Warren Buffett Veers Right

Newspaper Ignores Facts, Panders Right-Wing

By Bradley C. Byers

     Two years ago, billionaire Warren Buffett became a minor hero to Democrats and liberals when he wrote an op ed in the New York Times and told Charlie Rose on CNBC that the richest people should pay at least as much tax, as a percentage of income, as his secretary pays.

     Using himself as an example, he said that he pays about 14 percent while some of his small office staff pay as much as 31 percent.

     Since that time, Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway group has been buying newspapers in small to medium sized cities. As of March 2013 he had bought 28 papers, and in July he purchased more. He has said he hopes to save those newspapers, as well as turn a small profit.

     In doing so, he brought hope to some communities. Tulsa, Oklahoma is a good example. Although clearly declining in size and staff, the 95,000 daily circulation Tulsa World had held to its reputation of solid reporting and even-handed editorials that tried to lead readers to a better understanding of national issues than they were getting from right-wing talk shows and the internet. This, in a state with a solid tradition of right-wing politics.

     Every state-wide and national office in Oklahoma is held by Republicans. And in the 2012 primary, Tulsans elected a tea party Republican over a strongly conservative Republican incumbent.

     So, many in Tulsa looked to Buffett’s purchase with hope that it would not mean the imposition of strongly conservative interpretations into the newspaper’s staff-written editorials.

     But that was not to be. Mr. Buffett’s newly appointed publisher immediately announced that the newspaper would “reflect the views of the community.” The result became apparent on October 29 when the lead editorial concluded: “…if the Obama Administration can’t put together a working website with years of advance notice, what would lead us to conclude they can actually do anything about health care costs?”

     The next day, the editorialist followed with “The flawed roll-out of the "Obamacare" exchange system put the administration's competence in question.”

     In a letter to the editor, a long-time reader challenged the basis of such conclusions. “That’s like saying ‘if an army cannot advance through a mine field without losing some soldiers, how can they win a battle?’ Republicans planted mines and fired artillery at every possible moment to try to stop Obamacare from working. 

     “Obama planned for the states to set up the websites, using Federal dollars. But 36 Republican states refused, while challenging the law in court and trying 43 times to repeal it. So, after waiting for the Supreme Court to rule, the Administration had the hugely complex job of setting up websites covering those 36 states, with different insurance companies and policies in every state.

     “As a final effort,” the letter continued, “Republicans shut down the government in a futile attempt to remove funding for Obamacare. And now the Tulsa World tells us the resulting start-up problems are ‘proof …that the federal government has no place in this business (of health care) in the first place.’

     “To the editorial writers we used to respect, RIP. To the owner, Mr. Buffett,  and the present staff of editorialists, ‘for shame.’”

                                                           ###                

Bradley C. Byers, of Tulsa, is a retired journalist. He writes the blog ByersAware, where this article will soon appear.

http://byersaware.blogspot.com/2013/10/freedom-to-be-ignorant.html

Freedom To Be Ignorant

My Money or My Life

In one of Jack Benny’s enduring jokes, he was accosted by a highwayman who demanded, “Stand and deliver. Your money or your life.”

After a pause, the highwayman repeated: “I said, your money or your life!” To which Benny responded: “I’m THINKING.”

Lots of ordinary Republicans hate government in any form, as much as Benny pretended to hate spending money. Republicans like spending money. Just not on taxes.

                                                     

So they complain: “The government thinks it knows how to spend my money better than I do.”

That “my money” comment always puzzles me.

    I'm puzzled about how to spend "my" money without paying taxes. Doesn’t the government print and mint that money? No taxes, no government. No government, no money.

     The Republicans that I know like to play the slot machines at the casino, and they like to buy guns. Could they raise enough chickens and potatoes in their back yards to do that? First, though, they’d have to trade some chickens to get someone to teach them how to read the directions at the casino and the gun show..  

    Oops again. They’d need some potatoes to pay for riding the private toll road to get to the casino. Takes lots of potato digging.

    Darned government, anyway. It just interferes with our freedom to be as ignorant as we choose to be.

Obamacare: A Mushroom Cloud

According to the new editorial chief of the Tulsa World newspaper, prosperous businesses refuse to hire new people because they are uncertain about details in the Affordable Care Act and worry about future changes. That, plus the potential that the national debt will “wreck the U.S. economy.”

And, the editor writes, if you already have a job and insurance, the Affordable Care Act is “costing you the prosperity of an economy growing fast enough to make sure your children and grandchildren have jobs and insurance too.” This, he says, is the most effective argument available to opponents of the act.

As evidence, he cites the decision of a mushroom farmer who has 300 employees and 250 contract workers. This farmer said his business needs another 100 people. But he won’t expand because of  “ever-present concern” about possible rules changes in the Affordable Care Act, and the potential for the national debt to wreck the economy.

          

        This mushroom farmer is used by Oklahoma’s Sen. Tom Coburn to attack the ACA and the national debt. There was no acknowledgement by the senator or the editorialist that the number one uncertainty in the nation is an economy devastated by a recession -- a recession triggered by Republican policies of tax cuts and deregulation long before the ACA was anything more than a dream.

          And so it goes in the World of conservative Republicans who just last week cost the nation’s economy an estimated $24 billion by shutting down government for 16 days. And they seem ready to do so again next January.

                                                    

None So Blind

          The Christian bible contains a verse to this effect: “There is none so blind as he who will not see.” Last week a writer for Salon magazine showed just how true that verse can be.

          Three couples appeared on Fox News to complain about how much they are suffering because of Obamacare.  The Salon writer, who has worked on insurance issues for a western state governor, was suspicious. So, he spoke with each complainant by phone, and then did some research on the web.

          The first couple said they cannot expand their business because of Obamacare. But they did not disclose on Fox that they have only four employees. Obamacare does not affect businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

          The second couple pay $13,000 a year for insurance that excludes one of their children because of a pre-existing condition. They complained because their carrier has advised them it will have to make changes in their policy under Obamacare. They have not explored any options. They hate Obamacare.

          But the reporter did explore the options. He found the couple could get a policy on the exchange that would cost 60 percent less and would also cover their child.

          The third couple are self-employed. They pay $10,000 for health insurance. They said their insurance company told them their premiums will go up by 50 to 75 percent because of Obamacare.

          Again, the reporter checked the exchange. He found a policy with equal coverage that would cost the couple 63 percent less, not more.

          Indeed, there are none so blind as those who will not see – beyond the ranting of Ted Cruz and Fox News.

          You can read the Salon story on AlterNet at http://www.alternet.org/print/media/fox-news-coverage-obamacare-was-extremely-misleading.

Give and Take--Will ACA Collapse?

   A newspaper in a tea party state printed this letter Oct. 18:

   Yes, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. But "we the people" didn't get to vote on its passage. It was forced on us by a Democratic House, Democratic Senate, and Democratic president.

   It doesn't benefit the majority of U.S. citizens. In fact, only about 30 million are covered. But the financial impact hits everyone. We don't need to repeal it because it will collapse under its own weight.

   And drew this response:  

   You do not get to vote personally on the laws the government passes. You vote only on your representatives. The majority of Americans voted for the representatives and president who enacted the Affordable Care Act.

   They enacted it to benefit you, and me, and most other Americans.

   If you could set aside your my-mind-is-made-up prejudices long enough to read objective information about the law, you would see that it does benefit most of us.  It allows people with high blood pressure or diabetes to get insurance. It returned billions of dollars to people who were being overcharged on their existing policies last year. It kept my 23 year-old-college-graduate granddaughter, now existing as a waitress while searching for another job, on her parents insurance for another three years.

   Despite roadblocks thrown up by 21 states, the ACA set up web sites where people not covered by employer-based group insurance can search for the best available plan. Yes, those web sites have some glitches. How many computer programs can you name that encountered no problems at start-up?

   In another year, the ACA will lower the cost of insurance for you and me when our premiums no longer have to pay for emergency room care for millions of people who had no insurance before the ACA.  

   Yes, some people who are already insured are going to pay higher premiums, at least for a while. In return for those higher premiums, they can no longer be dropped, yearly and lifetime limits on coverage have been removed, pre-existing illnesses will be covered if they have to change insurance carriers through loss of their jobs or other reasons, and their children can remain on their policies until age 26.

   And, despite all the claims and all the obstacles thrown up by conservative Republicans, the ACA will not collapse. On the contrary, those Republicans are worried precisely because they know it will succeed and become as popular and beneficial as Medicare and Social Security. 

   Relax. You may object to the taste of this medicine as it goes down, but you'll feel better in the morning.

A Defensive Victory

Wednesday night brought only a defensive victory for the forces of Camelot II. A mere 40 Barbarians led a 16 day siege of the castle, brought up their battering ram (debt ceiling), then withdrew with a concession on the sequester. And they vowed to renew the siege in 3 months.

In my deep red state, new Republican registrations this year far outnumber Democrats. Camelot forces nationwide must register new recruits door to door in below-median neighborhoods. Each household must be given a compelling list of the miseries the Barbarians already have wrought on the poor, the middle class, and the nation, and what they hope yet to do. By and large, voters have little idea of what the conservatives have done to them.  Without a successful inform-and-register blitz,, their will be no spring, summer, or November victories.

Love for Slavery?

Through Deep Red Glasses

   Online newspaper comment by "Jean" in a deep red state:

• "The Tea Party isn't going away, any more than the slave engineers aka Democrats. The former are members of the party that freed the slaves, while the latter are the party who brought the slaves to this country and then treated them worse than cattle. But some people in this country today continue to enjoy that enslavement and show their love of that wrong by continuing to vote their slavers back into power.
  
  "I will say it again: If Obama Care is so great, terrific for you and me, then why isn't it the same for Obama and the Democrats? Get the cobwebs out of your head and think about that one for a while."
  
  The statements by Jean were posted immediately after the vote in Washington, D.C. to reopen government. They carry important warnings for everyone who has hope of restoring sanity in Congress and in state governments: The extremists will never be influenced by facts. Or, as was stated long ago, "You cannot reason prejudice out of a person; it wasn't reason that put it there."
  
  Defying all reason, Jean thinks that people who receive any form of government assistance do so because they are lazy and irresponsible, and to her this is just another way of defining slavery. Remember Mitt Romney's statement that he could not make "the 47 percent take responsibility for themselves?"
  
  And I wonder, has anyone ever explained to the Jeans of our nation that the Affordable Care Act, in the form of state exchanges, simply provides access to insurance for those who do not already have coverage? She thinks that government employees, whose health insurance with private companies is jointly funded by the employer and the employees, should be forced to drop that coverage and use the exchanges to seek individual policies. But she does not want to apply that rule to her own employer-assisted policy.
  
  In short, she does not think. She merely reacts to what she hears.
  
  You and I have two responsibilities toward the "Jeans" among us. The first responsibility is to make it publicly known that we disagree with them. If we let politeness prevent us from speaking out, Jean's neighbors will assume that she is right because they hear nothing else. The "herd instinct" will influence their opinions and their votes. That's why the red states--which are largely the Deep South--are so deeply red.
  
  Our second responsibility is to tell the inactive and the uninformed among us, especially the "47 percent," the truth about the harm they are suffering at the hands of the extreme conservatives. We must get them to register and vote. If we fail to do this, the extremists will win next year's elections.

Courage Needed

Missing: Courage to Admit a Mistake

   According to Encyclopedia Britannica, in 2008 Obama won more than 69 million votes. In 2012, more than 65 million. No other candidate has ever surpassed 65 million votes.

   The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was a key issue in the 2012 election. Romney promised to repeal it. But Obama got 3 million more popular votes than Romney. Another main issue on which Obama won was his handling of the recession.

   Contrast that to support for the Koch and tea party. Eleven of their members were defeated. As of January 6, 2013, the their caucus had only 53 members. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, the Senate another 100. Yet this small minority of House members have shut down much of the government and appear ready and perhaps able to force the United States to refuse to pay its legitimate debts. That’s what failure to raise the debt limit would do. It very likely would throw the entire world into economic chaos. It would soon shut down payments of Social Security benefits, veterans pensions, Medicare and Medicaid, and disrupt business and employment throughout the nation.

   Somehow this small group, most of whom have little knowledge of how the government operates, have been able to scare a lot of Americans into thinking they are in danger of losing their freedoms—unnamed “freedoms” that often prove to be valuable or even essential services that the government performs for its citizens.

   Why? Why do the American people put up with it? Why don’t the people who voted for these members of Congress call their offices—either local or in Washington—and tell them that they have had enough? Does it take too much courage to admit, “I made a mistake, but I will not make it again?”

   Will we continue to let a small but loud minority set the agenda for the whole country?"

Give and Take Once More

Who’s Afraid of Healthcare?

    Annie posted on  “Politicususa” : What I don’t get is how anyone can defend the healthcare Act. So many Americans are seeing their hours cut, our healthcare costs are rising because of it. Friends who did not have insurance were encouraged because the Act was passed, only to learn that they could better afford healthcare before all this was put into motion.

  COMMENT: Annie, if you are getting this kind of false information from friends, you need to find better friends. If from members of Congress, you need to listen to members who know what they are talking about (among those to avoid,  Michelle Bachmann and her belief that Obama is supporting al-Qaeda and bringing the biblical end times; she read it in the bible).

   There is no credible information that what you claim to be true is happening on more than a piecemeal scale. Your favorite Congressmen tell you the people don’t want Obamacare, and yet 8 million started the signup process in the first week, although the deadline is not until mid-March.

   FactCheck.org says, “The fact is, some will pay more and some will pay less. Some currently uninsured Americans will pay little or nothing because of the law’s expansion of Medicaid.”

   

   That Other Guy’s Too Fat                  

   Concerning the shutdown, a reader wrote:  I think this country needs to trim the fat. If your government job is not essential to the running of this country, then it should not exist.

   COMMENT: National parks are not essential. But that's the first thing House  Republicans threw a fit about when they learned that the parks are a part of the government they voted to shut down.

   Is NASA essential? Do you want to shut it down permanently? How about the FDIC that guarantees to pay for your savings if your bank fails? It is not essential to the hourly wage worker who has no bank account or savings. How about food and drug inspections? Not essential if you grow all your own food and never need medicine. How about public schools? Not essential if you have no children, or can afford private schools.

   ONE PERSON’S “ESSENTIAL” is another person's luxury. Are you sure you have thought this subject through? It is obvious that a lot of the people we elected to Congress have not thought it through. Among a few thousand other shortcomings, they have thrown another huge setback to the backlogged processing of claims for veterans' benefits by shutting down much of the non-essential Veterans Administration. Obviously  House Republicans do not consider it essential to compensate or care for soldiers that they sent into combat.

   Oh, I forgot. All the House Republicans did was cut off the money for the VA. It must be Obama's fault for telling the employees they don't have to come to work without pay.

Give and Take

   Lock 'em Up, Throw 'em Out

  In a local newspaper, two letters repeated the fanciful (and in my view, irresponsible) notion that the way to get a functioning Congress is just to vote everyone out office. One of them also said the immediate solution is to lock the Congress and the President in a room together and not let them out until they reach agreement.

  These recommendations came in a red state and from congressional districts that sent two new tea party members to Congress last year, and a state that ranks among the worst in education, teenage births, single parent families, health insurance, poverty levels, voter turnout, and most every other indicator of government incompetence.

   COMMENT: "...vote them out of office and elect a Congress that will do its job."

   Tell me, how are you going to get the voters to educate themselves on what the new Congressional candidates stand for? We get the Congress we elect, the Congress we deserve, because we don't care enough to become informed.

   Take your two NEW local Congressmen, both tea party members. Both strongly support government shutdown, default on our nation's debts, and doing away with a new health care system that 8 million people tried to sign up for in the first week it was offered (contributing to a computer overload).

   It was clear to anyone who bothered to pay attention that they held the same anti-government beliefs as Newt Gingrich, who was responsible for the previous shutdown. So, they naturally fell in behind Ted Cruz, who has visions of himself as the second coming of Gingrich and his "contract with America."

   As for your lock-'em-up solution, that sounds a lot like the military takeover in Egypt where they locked up the president (Morsi) and threw out the parliament. (I am glad they got rid of Morsi but regret the way they had to do it.)

   My main point: Citizens have to take responsibility, inform ourselves, and then vote intelligently instead of voting for ideology and emotion. The problem does not start with Congress. It starts with us.

Give and Take

  In the Beginning….

  Responding to our statement that voters should become informed, not just promise to vote everybody out of office, a reader wrote: "This stuff (shutdown and refusal to raise the debt ceiling) started LONG before (the 2012) election.”

  COMMENT: Of course it did. But that election gave us Ted Cruz to replace the laughable “second-coming-end-of-the-world” Michelle Bachmann as leader of the Koch-and-Tea Party. And it gave Shutdown-Ted more followers.  Unless voters study the candidates and issues, the next election could give us a Republican-controlled Senate, with Shutdown-Ted Cruz as Majority Leader. In that case, say goodbye to Social Security and Medicare.

  Big, Bad Government

  The reader further claimed: "(It) began when President Obama and the Democratic leadership of the 110^th and 111^th Congresses enacted the largest peacetime expansion of the Federal government in U. S. history, and chose to do so during the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression.”

 COMMENT: Without the expansion of unemployment compensation and food stamps, without the successful bailout of General Motors, without the TARP funds, we’d have failed banks, bread lines, soup kitchens, and unemployment approaching Great Depression levels. When the economy truly tanks, government has to spend to get it back on track.

  To Budge or not to Budge(it)

  And he wrote further: “Obama’s  2009 budget, $1.4 trillion deficit and all, was pushed through Congress as an emergency measure that was absolutely necessary for the survival of the nation and its economy. But then he dropped the ball and allowed all of fiscal 2010 to go by without a Federal budget."

  COMMENT: The President presented his budget request. But by law budget bills must originate in the House and then be passed (or modified) by the Senate, then either sent to a conference committee for negotiation or to the President for approval.

   It takes two to tango, and two parties to pass a budget. The Democratic Senate sent its modified budget bill to the House last April. The House refused to appoint a conference committee to negotiate, all the while shouting loudly and falsely that the Democrats would not negotiate.

  And they are still shouting, while shutting down much of the government, denying salaries, veterans benefits, military death payments, food stamps, and many other survival needs to both public employees and ordinary citizens whom they scorn as freeloaders or worse—and whom they DO NOT want to have health insurance.

  

  The present impasse and partial government shutdown is caused by House Republicans. They will not agree to let spending continue at last year’s level (the usual practice) while working on a full-year budget—all because they hope to force Obama to do away with the Affordable Care Act against the will of the majority who elected him for a second term.

Throw 'em Out

A newspaper reader wrote the following:

We're seeing our 401(k)s and IRAs decrease every day as Congress plays its games, but lawmakers' pensions or salaries will not decrease. Congress is more interested in the party than what is best for the country.

Re-elect no one.

His letter is typical of people who take no personal responsibility for voting, yet feel justified in criticizing the results. In the area where this man lives, two new members were elected to Congress by wide margins last year—and they are loudly outspoken in support of  the very actions the letter-writer is deploring.

COMMENT: You are right to be concerned. But your solution is part of the problem. Voters in your area  "threw em out“ last year-- and got two worse ones in their place. Bridenstine and Mullen are solidly in support of crashing the government in order to gain power for their extreme right wing Koch and Tea Party radicals.

The only way to get good government, Mr. Smith, is to pay attention to what is going on and who is causing the problems. Then vote for people who by their stated positions and by the positions of their political party demonstrate that they are for GOOD government, not SMALL government or BIG government. Each of us should assess our own voting record and determine whether we have been a part of the solution or part of the problem.

Koch and Tea, Anyone?

o Echo Chamber Shutdown

      Republicans in Congress live in an echo chamber. They hear only their own voices coming back at them and think they are messages from On High. Columnist Pat Buchanan typified that Octobaer 5 by arguing that the government shutdown "is all about a petulant president whose prize program the people do not want but who insists it be imposed upon them." The echo chamber convinces Buchanan that such an absurd statement is truth, ignoring the 7 million people who rushed to sign up for the Affordable Care Act in the first 4 days although, he says, they do not want the "prize program."

o    The Koch Protection Racket

o    The Koch-and-Tea Party (KTP) in the House of  Representatives have declared that they will rule the nation like a Mafia protection racket. First, they shut down all the government agencies except those that have funding beyond their immediate control. Then, if you want to reopen one part of it, such as the WWII memorial on the Washington Mall, guarantee them lots of television publicity and they will let it reopen. If you need food for your baby through the closed WIC program, just get down on your knees and pledge everlasting loyalty to the KTP.

BUT, they will watch the entire government go up in flames rather than provide funding for programs they do not like. Never mind that doing so violates their own oath of office.  

More Give and Take

Several posts on Facebook have said that Congress and the President should not get paid while non-essential government workers are furloughed because the Republican House refuses to pass a funding bill. Not a bad idea (especially if it applied only to those House Republicans who are denying the funding).

HOWEVER, I’m sure the President and the 257 members of Congress who are millionaires (nearly half of Congress) can muddle through somehow without their salaries. Did you know that the new crop we elected to Congress just last year (Ted Cruz and company) also have a median net worth of $1 million? I don't think they'd miss the salary very much. But the 7 million people who ALREADY have tried to sign up for health insurance in the first 4 days of Affordable Care Act exchanges would suffer if that insurance had not been made available to them. (It IS AVAILABLE; the shutdown did not affect it, even though it was the reason for the Republican rebellion.)

Model T and Health Care

                

In Oklahoma, the Governor and Republican legislators lost federal funds for a state plan to insure some low income people because of steps they took to deny Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (which would have covered more poverty families at NO cost to the state for 3 years, and then just 10 percent state cost afterward). A citizen in Tulsa responded the following way:

My granddad's generation considered the Model T a great car. They loved its 20 horsepower engine, nifty 45 mph top speed and the great color selection (black).

Some of our state’s politicians must love the Model T. They praise “Insure Oklahoma.” They are not bothered by its limitations and evidently they haven't noticed that something better has come along.

The Affordable Care Act combined with expanded Medicaid would cover more people than Insure Oklahoma does. The ACA would accept people with pre-existing conditions. It allows children to remain on their parents insurance up to age 26 instead of 19 (the age limit under Insure Oklahoma). It eliminates lifetime limits on essential medical expenses. It prohibits insurers from dropping your coverage or raising your premiums if you get sick.

It provides free screenings and closes the prescription “donut hole”. It sets coverage standards that insurers have to meet. The ACA offers a greater selection of insurance products. The state exchanges of the ACA allow you to compare fifty nine plans from five different private insurers to pick the best fit for your family. But Oklahoma is fighting it at the Supreme Court.

While poorly informed politicians may extol the virtues of Insure Oklahoma, it isn't adequate for the needs of Oklahoma's uninsured. Like the Model T, Insure Oklahoma is just an outdated clunker that doesn't provide the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

Youth Versus Wisdom

Koch-and-Tea Party freshman Rep. James Bridenstine used a news interview to proclaim his support for shutting down the government rather than allowing the Affordable Care Law to continue.

Mr. Bridenstine, you are young and eager. These are good qualities. But eagerness is no substitute for wisdom. A partial government shutdown is an extremely damaging action, not a wise action. It does not hurt me directly, at least not yet, but it is hurting many other people now and will cause long term damage to many, many more.

Your stated reason for the shutdown is your desire to be rid of Obamacare. Yet, already your House colleagues have conceded that the shutdown will not be able to do that. Now they seem to be playing games to see whether they can wring some kind of concessions from the majority in the Senate and from the President. Those goals appear to be mostly face-saving rather than any realistic attempt to provide good governance to the citizens whose interests you were elected to uphold.

I sincerely hope you have enough character to face reality in this situation, to help pass a straightforward continuing resolution to fund government operations for the near future, and to appoint a conference committee to negotiate with the Senate, as the Senate has requested, on a long-term budget.

Kochs Fund Health Care Fight 

NYTimes Oct. 5, 2013

”The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort (to kill Obamacare by shutting down the federal government). A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.”

Surely no comment is needed. Pay attention to how often the House Republicans claim “the people don’t want Obamacare.” These are the “people” they are talking about. Is there any doubt the Koch-and-Tea Party controls the U.S. House?

Tea Party Echoes

o    Tea Party Echoes

o    Republicans live in an echo chamber. They hear their own voices coming back at them and think they are messages from On High. Columnist Pat Buchanan typified that Oct. 5 by arguing the government shutdown "is all about a petulant president whose prize program the people do not want but who insists it be imposed upon them." The echo chamber convinces Buchanan that such an absurd statement is truth, ignoring the 7 million people who rushed to sign up for the Affordable Care Act in the first four days. Are these the people he says do not want the program? Or are they just the millions who crave health insurance and don’t know that the “Obamacare” they have been told to fear is actually the Affordable Care Act?

o     

o     

o    The Koch Protection Racket

o    The Koch-and-Tea Party (KTP) in the House of  Representatives have declared that they will rule the nation like a Mafia protection racket. First, they shut down all the government agencies except those that have funding beyond their immediate control. Then, if you want to reopen one part of it, such as the WWII memorial on the Washington Mall, guarantee them lots of television publicity and they will let it reopen. If you need food for your baby through the closed WIC program, just get down on your knees and pledge everlasting loyalty to the KTP.

BUT, they will watch the entire government go up in flames rather than provide funding for programs they do not like. Never mind that doing so violates their own oath of office.  

More Give and Take

Several posts on Facebook have said that Congress and the President should not get paid while non-essential government workers are furloughed because the Republican House refuses to pass a funding bill. Not a bad idea (especially if it applied only to those House Republicans who are denying the funding).

HOWEVER, I’m sure the President and the 257 members of Congress who are millionaires (nearly half of Congress) can muddle through somehow without their salaries. Did you know that the new crop we elected to Congress just last year (Ted Cruz and company) also have a median net worth of $1 million? I don't think they'd miss the salary very much. But the 7 million people who ALREADY have tried to sign up for health insurance in the first 4 days of Affordable Care Act exchanges would suffer if that insurance had not been made available to them. (It IS AVAILABLE; the shutdown did not affect it, even though it was the reason for the Republican rebellion.)

Model T and Health Care

                

In Oklahoma, the Governor and Republican legislators lost federal funds for a state plan to insure some low income people because of steps they took to deny Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (which would have covered more poverty families at NO cost to the state for 3 years, and then just 10 percent state cost afterward). A citizen in Tulsa responded the following way:

My granddad's generation considered the Model T a great car. They loved its 20 horsepower engine, nifty 45 mph top speed and the great color selection (black).

Some of our state’s politicians must love the Model T. They praise “Insure Oklahoma.” They are not bothered by its limitations and evidently they haven't noticed that something better has come along.

The Affordable Care Act combined with expanded Medicaid would cover more people than Insure Oklahoma does. The ACA would accept people with pre-existing conditions. It allows children to remain on their parents insurance up to age 26 instead of 19 (the age limit under Insure Oklahoma). It eliminates lifetime limits on essential medical expenses. It prohibits insurers from dropping your coverage or raising your premiums if you get sick.

It provides free screenings and closes the prescription “donut hole”. It sets coverage standards that insurers have to meet. The ACA offers a greater selection of insurance products. The state exchanges of the ACA allow you to compare fifty nine plans from five different private insurers to pick the best fit for your family. But Oklahoma is fighting it at the Supreme Court.

While poorly informed politicians may extol the virtues of Insure Oklahoma, it isn't adequate for the needs of Oklahoma's uninsured. Like the Model T, Insure Oklahoma is just an outdated clunker that doesn't provide the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

Youth Versus Wisdom

Koch-and-Tea Party freshman Rep. James Bridenstine used a news interview to proclaim his support for shutting down the government rather than allowing the Affordable Care Law to continue.

Mr. Bridenstine, you are young and eager. These are good qualities. But eagerness is no substitute for wisdom. A partial government shutdown is an extremely damaging action, not a wise action. It does not hurt me directly, at least not yet, but it is hurting many other people now and will cause long term damage to many, many more.

Your stated reason for the shutdown is your desire to be rid of Obamacare. Yet, already your House colleagues have conceded that the shutdown will not be able to do that. Now they seem to be playing games to see whether they can wring some kind of concessions from the majority in the Senate and from the President. Those goals appear to be mostly face-saving rather than any realistic attempt to provide good governance to the citizens whose interests you were elected to uphold.

I sincerely hope you have enough character to face reality in this situation, to help pass a straightforward continuing resolution to fund government operations for the near future, and to appoint a conference committee to negotiate with the Senate, as the Senate has requested, on a long-term budget.

Kochs Fund Health Care Fight 

NYTimes Oct. 6, 2013

”The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort (to kill Obamacare by shutting down the federal government). A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.”

Surely no comment is needed. Pay attention to how often the House Republicans claim “the people don’t want Obamacare.” These are the “people” they are talking about.