Tag Archives: Paul Ryan

What’s In a Name?

October 26, 2012

The depressing state of the current political campaign has been so egregious that even I can’t weigh in much longer. However that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with this silly season. In the vein of the bible decoding scams I started playing around with the letters of the presidential and VP candidates’ last names to see if there was anything striking that could be divined from them. I know. Get a job right? If only.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that with the limited choices I had at how well the words I could create seem to reveal prophetic traits of the candidates.

The only rule I made for myself was that I had to use ALL of the letters of their last name to form real words.

So starting with the VP candidates here’s what I came up with

BIDEN – In Bed Politically speaking, when you are in bed with someone you are supportive and aligned with their ideas and policies. OMG! Does this speak directly to Biden or what? As Obama’s Vice-president Biden has been nothing but a loyal advocate for the POTUS.

RYAN – Now this one is really prophetic. Who is Paul Ryan’s role model? AYN Rand

Romney = R Money (Republican money). Need I say anything more other than what this 1984 photo of Romney’s Bain Capital group conveys? (Take my word for it. Those really are conservative greenbacks coming out of their orifices)

Obama – A Moab. We all laughed at the Tea Party-types when they chided Obama supporters for treating him like the anointed one but check out this revelation.

Moab was the illegitimate offspring of Lot’s daughter who became pregnant by having sex with her father after she and her sister got him drunk. Ironically, Moab was the patriarch of the line that eventually gave us King David and ultimately Jesus himself. One can only conclude, with the logic of Orly Taitz, that the messiah has returned.

“Whoa! It’s Really Him”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Humor Tags: Ayn Rand, Barack Obama, bible decoding, campaign 2012 political humor, fun with names, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Moab, Obama, Orly Taitz, Paul Ryan, Republican

10 comments

Can I Sell You Some Cheap Ocean Front Property in Yuma?

October 15, 2012

Hey young people! A word of caution for those taking the bait being offered by the Romney/Ryan plan to Privatize Social Security & Medicare

After being laid off in the fall of 2009 and concluding that at age 61 I was not going to get rehired in the severe recession competing with 5 other applicants, I decided instead to take the money in my 401k I had earned over the last 18 years, pay off all of our bills except the mortgage, roll the remainder into an IRA and go into to semi-retirement. I figured I could find some part-time work that would allow me to have a little spending money and within a couple of months I would be eligible to collect early Social Security benefits. I’m thankful my wife still has what seems to be a secure job as a registered nurse for the local school district because with both of us out of work this could have gone south real quick. Luckily too, both of our adult children are out on their own and are doing relatively well for the time being. It wasn’t what we planned for our lives but then things seldom work out the way you want.

We were more fortunate than a lot of people who found themselves unemployed in this Great Recession. I know, I know. The recession is actually over and we’re waiting for the job situation to recover. Wall Street is making record profits but Main Street has yet to fully recover. We could have been one of those poor souls that lost their home and health care coverage along with their jobs. But a monthly stipend from my IRA and $1500 a month in Social Security benefits along with my wife’s salary allows us to maintain the resources we need to remain solvent. Now if our luck and what savings we have will only last until we die.

Until earlier this year I was able to afford health insurance by adding myself to my wife’s benefit plan. But that changed when the school district replaced the insurance provider to keep costs down after state funding started drying up from the budget planning failures of Texas state legislators. The deficit the state faced last year “was created by a deal to lower property taxes while transforming the state’s business tax. It has never generated as much money as expected.”

When the new policy raised premiums and deductibles while lowering benefits, it became a financial impracticality to pay nearly $400 a month to keep me on it. This was my mothly premium but the new policy didn’t cover expenses until I cleared a $3000 deductible. I have instead been tucking a large part of that money into a separate account and using it sparingly until I am eligible for Medicare late next year. We keep our fingers crossed that a catastrophic health crisis doesn’t occur before then.

But I digress. The point I want to make here is to alert Americans, especially those in their twenties, thirties and forties, to view with suspicion the Romney/Ryan plan to privatize Social Security and make Medicare a voucher system. Despite Paul Ryan’s claim as being “indisputable fact” that bankruptcy for both of these safety net issues are inevitable, evidence by more rigorous authorities say nothing could be further from the truth. According to information put out by The Progress Report

[T]he possibility of Medicare going bankrupt is — and historically has been — greatly exaggerated. In fact, if no changes are made, Medicare would still be able to meet 88 percent of its obligations in 2085. Social Security is fully funded for another two decades and could pay 75 percent of its benefits thereafter. There is also an easy way to ensure the program’s long-term solvency without large changes or cuts to benefits.

What is an indisputable fact is that these programs that were instituted to keep more people out of poverty and serve as a means of last resort for people who fall between the cracks in our economy have been attacked by wealthy financial interests since their inception. In his book, The People’s Pension, Eric Laursen has detailed how specific politicians, lobbyists, and groups “have waged a steady battle to discredit and undermine” Social Security. They have aggressively pushed proposals to cut, privatize or dramatically transform” this trust fund for elder citizens.

Wall Street has been trying to get their hands on the billions in the Social Security trust funds for years. They assure us that putting your money into the stock market will see greater returns than what you’ll see after decades of payroll deductions applied to the government-managed system that has reliably paid benefits for more than 75 years. In his article, The Solvency of Social Security, Stephen J. Foster, Jr. points out what should be an obvious fact even to the casual observer.

Wall Street is known for gambling with other people’s money which has led to the Great Depression in the past and the 2008 recession. If you have a 401(k), you have experienced firsthand what can happen to your retirement portfolio when it is entrusted to Wall Street. People with IRA’s, 401(k)’s and other types of retirement accounts watched helplessly their savings disappear as the stock market took a historic tumble.

After clearing most of my debt and depositing the remaining $140,000 from my 401k into my new IRA on January 1st, 2010, the DOW was sitting at 10,428.04. Last Friday it closed out the week at 13,328.85, which was down 281 points from what it started at the beginning of the week. The DOW has gained just over 2900 points since I opened that IRA. My investments were primarily low risk investments. However, when things really started looking bad after Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling in 2011 and the country’s credit rating was lowered as a consequence of this dysfunctional action, I shifted everything into the safer areas of bonds and money markets.

We all know the stock market is volatile and that there will be ups and downs but even with my safe investments that were being handled by a professional money management agency I have lost roughly 4% of my overall investments into the stock market from the time I opened my IRA account. Clearly Wall Street has done well while my resources are losing ground.

A 4% loss over three years isn’t much when you are just beginning your life and putting some away in your twenties or thirties but for those of us who are at retirement age or getting close to it such losses hurt, especially as your health deteriorates from age and the costs of health care and insurance increase faster than the rate of inflation.

Ups and owns in the stock market are expected but over a 40-50 year period you can realize significant gains. But when our economy takes serious hits like it did in 2000 and 2008 people like myself watched their 401k’s take tremendous losses. My 401k lost a third of its value in each recession. I never did fully recapture those losses before I was laid off in 2009.

I worked 18 years building up a retirement fund and under normal circumstances would have accumulated about $350,000 at the rate I was going. Instead, because of two economic recessions within 8 years of each other where the DOW lost more than half of its value nine months before I was let go, I wound up with less than half of that. How much more would I and others have lost if the economic crisis reached Great Depression levels? Perhaps all of it.

The only people who really do well in the stock market are very wealthy people who can afford to take the losses that occur when hard times hit. The average investor is likely to suffer irreparable economic consequences at the most vulnerable times in their life as an aged retiree. Stephen J. Foster rightfully points out that once the wealthy financiers get their hands on your money they offer no guarantee that you will come out ahead. In fact, in rough times when markets are down, as your investments dwindle they lose very little because they are using your money to gamble with.

People like Romney and Ryan like to tout the notion that people can do better when they manage their own money but they would be hard-pressed to find evidence of that with most people who work all their lives. Unless wages allow enough to stick aside most people live from paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. And we all know wages for 95% of wager earners have not kept pace with the top 5% over the last 30 years.

If the payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare were eliminated low and middle-income families would indeed have a little bit more money in their pockets but it wouldn’t necessarily go into a savings or a retirement plan in an economy where prices are rising faster than most people’s wages can keep up with. As much as it may hurt during those times when families are struggling to provide basic essentials for themselves, without the deductions going toward future social security benefits and health care coverage, adult children would suffer even worse, especially during economic hard times, when faced with caring for their aging parents down the road.

So I would ask all those young people who Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are appealing to – are you willing to risk this small percentage of your earnings each payday in the uncertainty of a volatile market or put it towards a financially secure, long-term investment? If you opt for those markets, how much time and energy do you think you will have to make sure your investments are as sound as they can be? When even professionals fail to read the tea leaves in the markets each day, how much better will those of us with an untrained eye do making such decisions?

When asked in a recent interview “Why should younger people of lower- and middle-incomes be especially concerned about Social Security?” Eric Laursen conveyed the following:

So many of their traditional sources of retirement income are eroding. Millions of younger workers will not be able to rely on employer-based pensions or from sales of their homes. Also, the stock and bond markets, which were supposed to be a vast new source of wealth through 401(k)s and IRAs, are treacherous. Health insurance costs and student loan payments eat away at what savings they’ve managed to acquire. Employment itself is a lot more volatile. Social Security is the one thing they have that is guaranteed. SOURCE

It’s a pipe dream to believe that the volatile stock market offers more security for the average working American than a secure fund backed up by the full faith and creditof the U.S. Treasury. One that wealthy investors want you to believe in order to increase their own capital wealth. By itself it will not meet all the creature comforts many people are used to but for an average worker, Social Security replaces about 40 percent of annual pre-retirement earnings, constituting about two-thirds of income for the average older beneficiary. Even more revealing is the fact that Social Security amounts to 90 percent or more of the income for one-third of seniors.

Making the government look like a bogey-man on this issue is part of a deception to extract even more of the remaining wealth from the 98% so when they lose their life savings and have to fall back on vital government assistance programs, they can be accused by people like Romney of being “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them” rather than accepting responsibility for the failure to be honest with the American people about the risks involved with privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security is Under a Fierce Attack From Wall Street

Top Ten Lies About Social Security

The great Social Security lie

Historical Background and Development of Social Security

Posted by lbwoodgate in Medicare/Medicaid, Society and Politics Tags: 401(k), future of social security and medicare, Individual Retirement Account, Medicare, Paul Ryan, privatizing social security and medicare, Romney's 47%, social safety nets threatened, Social Security, Wall Street

9 comments

The 2012 Campaign Seen Through Bill Clinton’s Eye’s

September 10, 2012

“In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president’s re-election was actually pretty simple — pretty snappy. It went something like this: We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in.” – Bill Clinton’s speech at 2012 Democratic National Convention

No doubt Bill Clinton’s comments speaking to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention was on par with Michelle Obama’s as being the most inspiring and revealing speech about President Obama and the challenges he faces from the Republicans. But unlike the First Lady, Clinton I think more accurately framed the narrative that Americans needs to hear. Fact checkers can pick at his details but the basic message is sound and in my opinion, represents the reality of who and what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are all about.

That opening quote of his at the top of this page is perhaps the clearest synopsis I’ve seen yet of the GOP’s strategy if they regain the oval office. Line after line of Clinton’s convention speech was spot on and laconic. It was not laden with the legalese that lawyers and politicians hiding something often use and it was in this folksy vernacular that gives it its strongest appeal

In the Romney/Ryan 5-point plan to fix the economy there is nothing outlined that suggest how they will achieve what he proposes. In fact, the proposals are so generic that you can just as easily extrapolate them over to the Democratic platform.

Make America energy independent
Skills training for workers to meet future needs
Forge new trade agreements
Cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
Champion small businesses by reducing taxes and simplifying and modernizing regulations.

It can honestly be said that though Obama’s speech was only slightly more specific on how he would achieve his goals, he was, in the words of Slate’s John Dickerson, “far more [straight-talking] than his Republican rival”.

Romney and Ryan talked about hard choices, but only in the abstract, never really pointing out that it was the people who would have to endure the hard results of those choices. Obama was more up front. Restoring the middle-class dream would require sacrifice and struggle from everyone, the president said. ”The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place.” This speech was more like the one he gave on election night in Chicago: hard, clear-eyed, and earthbound.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney wanted points at their convention for the promise that they would tackle hard truths once they got into office. Obama wanted points for already having embraced hard truths. “I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth.” SOURCE

You can read the full 68 pages of the GOP platform to get the details on this but Clinton puts it more succinctly and without all of the lipstick and lace.

“they want to do the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place. They want to cut taxes for high- income Americans, even more than President Bush did. They want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts. They want to actually increase defense spending over a decade $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they’ll spend it on. And they want to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor children.”

Regarding that part about the $2 trillion extra they claim the Pentagon requested without knowing what it was going to be spent on, a CNN Money report back in May confirmed this and stated that this “lack of detail means that Romney’s claim of moving toward a balanced budget requires a great deal of trust.”

The Romney/Ryan ticket does indeed rely on voters to “just trust us” while they try to redirect the argument back to their talking point about how Obama has failed to keep his promises made to the American people back in 2008. One of those promises Romney claims was when the “newly elected President Obama told America that if Congress approved his plan to borrow nearly a trillion dollars, he would hold unemployment below 8 percent.” Politifact.com debunked this notion on more than one occasion as it was made by various other Republican leaders. What’s truly interesting though is that of the some 500 promises that Obama is supposed to have made, 83 of them (or 16%) that have yet been kept, according to Politifact.com’s count, are promises that not only are absent in Romney’s criticism of the President but are mostly those that Romney and the GOP support, like not closing GITMO or ending the Bush tax cuts

At the heart of this attack however is that Obama has failed to resolve our great economic recession in less than 4 years in office. Though his efforts to reshape the economy have misfired some of the times and many American’s public finances are suffering, writers for The Economist say holding the president solely responsible for our current state isn’t an accurate assessment.

To say Obama blew it “is not a fair judgment on Mr Obama’s record, which must consider not just the results but the decisions he took, the alternatives on offer and the obstacles in his way. Seen in that light, the report card is better. His handling of the crisis and recession were impressive.” SOURCE

Those “obstacles in his way” mentioned by The Economist are the recalcitrant GOP who have opposed nearly every policy and piece of legislation put forth by the Obama administration since the Republicans won a majority in the House back in 2010. Long before that however he’s been attacked by the corporate-backed TEA Party who lost sight of those responsible for the bailout of America’s financial institutions and what caused their unraveling that led to the worst recession since the early 1930’s. Any actions perceived to address our economic woes by the GOP have been guided too strongly by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s Party fiat that placed a “top political priority” on making President Obama a one-term president. He reiterated this on FOX News seven months later stating that it was still his major objective “along with every active Republican in the country.”

In their abuse of the filibuster and delaying tactics to block Presidential appointments through the advise and consent procedure, Republicans have aimed “to embarrass the president and hobble his ability to run the executive branch”, according to the authors of the book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein (p. 100) In so doing they can make the president appear incompetent to the public and malign him on news shows to create a poor image to voters.

… since 2006, but especially since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the filibuster is more often a stealth weapon, which minority Republicans use not to highlight an important national issue but to delay and obstruct quietly on nearly all matters, including routine and widely supported one. It is fair to say that this pervasive use of the filibuster has never before happened in the history of the Senate. Mann and Ornstein – p.89 (emphasis mine)

The Party has been further aided in undermining Obama’s presidency with the Citizens United decision that lets huge sums of money into political campaigns. Karl Rove’s super Pac, American Crossroads GPS, for example told potential donors that they would conduct “in-depth research on congressional expense account abuses”, to blame Democrats for “failed border controls” and to frame the BP oil spill as “Obama’s Katrina.” Then of course there has been the complicity of many news outlets that promote Republican talking points or fail to do journalistic due diligence and research many of the claims made by Republican talking heads.

What voters need to take away from this campaign is the understanding of what Obama really did and didn’t promise, which seems to unnerve the GOP candidates. The promises Obama made in 2008, like the one’s he made last Thursday night, require active participation and the willingness by every capable soul to help in that endeavor. No one man can do everything alone nor should he be expected to or have blame laid solely at his feet. It was the understanding that with everyone’s help that such promises could reasonably be achieved. It is in part those of us who had expectations beyond the realm of reality that are at fault for our disappointment that the economy has not rebounded better than we hoped.

For anyone to assume their job is done once their vote is cast is a level of apathy only slightly higher than one who doesn’t vote at all or chooses not to get involved with the political process in any way. But even worse are those people who not only sit on their hands but who actively engage in preventing any forward motion, even if they don’t like the guy. Saying it’s a wrong-headed policy before it’s been given a chance and based only on ideological views is part of the political back-and-forth between political adversaries. But for those who actively engage in obstructionist practices that stymie those legitimate efforts simply to enhance their own political agenda, borders, in my opinion, close to treason.

That leaves me closing with Bill Clinton who has made the best expression of these unhealthy, hurtful actions by the GOP leadership.

Now, there’s something I’ve noticed lately. You probably have too. And it’s this. Maybe just because I grew up in a different time, but though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats.

When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation. What works in the real world is cooperation, business and government, foundations and universities.

*************************************

Folks, whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election. I just want you to know that I believe it. With all my heart, I believe it.

READ BILL CLINTON”S ENTIRE SPEECH HERE

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clinton's 2012 campaign speech, Democratic National Convention, gridlock and bitter political partisanship, Mitt Romney, Obama, Obama's broken promises, obstructionist Republicans, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Romney/Ryan plan to fix the economy

9 comments

In Ayn Rand We Trust

August 13, 2012

I thought I knew most of what I needed to know about the Tea Party’s sweetheart, Ayn Rand, until I read Mark Ames’ coverage of Rand’s sociopathic affinity for serial killers. I knew she had an unrealistic ideal view of the hero character she portrays in her works but I wasn’t aware just how much she attributed a decadent sense of morality to people like her fictional Howard Rourke in The Fountainhead “who was born without the ability to consider others.”

I’ll leave it to the reader to view Ames’ awful truth about the serial killer William Edward Hickman who Rand was infatuated with but do want to share the theme of Ames’ article and a quote by Rand that explains why people on the far right view people who have fallen on hard times as parasites when they seek some government assistance to tide them over until the economy improves.

With Paul Ryan’s recent ascendency to the post of presumed GOP vice-presidential nominee, it should be remembered what a big fan the Wisconsin congressman is of Ayn Rand. He proudly acknowledges how he expects all of his staff people to read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged to get an idea of what the “ideal” American should look like in the fictional character of John Galt. Here’s a quote from Ms. Rand that reflects I suppose what her characters in her novels are supposed to epitomize.

“If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite.”

Congressman Ryan is on record for saying how “Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism.” And here we thought the Christian conservatives in this country believed the bible made the best case for morality, including the New Testament where Jesus lays bare the core principles of today’s Christianity that elevates the spirit of altruism. The religious right in this country screams “persecution” when prayer is removed from public schools and the Ten Commandments are taken from public edifices. Yet they apparently have no problem holding up the laissez-faire economic model that repudiates helping those in their hour of need. Jesus himself would be seen as a weakling in Rand’s novels and would have justified the crowd’s chant to “crucify him”.

So come election time this November, remember who the GOP represent and have starkly selected to represent them in the White House. Mark Ames’ conclusion to his unmasking of the fringe element that seeks to gain control of what’s left of the government, handed to us by some of the early founding fathers, is a warning that needs to be absorbed by that angry contingent who thinks they know what will restore “America’s greatness”.

Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Baggers dividing up the world between “producers” and “collectivism,” just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie. When you hear them threaten to “Go John Galt,” hide your daughters and tell them not to talk to any strangers — or Tea Party Republicans. And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and brag about their plans to slash them for “moral” reasons, just remember Ayn’s morality and who inspired her.

Does Ayn Rand’s Influence On Paul Ryan Matter?

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Fountainhead, Howard Rourke, Jesus and Ayn Rand, John Galt, Mark Ames, Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan's mentor, Rand's idealistic heroes, William Edward Hickman

14 comments

News Flash! – AUSTERITY DOESN’T WORK!

April 26, 2012

If the GOP does regain the seats of power following the fall elections, it will be the results again of a successful campaign by the power brokers in this country to keep the public uninformed about issues that negatively impact their own self interests.

We have been pumped so full of smoke up our backsides for the last couple of years by GOP/TeaPartiers and their media mouthpieces about how a policy of “austerity”, through government spending cuts, would reduce the deficit and stimulate economic growth, without having any real evidence that such a tactic honestly works. Raising taxes of course would not be necessary in the GOP/TeaParty way of looking at solutions because the lowering deficits, vis a vis lower government spending, would instill confidence in the free market. This confidence would then encourage the business community in this country to start expanding their business and create jobs. This would have the added benefit, they claim, of generating the revenue we need to pay down our deficit rather than raising taxes to tackle this nasty, lingering problem – wink, wink.

Well set aside any doubts or assurances you may have had, depending on your politico-economic perceptions, and observe some reality based evidence that shows the austerity method of the GOP/TeaPartiers is NOT a fiscal plan of action that will do a better job at economic recovery than what Obama and his administration have been doing thus far. In fact, it will most likely have the reverse affect. Paul Krugman points out that “Keynesians have been completely right, Austerians utterly wrong — at vast human cost.”

Let me set the record straight here too. I am not saying that what Obama has been doing has been been spot on. It hasn’t. It’s weakness is that what stimulus got passed back in early 2009 was way too small because the new administration was making too many concessions to the GOP/TeaParty who have been touting austerity policies since the President took office. Rather than making the stimulus package bigger, Obama kow-towed to the shrills of the GOP and invested too little to generate a more vigorous, sustaining recovery.

But had he not listened more to the Keynesian views of those within his Party and caved completely to the advocates of the economic views of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand, who opposed governments intervening to aid economic recovery, our economic disaster would have sunk even deeper into the abyss, creating even higher unemployment rates and greater loss of homes and retirement savings.

So where’s this evidence that brings home the salient point of austerity’s failure? Across the pond in Great Britain.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy slid into its second recession since the financial crisis after official data unexpectedly showed a fall in output in the first three months of 2012, piling pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron’s embattled coalition government.

The Office for National Statistics said Britain’s gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 after contracting by 0.3 percent at the end of 2011, confounding forecasts for 0.1 percent growth. – SOURCE

Since taking over the British government in May 2010 here’s what the conservatives have achieved with their deep spending cuts to deal with their recession.

GDP continues to drop. The economy has only grown by 0.4 percent since the government came to power
the biggest fall in construction output in three years
Britain’s service sector which makes up more than three quarters of GDP continues to make no substantial ground
Industrial output and construction have shrunk to levels not seen since Q1 2009

Even though the Bank of England has warned that there is a risk of another contraction in the second quarter of 2012, Prime Minister Cameron, a favorite of American conservatives, intends to stay with his austerity program by not providing “further monetary stimulus through quantitative easing asset purchases.” This means “Britain will continue on a death spiral of self-defeating austerity”, says Krugman.

This is what the leaders of the GOP/TeaParty have in store for this country if they can convince voters to put them back in control of both houses of Congress and the White House

… the [Republican] party has spent almost three years demanding immediate and painful austerity measures. The GOP put [Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)] in charge of ‘committing us’ to a “Path” of sharp, short-sighted cuts that economists say would make unemployment worse, as the IMF says austerity policies have always done. SOURCE

How quick this news spreads to all voting blocs in this country will be interesting to watch. Many on-line services are already posting on this immediately following it’s release early Wednesday by Britain’s Office for National Statistics. But what will be critical is how quickly AND how frequently this economic reality gets played out on the MSM networks.

I suspect that what we will see is what we have been seeing for years. That corporate-owned media outlets who support austerity programs will give this very little to no attention. Though business profits have done very well under Obama’s economic policies there are those ideologues within the GOP that insists killing public sector jobs is the only sure road to a more rapid and full recovery.

“Austerity during a serious recession is economically insane. It is a pro-cyclical policy that makes the recession more severe.” - Bill Black

Europe’s austerity recession

Austerity is Killing Europe

Jobless Rate Hits New High in Euro Zone

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis Tags: British austerity policies, David Cameron, economic recovery, GOP austerity policies, Gross domestic product, Office for National Statistics, Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan, Republican

7 comments

On-again, Off-again Catholic Leadership

April 25, 2012

Just when you thought the Catholic Church might score a few points for themselves to rise above their miserable handling of sexually abusive priests they go and fumble the ball and show just how distanced they are from those they are supposed to serve.

Some of us stood up and took notice recently when some Catholic religious leaders scolded the GOP’s budget that attacked programs benefitting the poor and disenfranchised.

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his latest “Path to Prosperity” budget last month, it was immediately admonished as an “immoral disaster” that “robs the poor” by Catholic religious leaders. SOURCE

Being raised in the Catholic Church, this is what I expect of Christians. It is one of the core values of the faith that works to remove the suffering of those in society who are in need of basic essentials to sustain life

He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done – Proverbs 19:17

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ – Matthew 25:40

Though no longer a member of the Catholic faith (or any organized religion for that matter), I couldn’t help but feel a little pride to hear that there were still those within the faith willing to publicly defend what I have always found to be the most appealing aspect of Christianity.

But they couldn’t leave well enough alone. Their self-absorbed dogmatic selves had to once again show how dysfunctional the church leadership is.

The Vatican is accusing the largest organization of catholic nuns in America of falling out of line with church teachings — while promoting “radical feminist themes”.

The reprimand was aimed at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group that represents most of America’s 57,000 catholic sisters. The Vatican praised the nuns for “promoting social justice” but slams them for protesting church doctrine – on women’s ordination and homosexuals. The Vatican also complains the nuns have been “silent” on issues like the right to life and abortion. SOURCE

What goes on in the minds of some of those in leadership positions within the Church? For years they cover up the sexual abuses between priests and young boys and try to down play it when it finally becomes public but without any public outcry on how nuns are dealing with some social issues the Church brings umbrage to the fact that many of their nuns aren’t demonizing gays and young girls enough who find themselves faced with an unwanted pregnancy

“As public representatives by their very existence they have an obligation to reflect fundamental church teaching on matters,” said Father Robert Kaslyn of Catholic University.

Yes, we’re all familiar with that part of the new testament that has Jesus condemning social outcasts and deviants, even standing in to be the first to cast a stone at the sinful harlot brought to him by the morally upright crowd who found her simply trying to survive as a single woman in a patriarchal society

So, they expect obeisance on something that challenges the teachings of Jesus but say nothing of priests who rob young children of their innocence as long as they don’t rock their doctrinal boat?

Oy vey!

The Vatican’s Latest Target in the War on Women: Nuns

Posted by lbwoodgate in Religion/Science Tags: Catholic Church, Christianity, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Nun, Paul Ryan, Vatican

4 comments

Understanding Paul Ryan’s Attack on Medicare

April 27, 2011

Paul Ryan’s GOP budget layout to lower the federal deficit has met stern resistance from constituents fearing that Medicare as we know will cease to exist not only for them but for future generations. Ryan claims that “people … don’t understand what we’re doing with Medicare. What I find is there’s a lot of demagoguery and distortion occurring.”

But that’s not completely true. To project as Ryan does that his plan is a practical approach to curing what ails Medicare and Medicaid takes a look at the problem from only one perspective – cutting spending. His plan does nothing to curb rising health care costs in this country and it ignores creating revenues to sustain this health insurance option for people who are on fixed incomes and cannot afford private insurance premiums.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to reform health care costs and cover low-income people is allowing a system of medical services in this country to fall under the auspices of free-market practices. The free-market system that encourages innovation and competition is a functional economic system that works very well in most areas. But the principles that work well for commercial goods and services do not automatically transfer over to health care.

One of the problems that tends to occur is that market forces make no serious attempt to control how for-profit increases negatively impact low-income people. When private insurers put their profits before service that means some people will not be able to afford their product. There are higher health risks for certain groups like seniors, children and the disabled. Market practices insure that costs to sustain profitability must rise with these groups, the very people who often lack the financial means to meet cost increases.

With Paul Ryan restructuring Medicare and Medicaid with what he terms as a “premium-support payments” program, where states determine who is and who is not eligible, there is nothing incorporated in this plan that accounts for the rise of private health care costs that will exceed the pace of normal inflation rates. According to the impartial Congressional Budget Office’s estimates,

Under [Ryan’s] proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spend- ing would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

Federal payments for Medicaid under [Ryan’s] proposal would be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts. States would have additional flexibility to design and manage their Medicaid programs, and they might achieve greater efficiencies in the delivery of care than under current law. Even with additional flexibility, however, the large projected reduction in payments would probably require states to decrease payments to Medicaid providers, reduce eligibility for Medicaid, provide less extensive coverage to beneficiaries, or pay more themselves than would be the case under current law.

A critical point that we can take from this is how dependent Medicare recipients will be on state authority “to design and manage their Medicaid programs”. In states like Texas where social aid programs are always trimmed to the bone to correct budget shortfalls, this plan is likely to hurt even more people than will occur due to the increased individual spending it is set to impose on them.

What’s obviously missing in Ryan’s plan where he could be accused of demagoguery is the failure to generate revenue to offset costs. The demagoguery that Ryan and the GOP would put into play is that this would raise taxes and hurt more than help those low-income people this plan is designed to benefit. Yet, no taxes need to be created for this and surely most low and middle-income brackets need not be faced with any consequential tax increases.

There are billions in corporate tax loopholes that can be eliminated to go toward health care costs for those least able to afford increases in their premiums. Ryan’s plan does call for tax reform to eliminate most loopholes (he has yet to outline which will and won’t be eliminated) while creating a lower corporate tax rate of 25% from its current 35% level. But this still doesn’t help poor seniors, families with children and the disabled. It also doesn’t guarantee that health insurers will take those lower tax rates and put them back into lower premium costs.

One thing all sides can agree on is that there are areas where costs can be controlled by insurers and policy holders alike. Preventive practices that reduce health threats should be encouraged to keep costs down. Diet and exercise should be pushed at all levels to reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Michelle Obama’s efforts to reduce childhood obesity is aimed at curbing this serious health threat to future generations yet some on the right berate it to score political points. Sarah Palin’s attack late last year referred to the Let’s Move! program as a “kick” of Michelle Obama’s and falsely claimed the First Lady was attempting to restrict parental “decisions for their own children, for their own families in what [they] should eat.”

One measure that could help reduce overall costs and was implemented in the health care reform bill passed last year – which Ryan and his Party want to repeal – is to streamline the way patient records are handled by promoting the use of electronic medical records (EMR); a system that would efficiently share information and reduce overhead costs. Decreasing unwarranted variation in medical practice and unnecessary care is another way to keep costs down. “Some experts estimate that up to 30% of health care is unnecessary, emphasizing the need to streamline the health system and eliminate this needless spending.”

These and other options are available to help lower health care costs in conjunction with creating revenue in those areas where highly profitable companies and wealthy individuals can contribute. These approaches and cutting Defense spending go missing in Ryan’s plan to reduce the budget deficit. Ryan and the GOP are misleading voters if they continue to insist that others are guilty of “demagoguery and distortion”.

I’m Willing to Take Paul Ryan and the GOP’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan Serious, IF … (woodgatesview.wordpress.com)
CEPR: Cost of Medicare Equivalent Insurance Skyrockets under Ryan Plan (yubanet.com)

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis, Health Care Reform, Society and Politics, Texas/Local stories Tags: Congressional Budget Office, defense budget cuts, generating tax revenue, Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, medicare voucher, Michelle Obama, Paul Ryan, premium-support payments

4 comments

I’m Willing to Take Paul Ryan and the GOP’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan Serious, IF …

April 16, 2011

The Paul Ryan/GOP budget finally made available nearly three years since the GOP started whining about Obama’s stimulus package and the spending it entailed has been touted as a serious piece of legislation. Ryan makes claims about his plan in a WSJ Op-ed, that have been seriously challenged by other objective sources like the impartial Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and both conservative and moderate economist.

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget Director says the GOP plan “doesn’t address in any serious or courageous way the issue of the near and medium-term deficit” and further criticizes its ill-fated belief that any deficit problem can be seriously resolved without generating revenue through taxes. The Libertarian economist Tyler Cowen says “the plan doesn’t do anything to control health care costs, and cutting Medicaid is neither good policy, nor urgent. Indeed, he notes, ‘Medicaid should be one of the last parts of the health care budget to cut.’” (Conservative Economists Criticize ‘Off The Deep End’ Republican Budget, by Brian Beutler, TPMDC, 4/11/11)

Ryan and the GOP’s claim to credibility is severely undercut through it’s use of data from the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. One of the most absurd presumptions by an author of this Heritages analysis, William Beach, was that Ryan’s plan would reduce unemployment to 2.8% before he retracted it later under fire from serious economists.

All of the numbers that Ryan and the Heritage Foundation have proposed in this bill have been aptly challenged and debunked but I’ll leave it to the reader to go over the details here. What I would like someone to seriously answer for me is just one aspect of the budget claim. How is Medicare going to be made better or even remain the same once it is converted to a block grant for the states to choose how best to serve their citizens?

I live in the state of Texas where any federal funding that serves social needs of the states poor, elderly and disabled is frowned on and considered a burden to deal with. Recently conservative legislators have talked about getting out of the Federal/State Medicare program to fight their deficit problems. If Ryan’s plan provides block grant money giving conservative legislators the power to determine how it will be spent, I fear we will see more people hurt than helped. There are already 6 million uninsured people in Texas and the state’s population growth is one of the nation’s highest, meaning that rate is likely to increase proportionately.

The block grant money is to be allocated by the state to individuals so they can purchase insurance from the private sector on their own. If red flags didn’t just go up with you on this information then you are not paying the full health care premium for your policy. This makes you an employed worker whose company has a health insurance benefits or you are still on your parents’ policy.

That leaves the unemployed in this state, including children, the disabled and the elderly to find insurance from an industry that until recently has been able to exclude them from coverage for pre-existing conditions they have (that would be all the disabled people) or whose age puts them in the high risk category (that would be children and the elderly).

However the current health care reform that prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions is being threatened by repeal (a move by the way that would increase the deficit) by those same Republicans and conservatives that want to opt out of the current Medicare program. Does this sound promising to you if you fall into the above mentioned categories? Health insurance rates are high for everyone but for those people who work for a living, making wages near the poverty level, it is virtually unaffordable. In fact, unless you are a family of three making over $18,312 annually, you cannot qualify for state assistance.

Needles to say poor families struggle the most trying to find effective, low-cost health insurance but the sad truth is that most have to forego this expense and are only served by the state when their health deteriorates to a level that will then qualify them. In my case though my age is now a factor that determines whether or not I can buy health care insurance.

My wife is still currently employed as a nurse with a school district looking to cut positions to reduce the state’s $27 billion deficit. It costs an extra $425 a month to insure me but at least I have coverage. But when she retires in a few short years (if she hasn’t been terminated before then) we will only have my Social Security benefits and a meager amount of retirement funds to sustain us. The state’s retirement system my wife is on opted out of social security for them years ago. These resources are insufficient to purchase private health care insurance on our own.

click on image to enlarge

Rep. Ryan says that his plan to fund medicare after 2022 is “not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.” And though this model claims to allow people to “choose a plan that works best for them” it must be done “from a list of guaranteed coverage options”. As usual the devil is in the details so I am curious as to whose on this list and what extent the coverage is in these “guaranteed options”.

Ryan claims his plan will ensure that “Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower-income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks.” Knowing how reluctant Republicans are now to spend money on anything except tax breaks for the wealthy, can we be assured that whoever makes such decisions will do so based on needs prescribed by our physician or will they allow the for-profit health insurers to make that call. Currently this is not a problem for Medicare recipients so I worry that people turning 65 in 2022 will have less health security than this current generation of elders.

Also, I have not seen any wording in Ryan’s plan about cost of living adjustments (COLAs) and correcting Medicare benefits as inflation impacts them. Again, I worry about the sincerity of those who think somehow all people are equally capable to provide for their own welfare. Are they willing to take measures to protect the most vulnerable amongst us who physically cannot make it on their own by locking into a system that will address future costs without expecting beneficiaries to somehow find the means beyond their fixed incomes to do so?

My guess is they will only do so when enough people scream loud and long enough and by then it will be too late for some while others must endure for the time it will take these foot-draggers to accommodate those who depend on Medicare’s services.

So, here’s my offer to jump on your band wagon Paul Ryan. Present your bill with iron clad assurances that future recipients of Medicare and Medicaid will not suffer any less quality of services than those who are currently enrolled. Furthermore, assure us that those people who decide who do and don’t qualify are people connected with direct care in the health care field and do not have vested, for-profit interests in undermining the system; large stock holders in CIGNA Health Insurance Corp. for example

If, as you suggest, your plan is arranged to control health care costs and thus current services can be sustained without any tax increases to do so, please describe in detail how this will be achieved. Furthermore, in the event that everyone else is right and you and the Heritage Foundation are way off the mark, a trigger mechanism in the bill should be included that will discontinue it’s legitimacy and we can revert back to the existing system with this caveat – it will be reimplemented with the objectives stated in the President’s health care reform bill to eliminate waste and fraud and curb rising health care costs; the ones you are saying that are not there.

Related Reading:

Who’s Serious Now? by Paul Krugman

Keeping Medicare and Medicaid Strong? (Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.)

Kill Medicaid and Medicare and You Eliminate Social Security(woodgatesview.wordpress.com)

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis, Economy, Health Care Reform, seniors/aging, Society and Politics Tags: Congressional Budget Office, David Stockman, deficit reduction cuts Medicare/Medicaid, Health insurance, Heritage Foundation, Medicare, Medicare block grants, Path to Prosperity, Paul Ryan, Republican

5 comments

Kill Medicaid and Medicare and You Eliminate Social Security

April 5, 2011

If wealthy financial interests cannot get the revenue that funds Social Security, then no one will.

I’m not the kind that sees conspiracies behind every corner and I’m not much of a patron of those popular conspiracies that appear to have some credibility, like some of those surrounding JFK’s assassination. But if I were to apply myself I could perhaps make a case that Paul Ryan and the GOP are out to eliminate Social Security through a slow process that entails shrinking Medicare and Medicaid to a form that allows more people to die before they reach retirement age.

Mr. Ryan has released the GOP budget plan for 2012 and in it is a proposal that would eliminate $1 trillion from the federal program that enables the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us to purchase health insurance and vital, life-saving prescription drugs for millions. It doesn’t remove the $1 trillion from Medicaid immediately; doing it instead very slowly over a 10 year period. A sort of “death by a thousand cuts” process. It’s conceivable that the GOP hopes that benefits that are not realized by a generation whose age and health make them ineligible to tap into these benefits for years to come will go unnoticed long before they do see the value of such a program for themselves.

As the means to provide health services is reduced through the GOP’s voucher program, illnesses will become more prevalent and cures will be fewer for those who rely on this low cost health insurance, thus increasing the likelihood of death at an earlier age than would have otherwise occurred for senior citizens, poorer children and the disabled. Already the GOP is working the other side of the tracks as they attempt to raise the age on Social Security eligibility to 70.

A 2007 GAO report shows that lower income people who are unable to provide adequate health care insurance die younger than their wealthier counterparts who can.

With this combination of higher eligibility rates for collecting SS benefits and poorer people dying off long before they reach that age due to inadequate health care coverage, the U.S. Treasury will have more money available; money that corporations will lobby for to subsidize their ventures while they re-invest their profits in share holder dividends and upper management bonuses. And any real tax savings here will not significantly impact most middle income wage earners in this country.

A look at the GOP’s budget deficit reduction plan shows their “preferred treatment for Medicaid, outlined in a policy booklet called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” … convert[s] current federal payments to states into direct assistance in the form of $11,000 per year per recipient, which could be used to purchase private insurance.” (GOP plans $1 trillion Medicaid cut, by Jonathon Allen, Politico, 3/31/11)

There is little in this “Roadmap” about cost of living adjustments (COLA) to deal with inflation and there most certainly are no restraints on the private sector to charge what they will for health care. What $11,000 buys today in terms of treatment and necessary therapies will likely not cover such cost ten years from now and even less on down the road from that. If this practice carries over to Medicare then the elderly along with children and the disabled will have fewer people to collect their Social Security benefits they have earned over time.

But surely the Republican Tea Party is not that cold and calculating. Not everyone on the Right can be as conniving as Grover Norquist whose Americans for Tax Reform group, since 1989, has aligned itself with conservatives and business interests to shrink the government through tax and spending cuts to a size that “can be drowned in a bath tub”; tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 2% more than anyone else. However, that may not be as far-fetched as it seems.

Too many Americans have been convinced by GOP rhetoric that the budget is a spending issue, not a tax issue. But anyone can clearly see a correlation between tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest amongst us and a short-changing of vital social services. The specified taxes that come out of paychecks while paying for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security are small in comparison if the majority of Americans were left to fend for themselves.

“Medicare, by means of cost controls and the distribution of risk, is the best deal going in health care by a third. To scrap Medicare would mean loss of that price leverage and higher prices for seniors that will likely end up being passed on to the sandwich generation” says Huffington Post commentator, Stephen Herrington.

“Vouchers for private insurance in lieu of Medicare … would instantly increase the federal deficit component for assistance to seniors by 30%, the cost advantage of Medicare over private plans. Anything less than full value would simply disproportionally shift the burden from government to a public already groaning under the weight of servicing medical profits. There are no net savings to the public here. (emphasis mine) Servicing private profit is no less onerous than taxes.”

So is this a conceivable conspiracy by the GOP to kill benefits for low and middle-income families? We don’t see any efforts to reduce the deficit with cuts in a bloated Defense budget. Even Scrooge reluctantly agreed to support the “Treadmill and the Poor Laws” that created a meager safety net for the poorest of the poor rather than allow for-profit efforts to take charge of this. And so what if more people die sooner than they would without this aid that they have all contributed to throughout their working lives? Decreasing this “surplus population” will only leave more in the Treasury for the wealthy patrons of Republicans to feed off of for years to come.

RESOURCES:

GAO Report: ‘Poverty in America: Consequences for Individuals and the Economy’ January 24, 2007.

GOP Budget Proposal for 2012 to Gut Medicaid

Posted by lbwoodgate in Economy, Health Care Reform, Poverty/Homelessness, seniors/aging Tags: federal spending cuts, GOP deficit reduction plan, Grover Norquist, health care block grants, Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Paul Ryan, private vs. public health care coverage, Republican, Social Security, United States

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Tag Archives: Paul Ryan

What’s In a Name?

Anyway, I was a little surprised that with the limited choices I had at how well the words I could create seem to reveal prophetic traits of the candidates.

The only rule I made for myself was that I had to use ALL of the letters of their last name to form real words.

So starting with the VP candidates here’s what I came up with

BIDEN – In Bed Politically speaking, when you are in bed with someone you are supportive and aligned with their ideas and policies. OMG! Does this speak directly to Biden or what? As Obama’s Vice-president Biden has been nothing but a loyal advocate for the POTUS.

RYAN – Now this one is really prophetic. Who is Paul Ryan’s role model? AYN Rand

Romney = R Money (Republican money). Need I say anything more other than what this 1984 photo of Romney’s Bain Capital group conveys? (Take my word for it. Those really are conservative greenbacks coming out of their orifices)

Obama – A Moab. We all laughed at the Tea Party-types when they chided Obama supporters for treating him like the anointed one but check out this revelation.

The 2012 Campaign Seen Through Bill Clinton’s Eye’s

In Ayn Rand We Trust

News Flash! – AUSTERITY DOESN’T WORK!

On-again, Off-again Catholic Leadership

Understanding Paul Ryan’s Attack on Medicare

I’m Willing to Take Paul Ryan and the GOP’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan Serious, IF …

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