And just a brief recap on Republican use of Reconciliation; The two tax cuts by Bush that mostly benefited the wealthy and increased the deficit by two trillion dollars - yeah that was done by Reconcilation. And Mitch McConnell; no I'm sorry that was not a largely bi-partisan plan, they were both done on party lines and the Vice President had to act as the tie breaker. Not to mention COBRA, Welfare Reform, SCHIP, Medicare Reform and Student Loan Reform. This is nothing new. And for Republicans to be lining up in front of cameras claiming that its something horrible for the country that threatens democracy.....it's just beyond hypocritical.
In 2003, Republican Eric Cantor (currently the House Minority Whip) said, "Reconciliation is a process that I hope we can engage in every year."
Republican Senator Judd Gregg claims that it's bad policy and somehow "railroads Congress." Except in 2005 he was defending the use of Reconciliation to Democrat Opposition claiming "it's a Senate Rule" and all that we would be doing is "passing legislation via a Majority Rule." He continues, "Anything wrong with majority rule? I don't think so."
John McCain, apparently trying to reconcile Republican past uses of Reconciliation went on to say that yes it has been used in the past, but it should never be used for Entitlements as it is just "too important." Except he voted yes on Reconciliation Legislation on Entitlements in 1989 and in 2005. So where does the hypocrisy end with these guys and how is it that they get away with this?
And I agree with Judd Gregg circa 2003- nothing is wrong with majority rule. That what a democracy is! That's why we have elections. This climate in Washington IS something new. The necessity to have a supermaority to pass ANY legislation in the Senate as the Republicans have tripled the record for the use of filibuster in a single year. They have blocked even low level appointees just for the sake of stalling Senate business, and then eventually confirming these people.
When either side is elected as a majority party, it is their turn to GOVERN. That's what they were elected to do. And preventing the Senate from doing any business at all based on lack of a super majority is something that will prevent this country from greatness.
Now that hopefully we've dispelled some of the lies and revisionist history on Reconciliation (and not the "Nuclear Option")let's clear something else up.
CONGRESS IS NOT GOING TO PASS HEALTH CARE WITH RECONCILIATION!! You can't even do that. You see, Budget Reconciliation is indeed that. Reconciling budget issues. You can't do Insurance Reform, Torte Reform etc via Reconciliation.
Both houses of Congress have already passed Health Care Reform. The House passed it with a simple majority and the Senate passed it on Christmas Eve with a super majority. What will happen now is the House will vote on the Senate version of the bill and if passed, they will use Reconciliation to amend some of the differences between the bills.
So, now let's hope that this gets passed, and we can have Universal Health Care that Massachusetts already has - which the people love and Scott Brown voted for and Mitt Romney signed into law.
If you have been watching Cable News, CSPAN or reading anything in the newspaper, based on what Republicans are saying, you would think that the use of Budget Reconciliation was some shady, sketchy socialist scheme that would undermine the fabric of our Democracy and it's "hardly ever been done."
In fact, Fox News has completely stopped referring to it as Reconciliation, but as something completely different; Nuclear Option. Again, I repeat - something COMPLETELY different. The only similarity between the two is that both methods would require a very democratic simple majority to pass legislation. However, Budget Reconciliation is actually quite common. It has been used 22 different times for major legislation since 1981, and a stunning 15 times by REPUBLICANS.
Oh Fox News; "Fair & Balanced."
And just a brief recap on Republican use of Reconciliation; The two tax cuts by Bush that mostly benefited the wealthy and increased the deficit by two trillion dollars - yeah that was done by Reconcilation. And Mitch McConnell; no I'm sorry that was not a largely bi-partisan plan, they were both done on party lines and the Vice President had to act as the tie breaker. Not to mention COBRA, Welfare Reform, SCHIP, Medicare Reform and Student Loan Reform. This is nothing new. And for Republicans to be lining up in front of cameras claiming that its something horrible for the country that threatens democracy.....it's just beyond hypocritical.
In 2003, Republican Eric Cantor (currently the House Minority Whip) said, "Reconciliation is a process that I hope we can engage in every year."
Republican Senator Judd Gregg claims that it's bad policy and somehow "railroads Congress." Except in 2005 he was defending the use of Reconciliation to Democrat Opposition claiming "it's a Senate Rule" and all that we would be doing is "passing legislation via a Majority Rule." He continues, "Anything wrong with majority rule? I don't think so."
John McCain, apparently trying to reconcile Republican past uses of Reconciliation went on to say that yes it has been used in the past, but it should never be used for Entitlements as it is just "too important." Except he voted yes on Reconciliation Legislation on Entitlements in 1989 and in 2005. So where does the hypocrisy end with these guys and how is it that they get away with this?
And I agree with Judd Gregg circa 2003- nothing is wrong with majority rule. That what a democracy is! That's why we have elections. This climate in Washington IS something new. The necessity to have a supermaority to pass ANY legislation in the Senate as the Republicans have tripled the record for the use of filibuster in a single year. They have blocked even low level appointees just for the sake of stalling Senate business, and then eventually confirming these people.
When either side is elected as a majority party, it is their turn to GOVERN. That's what they were elected to do. And preventing the Senate from doing any business at all based on lack of a super majority is something that will prevent this country from greatness.
Now that hopefully we've dispelled some of the lies and revisionist history on Reconciliation (and not the "Nuclear Option")let's clear something else up.
CONGRESS IS NOT GOING TO PASS HEALTH CARE WITH RECONCILIATION!! You can't even do that. You see, Budget Reconciliation is indeed that. Reconciling budget issues. You can't do Insurance Reform, Torte Reform etc via Reconciliation.
Both houses of Congress have already passed Health Care Reform. The House passed it with a simple majority and the Senate passed it on Christmas Eve with a super majority. What will happen now is the House will vote on the Senate version of the bill and if passed, they will use Reconciliation to amend some of the differences between the bills.
So, now let's hope that this gets passed, and we can have Universal Health Care that Massachusetts already has - which the people love and Scott Brown voted for and Mitt Romney signed into law.
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