Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"Lets Have At It" Column from Brian Wojtalewicz
Big Pharma Fraud - - Give Them More $?
Our legal team just finished helping our client, pharmacist whistleblower Stephani LeFlore of Minnesota, force her employer, CVS, the largest drug retailer in the country, to pay $17.5 Million of settlement on a Medicaid fraud False Claims Act lawsuit. Ten states and the federal government will be collecting $14,905,000.00 and the rest will be an award to Stephani and her attorneys for leading the government investigators to the fraud and helping them with the case.
This settlement is actually rather small compared to some of the settlements that the big pharmaceutical corporations have been paying. The largest so far has been $2.3 Billion paid by Pfizer for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. The year that Pfizer paid that settlement to the governments, it still showed a profit. In fact, its CEO took home a $15 Million paycheck for his excellent work. Do you get the picture, citizens?
A few years back when Congress added Medicare Part D to pay for prescription drugs on our seniors and disabled citizens, a key part of that law specifically prevented the government from bargaining against the drug corporations to get reduced prices on the drugs. Think about that - - the federal government is the largest single purchaser of drugs in the world, yet the Republican controlled Congress and President Bush, with the help of some Democrats, outlawed our government from bargaining for better prices!
It may get a lot worse. The latest push by the Republican leadership in Congress is to change the Medicare system to have Medicare provide vouchers to beneficiaries that must be used to purchase private health insurance, instead of Medicare simply paying directly for doctor or hospital charges. Medicare currently has an overhead rate of about 4%, while the private health insurers are usually over 30%. That 30% includes the obscene “salaries and bonuses” to CEO’s like Mr. Hemsley of United Health, who recently pulled in $47 Million for 2010. You still don’t get the picture?
Our legal team just finished helping our client, pharmacist whistleblower Stephani LeFlore of Minnesota, force her employer, CVS, the largest drug retailer in the country, to pay $17.5 Million of settlement on a Medicaid fraud False Claims Act lawsuit. Ten states and the federal government will be collecting $14,905,000.00 and the rest will be an award to Stephani and her attorneys for leading the government investigators to the fraud and helping them with the case.
This settlement is actually rather small compared to some of the settlements that the big pharmaceutical corporations have been paying. The largest so far has been $2.3 Billion paid by Pfizer for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. The year that Pfizer paid that settlement to the governments, it still showed a profit. In fact, its CEO took home a $15 Million paycheck for his excellent work. Do you get the picture, citizens?
A few years back when Congress added Medicare Part D to pay for prescription drugs on our seniors and disabled citizens, a key part of that law specifically prevented the government from bargaining against the drug corporations to get reduced prices on the drugs. Think about that - - the federal government is the largest single purchaser of drugs in the world, yet the Republican controlled Congress and President Bush, with the help of some Democrats, outlawed our government from bargaining for better prices!
It may get a lot worse. The latest push by the Republican leadership in Congress is to change the Medicare system to have Medicare provide vouchers to beneficiaries that must be used to purchase private health insurance, instead of Medicare simply paying directly for doctor or hospital charges. Medicare currently has an overhead rate of about 4%, while the private health insurers are usually over 30%. That 30% includes the obscene “salaries and bonuses” to CEO’s like Mr. Hemsley of United Health, who recently pulled in $47 Million for 2010. You still don’t get the picture?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Arsonists vs. Firefighters: Competing Narratives By: Carson Starkey
I realize that I'm not the first person to ever express grudging respect for adversaries, political or otherwise. I also realize that I'm not breaking new rhetorical ground when I express grudging respect and simultaneously launch attacks on adversaries, political or otherwise. I just feel compelled to offer a metaphorical tip of the hat to America's conservatives based on the collective events of the past 2-plus years before I find myself doing ideological battle with those same Fox News viewers during the presidential campaign season of 2012. American conservatives are exceptionally successful and resilient large-scale public policy arsonists, and they deserve credit for their fanatical dedication to ideological goals. No matter what the short-term electoral outcomes are, no matter how disastrous conservative governance has proven throughout American history, red state voters control the national political and policy discourse in this country and they are far and away more successful at advancing their policy goals than liberals. This has been no trivial accomplishment, but rather a grueling, long-term magnum opus based on uncelebrated efforts of conservative activists for the past 30-40 years. Conservatives have made long-term investments that are now producing dividends. Conservatives have done and are doing what I believe is the most important work of any political/ideological movement. They are selling a successful narrative.
I make this admission as one of the more disheartened firefighters, and as such, I believe that makes the backhanded compliment all the more worthy of celebration for Republican Party voters, though I am more than willing to acknowledge that this blog will probably not attract any right-of-center readers. I can't compete with O'Reilly and Hannity, what with Fox News having a near monopoly on unvarnished lunacy.
As I was saying, America's red state voters should feel immense pride regarding their accomplishments since January 20th, 2009. Following the election of a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, conservatives have managed to control the national political and economic discourse, render health care reform, financial reform, and fiscal stimulus measures practically ineffective as matters of political weaponry (this despite the fact that such public policy achievements should have been used as Democratic campaign rhetorical weapons and occasions for significant liberal celebrations), bring the functions of government to a standstill whenever and wherever they choose, and win enormous majorities in state legislatures and governors' mansions in the 2010 midterms (crucial victories that will favorably influence redistricting, which will ensure structural Republican congressional/state legislature majorities across the country for decades to come). These accomplishments, combined with the conservative monopoly on the daily news cycle (Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are unmatched in their ability to disseminate high-quality, fear-based, shrill propaganda with megaphones that cannot be ignored.) and substantial conservative majorities within the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court built over the course of the past 30-40 years have made American conservatism stronger than Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan could have ever envisioned. The answer is no by the way, I won't stop there, no matter how uncomfortable I am with praising the disciples of Nixon and Reagan.
What's more impressive is the fact that conservatives have dominated the national political scene for the past 30-40 years despite the repeated and catastrophic failure of conservative public policies. Whenever conservatives govern, they govern badly, implementing public policies that create widespread human suffering, (astronomical deficits, unwinnable/unaffordable/unpopular wars, cartoonish law-breaking and corruption, economic and banking meltdowns that routinely demolish the American economy) and they do so without apology for their self-inflicted disasters.
Seriously...as a meaningful side note, when was the last time you heard a Fox News commentator or Republican elected official use the words "I'm sorry" in reference to their personal shortcomings? You'd have a better chance of locating a unicorn-leprechaun hybrid. Conversely, congressional Democrats and Barack Obama apologize like fat kids lose at dodgeball (often and badly).
At first glance, this sort of disregard for public opinion and fact-based reality should guarantee electoral defeat and public marginalization for the political offenders (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, congressional Republicans). Quite the contrary. No matter how many times conservatives get caught by the voting public with buckets of gasoline and Zippo lighters, they consistently avoid harsh consequences (losing elections and control of the national political discourse) for their unrepentant sociopathic behavior. Knowing this, the current political landscape may appear bizarre and deeply counterintuitive, but make no mistake about how we got here. American conservatives owe their current success to effective narrative salesmanship.
An analogous counterpart for the contemporary American conservative movement is that of Toby Keith, by coincidence a devout conservative (professional buffoon) himself. Both are loud, shrill, socially worthless, profoundly bigoted, destructive when taken seriously, and extremely popular among significant portions of the American population. Both have found ways to marginalize more talented opposition (the Dixie Chicks really do write and produce better songs and liberal governance really does produce better economic results) through shameless, unrestrained self-promotion that consists of repeating easily disprovable nonsense and outright lies ad nauseam ("legendary talent of country music" and "fiscally conservative Real Americans" come to mind). Toby Keith and the conservative movement are shining examples of advertising triumphing over facts because both have worked harder at selling their narratives than their opposition
In all seriousness, Toby Keith is just awful, but that doesn't change the fact that conservatives control the direction of the national political narrative, regardless of electoral outcomes. Even when liberals win elections, they can't capitalize on short-term victories (2006, 2008), which means that they and their ideas remain outside of the national spotlight. Political victories and defeats in any representative democracy are fleeting, and those victories and defeats are and will forever be the products of successful or unsuccessful narratives that are sold to voters. Any public policy is the product of successful or unsuccessful narratives. Politicians and activists are eternally locked in ideological battles, selling their narratives and attempting to discredit the opposing narratives. The success or failure of various narratives, not the isolated and alternating outcomes of elections, determines the long-term trajectory of public policy in a given society. Those public policies in turn create and define broad socioeconomic realities. Elections, politicians, and personalities have a relatively short life-cylce in any given society, but the life-span of successful narratives can (and I would argue should) be exponentially longer and have greater social impact than any one person's time on this planet. I genuinely believe that a bumper sticker is needed at this point. "Candidates come and go. Narratives are forever." I would ask that the good people of De Beers and Ian Fleming's estate not attempt to file a lawsuit against me. There's nothing to take and the publicity would only encourage me.
Liberals have been slow to acknowledge these realities for the majority of the post-Reagan Era. That's why we, the firefighters, have been losing so many public policy battles to the arsonists, for so long. That's what makes this sort of analysis so painful and embarrassing. While we've been busy taking baby steps (MoveOn.org, parts of HuffingtonPost, DailyKos, Firedoglake) and reading the NY Times, Fox News enthusiasts have swamped Congress and dozens of state legislatures with merciless attacks against Medicaid, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining rights, public education, infrastructure, and progressive taxation. Along with their overwhelming majority advantages in state legislatures, conservatives have created national propaganda behemoths in talk radio, the Wall Street Journal, and the official communications outlet of the Republican Party, Fox News. That's how the arsonists made George W. Bush fire captain. What do we have to show on the opposite side of the aisle? If you answered "MSNBC," hand in your uniform and don't come back on Monday. You failed. Badly. What we need is a competing vision, our own, more compelling narrative if we're going to win and eventually control the national political discourse. I say that because I've grown weary of talking about how large the tax cuts for millionaires should be, how large the next Department of Defense supplemental spending bill should be, and how much money should be cut from Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Once again, I know that I'm not breaking any new ground with those last two sentences, but liberals have an overwhelming responsibility to take that message seriously and deliver that message with intensity if we're ever going to have a meaningful social safety net in America, a balanced budget, or a decade without multiple military invasions/occupations. There's a fundamental difference between Jonathan Cohn telling us to find a liberal analogue to Paul Ryan for the sake of a proper debate (http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/86527/ryan-medicare-deficit-schakowsky-liberal-alternative) and actually providing the necessary material for that debate. Glenn Greenwald couldn't be more right. Liberals have to inspire fear in their elected officials in the same way that conservative elected officials fear their base (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/05/democrats) if we're ever going to see future policy victories AND defend those victories against inevitable, sustained conservative attacks. As I hinted at earlier, Huffington Post isn't doing enough on a regular basis to satisfy my fix for sound public policy, but RJ Eskow is part of the solution in this instance (http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011041409/why-progressives-keep-losing-and-right-keeps-winning). Our alternative and far more popular, more effective, more compelling narrative has to become conventional wisdom if America is ever going to see prosperity in the 21st century. This is a problem for the obvious reason that conservatives seem hell-bent on keeping us mired in the 19th century.
Before you run out the door to campaign for (insert generic Democrat's name here) over the course of the next 18 months, remember that the message you spread should consist of something more than just candidate name-dropping and meaningless platitudes about Social Security and local government aid. Your narrative should be our narrative. That narrative matters a great deal more than any single individual candidate or any single, short-term election. That narrative should advance your goals (our goals) long after 2012 and Barack Obama's time in the White House. In the spirit of meaningless platitudes, victory often goes to the side that works the hardest. Think about that the next time you see Harry Reid and Barack Obama apologizing for some unexplained reason at a press conference while simultaneously agreeing to tax cuts for millionaires. Then think about what a successful press conference should look like before you turn the channel to Fox News to see the answer. Yeah, I know, right...kind of makes me want to write an angry letter to (insert generic Democrat's name here) and campaign as well.
There are not two equally compelling narratives. Liberals have a dream. Conservatives have a nightmare. Go forth and make the sale.
Related video: Bill Maher has my back on the importance of forming and standing by ideological narratives. "Republicans stand by their convictions...stupid, ignorant, world-destroying convictions based on disproven economic fantasies and ancient books full of primitive morality and magic people, but convictions nonetheless."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/video/item/bill-mahers-new-rule
I make this admission as one of the more disheartened firefighters, and as such, I believe that makes the backhanded compliment all the more worthy of celebration for Republican Party voters, though I am more than willing to acknowledge that this blog will probably not attract any right-of-center readers. I can't compete with O'Reilly and Hannity, what with Fox News having a near monopoly on unvarnished lunacy.
As I was saying, America's red state voters should feel immense pride regarding their accomplishments since January 20th, 2009. Following the election of a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, conservatives have managed to control the national political and economic discourse, render health care reform, financial reform, and fiscal stimulus measures practically ineffective as matters of political weaponry (this despite the fact that such public policy achievements should have been used as Democratic campaign rhetorical weapons and occasions for significant liberal celebrations), bring the functions of government to a standstill whenever and wherever they choose, and win enormous majorities in state legislatures and governors' mansions in the 2010 midterms (crucial victories that will favorably influence redistricting, which will ensure structural Republican congressional/state legislature majorities across the country for decades to come). These accomplishments, combined with the conservative monopoly on the daily news cycle (Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are unmatched in their ability to disseminate high-quality, fear-based, shrill propaganda with megaphones that cannot be ignored.) and substantial conservative majorities within the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court built over the course of the past 30-40 years have made American conservatism stronger than Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan could have ever envisioned. The answer is no by the way, I won't stop there, no matter how uncomfortable I am with praising the disciples of Nixon and Reagan.
What's more impressive is the fact that conservatives have dominated the national political scene for the past 30-40 years despite the repeated and catastrophic failure of conservative public policies. Whenever conservatives govern, they govern badly, implementing public policies that create widespread human suffering, (astronomical deficits, unwinnable/unaffordable/unpopular wars, cartoonish law-breaking and corruption, economic and banking meltdowns that routinely demolish the American economy) and they do so without apology for their self-inflicted disasters.
Seriously...as a meaningful side note, when was the last time you heard a Fox News commentator or Republican elected official use the words "I'm sorry" in reference to their personal shortcomings? You'd have a better chance of locating a unicorn-leprechaun hybrid. Conversely, congressional Democrats and Barack Obama apologize like fat kids lose at dodgeball (often and badly).
At first glance, this sort of disregard for public opinion and fact-based reality should guarantee electoral defeat and public marginalization for the political offenders (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, congressional Republicans). Quite the contrary. No matter how many times conservatives get caught by the voting public with buckets of gasoline and Zippo lighters, they consistently avoid harsh consequences (losing elections and control of the national political discourse) for their unrepentant sociopathic behavior. Knowing this, the current political landscape may appear bizarre and deeply counterintuitive, but make no mistake about how we got here. American conservatives owe their current success to effective narrative salesmanship.
An analogous counterpart for the contemporary American conservative movement is that of Toby Keith, by coincidence a devout conservative (professional buffoon) himself. Both are loud, shrill, socially worthless, profoundly bigoted, destructive when taken seriously, and extremely popular among significant portions of the American population. Both have found ways to marginalize more talented opposition (the Dixie Chicks really do write and produce better songs and liberal governance really does produce better economic results) through shameless, unrestrained self-promotion that consists of repeating easily disprovable nonsense and outright lies ad nauseam ("legendary talent of country music" and "fiscally conservative Real Americans" come to mind). Toby Keith and the conservative movement are shining examples of advertising triumphing over facts because both have worked harder at selling their narratives than their opposition
In all seriousness, Toby Keith is just awful, but that doesn't change the fact that conservatives control the direction of the national political narrative, regardless of electoral outcomes. Even when liberals win elections, they can't capitalize on short-term victories (2006, 2008), which means that they and their ideas remain outside of the national spotlight. Political victories and defeats in any representative democracy are fleeting, and those victories and defeats are and will forever be the products of successful or unsuccessful narratives that are sold to voters. Any public policy is the product of successful or unsuccessful narratives. Politicians and activists are eternally locked in ideological battles, selling their narratives and attempting to discredit the opposing narratives. The success or failure of various narratives, not the isolated and alternating outcomes of elections, determines the long-term trajectory of public policy in a given society. Those public policies in turn create and define broad socioeconomic realities. Elections, politicians, and personalities have a relatively short life-cylce in any given society, but the life-span of successful narratives can (and I would argue should) be exponentially longer and have greater social impact than any one person's time on this planet. I genuinely believe that a bumper sticker is needed at this point. "Candidates come and go. Narratives are forever." I would ask that the good people of De Beers and Ian Fleming's estate not attempt to file a lawsuit against me. There's nothing to take and the publicity would only encourage me.
Liberals have been slow to acknowledge these realities for the majority of the post-Reagan Era. That's why we, the firefighters, have been losing so many public policy battles to the arsonists, for so long. That's what makes this sort of analysis so painful and embarrassing. While we've been busy taking baby steps (MoveOn.org, parts of HuffingtonPost, DailyKos, Firedoglake) and reading the NY Times, Fox News enthusiasts have swamped Congress and dozens of state legislatures with merciless attacks against Medicaid, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining rights, public education, infrastructure, and progressive taxation. Along with their overwhelming majority advantages in state legislatures, conservatives have created national propaganda behemoths in talk radio, the Wall Street Journal, and the official communications outlet of the Republican Party, Fox News. That's how the arsonists made George W. Bush fire captain. What do we have to show on the opposite side of the aisle? If you answered "MSNBC," hand in your uniform and don't come back on Monday. You failed. Badly. What we need is a competing vision, our own, more compelling narrative if we're going to win and eventually control the national political discourse. I say that because I've grown weary of talking about how large the tax cuts for millionaires should be, how large the next Department of Defense supplemental spending bill should be, and how much money should be cut from Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Once again, I know that I'm not breaking any new ground with those last two sentences, but liberals have an overwhelming responsibility to take that message seriously and deliver that message with intensity if we're ever going to have a meaningful social safety net in America, a balanced budget, or a decade without multiple military invasions/occupations. There's a fundamental difference between Jonathan Cohn telling us to find a liberal analogue to Paul Ryan for the sake of a proper debate (http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/86527/ryan-medicare-deficit-schakowsky-liberal-alternative) and actually providing the necessary material for that debate. Glenn Greenwald couldn't be more right. Liberals have to inspire fear in their elected officials in the same way that conservative elected officials fear their base (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/05/democrats) if we're ever going to see future policy victories AND defend those victories against inevitable, sustained conservative attacks. As I hinted at earlier, Huffington Post isn't doing enough on a regular basis to satisfy my fix for sound public policy, but RJ Eskow is part of the solution in this instance (http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011041409/why-progressives-keep-losing-and-right-keeps-winning). Our alternative and far more popular, more effective, more compelling narrative has to become conventional wisdom if America is ever going to see prosperity in the 21st century. This is a problem for the obvious reason that conservatives seem hell-bent on keeping us mired in the 19th century.
Before you run out the door to campaign for (insert generic Democrat's name here) over the course of the next 18 months, remember that the message you spread should consist of something more than just candidate name-dropping and meaningless platitudes about Social Security and local government aid. Your narrative should be our narrative. That narrative matters a great deal more than any single individual candidate or any single, short-term election. That narrative should advance your goals (our goals) long after 2012 and Barack Obama's time in the White House. In the spirit of meaningless platitudes, victory often goes to the side that works the hardest. Think about that the next time you see Harry Reid and Barack Obama apologizing for some unexplained reason at a press conference while simultaneously agreeing to tax cuts for millionaires. Then think about what a successful press conference should look like before you turn the channel to Fox News to see the answer. Yeah, I know, right...kind of makes me want to write an angry letter to (insert generic Democrat's name here) and campaign as well.
There are not two equally compelling narratives. Liberals have a dream. Conservatives have a nightmare. Go forth and make the sale.
Related video: Bill Maher has my back on the importance of forming and standing by ideological narratives. "Republicans stand by their convictions...stupid, ignorant, world-destroying convictions based on disproven economic fantasies and ancient books full of primitive morality and magic people, but convictions nonetheless."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/video/item/bill-mahers-new-rule
Brian Wojtalewicz with this weeks Lets Have At It.
4-19-11
Pay, Shut-Up and Take It
Did you enjoy paying your taxes? You’ll be comforted to know that by conservative estimates the Wall Street mega-banks and hedge funds are using tax loopholes to evade over $100 Billion in taxes via off-shore accounts. This is just one part of the tax avoidance and evasion schemes that too many large corporations enjoy.
The right-wing’s leading financier and cheerleader, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, the Fox Network and the Wall Street Journal, recently enjoyed a tax rate of 6%. Investigations have revealed that he has at least 152 off-shore accounts in his empire. The result? Ordinary citizens like you have been paying more taxes to keep basic government services solvent.
Democratic senators in Washington, D.C., led by Levin and Obama (when he was a senator) introduced a new law to try to close these off-shore tax loopholes for the mega-corps. They have gotten nowhere so far.
Instead, Republican Congressmen Boehner, and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, cheered on by Fox News mouthpieces Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly, believe the solution is to cut even more funding for our nursing homes, hospitals and medical coverage for the working poor. Their latest effort is to cut Medicare by handing our Medicare dollars to the private insurance industry, on the theory that they’ll run it so much more efficiently! The last I checked, the Medicare system’s overhead is about 4%, while the private health insurance industry’s is over 30%. Sound like a good move to you?
It is certainly a move that a guy named Steve Hemsley, the CEO of United Health has been lobbying for. United Health is the largest private health insurer in the nation, and Hemsley’s income for 2010 was a measly $48.8 Million. This news recently came with a private industry spokesman advising us chumps that Hemsley was actually underpaid compared to other execs in his industry! But hold on, Bubba, don’t get into “class warfare” and start demanding a tax rate on these greedmongers that would be equal to the tax rate their ilk paid back when Eisenhower, Johnson, Kennedy and Nixon were president. Just be a good little propagandized boy and girl -- shut up and take it.
Pay, Shut-Up and Take It
Did you enjoy paying your taxes? You’ll be comforted to know that by conservative estimates the Wall Street mega-banks and hedge funds are using tax loopholes to evade over $100 Billion in taxes via off-shore accounts. This is just one part of the tax avoidance and evasion schemes that too many large corporations enjoy.
The right-wing’s leading financier and cheerleader, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, the Fox Network and the Wall Street Journal, recently enjoyed a tax rate of 6%. Investigations have revealed that he has at least 152 off-shore accounts in his empire. The result? Ordinary citizens like you have been paying more taxes to keep basic government services solvent.
Democratic senators in Washington, D.C., led by Levin and Obama (when he was a senator) introduced a new law to try to close these off-shore tax loopholes for the mega-corps. They have gotten nowhere so far.
Instead, Republican Congressmen Boehner, and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, cheered on by Fox News mouthpieces Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly, believe the solution is to cut even more funding for our nursing homes, hospitals and medical coverage for the working poor. Their latest effort is to cut Medicare by handing our Medicare dollars to the private insurance industry, on the theory that they’ll run it so much more efficiently! The last I checked, the Medicare system’s overhead is about 4%, while the private health insurance industry’s is over 30%. Sound like a good move to you?
It is certainly a move that a guy named Steve Hemsley, the CEO of United Health has been lobbying for. United Health is the largest private health insurer in the nation, and Hemsley’s income for 2010 was a measly $48.8 Million. This news recently came with a private industry spokesman advising us chumps that Hemsley was actually underpaid compared to other execs in his industry! But hold on, Bubba, don’t get into “class warfare” and start demanding a tax rate on these greedmongers that would be equal to the tax rate their ilk paid back when Eisenhower, Johnson, Kennedy and Nixon were president. Just be a good little propagandized boy and girl -- shut up and take it.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Brian Wojtalewicz With this weeks Lets Have at it Column: Stupid Politics
Several people who are very close to me have strongly suggested that I should avoid the “S” word in my columns, but stupid is the truth. “Ignorant” isn’t appropriate; ignorant people do dumb things because they don’t know any better. A good number of American voters fall into this category. However, many of those with their hands on the power levers in St. Paul and Washington, D.C. right now are acting just plain stupid.
By the time you read this, those in Washington, D.C. hopefully would have come to their senses and not shut down the federal government for the sake of denying a very tiny part of the federal budget to Planned Parenthood. Shutting down hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, and stopping paychecks for those families, is not only a crisis for citizens, it is also extremely dumb. You climb out of depressions or deep recessions by creating new jobs, not ending jobs.
The best possible way to create jobs is spending on infrastructure: repairing or replacing the deficient bridges, roads, school buildings, sewer and water systems that have been neglected for too long. The American Society of Civil Engineers has pointed out that 72,000 bridges in this country are too old or “structurally deficient.” The Association of State Dam Safety Officials reports that there are 4,400 dams in this country that are susceptible to failure. The Washington Post recently reported that, “It’s cheaper to strengthen a bridge that’s standing than repair one that’s fallen down.” As my kids were so fond of saying to me: “Dah!”
I keep hearing: “The government has to learn to live within its means.” What “means” are you talking about? The income tax rates, particularly for the wealthiest in our society, were at much higher rates during the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. We had huge expansion of the middle class and our economies in those years. If we had those rates back again now, the current crises would be extremely more manageable. We wouldn’t be talking about closing small nursing homes and hospitals in Minnesota, slashing medical care for the poor, jacking up property taxes, and continuing with the Pawlenty-style ignoring of our crumbling infrastructure. And consider that borrowing now for infrastructure is a good deal because interest rates are so low. Where were the right-wing complaints when we borrowed at higher rates for billions to start a war against a country that never attacked us - Iraq?
This is a needless crisis brought on by needless greed. If the right-wing is successful in their mission, this will shred our American society even worse than it is now.
Brian Wojtalewicz
By the time you read this, those in Washington, D.C. hopefully would have come to their senses and not shut down the federal government for the sake of denying a very tiny part of the federal budget to Planned Parenthood. Shutting down hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, and stopping paychecks for those families, is not only a crisis for citizens, it is also extremely dumb. You climb out of depressions or deep recessions by creating new jobs, not ending jobs.
The best possible way to create jobs is spending on infrastructure: repairing or replacing the deficient bridges, roads, school buildings, sewer and water systems that have been neglected for too long. The American Society of Civil Engineers has pointed out that 72,000 bridges in this country are too old or “structurally deficient.” The Association of State Dam Safety Officials reports that there are 4,400 dams in this country that are susceptible to failure. The Washington Post recently reported that, “It’s cheaper to strengthen a bridge that’s standing than repair one that’s fallen down.” As my kids were so fond of saying to me: “Dah!”
I keep hearing: “The government has to learn to live within its means.” What “means” are you talking about? The income tax rates, particularly for the wealthiest in our society, were at much higher rates during the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. We had huge expansion of the middle class and our economies in those years. If we had those rates back again now, the current crises would be extremely more manageable. We wouldn’t be talking about closing small nursing homes and hospitals in Minnesota, slashing medical care for the poor, jacking up property taxes, and continuing with the Pawlenty-style ignoring of our crumbling infrastructure. And consider that borrowing now for infrastructure is a good deal because interest rates are so low. Where were the right-wing complaints when we borrowed at higher rates for billions to start a war against a country that never attacked us - Iraq?
This is a needless crisis brought on by needless greed. If the right-wing is successful in their mission, this will shred our American society even worse than it is now.
Brian Wojtalewicz
Saturday, April 9, 2011
They Read It On the Internet
Its pretty frustrating what some people believe. No scratch that. What a lot of people believe. The other day while walking in the local Wal-Mart, I was approached by a man that I used to work with. He greeted me. We made small talk and after he saw my DFL sweatshirt he told me he was an independent. It was at that point he launched into his "Obama wasnt born in America, and is a socialist," rant. I tried to bring the conversation to a higher level like you know, actual policy debate to no avail. He assured me he does a lot of research, and reads a lot. On the Internet.
Another friend recently posted on his facebook that Pres Obama wanted to freeze the pay of the military in his budget. It was a blatantly false accusation that has been widely proven wrong. I used my trusty Snopes to debunk his claims. I had no idea until my friend pointed out that Snopes has a liberal bias. (this is because they point out 2+2=4 when conservatives say 2+2=5) Sure enough I googled it and several sites told me that Snopes was indeed a left wing shill. Of course it was all very right wing sites that pointed this out, and several of them bloggers that no doubt have really studied this...on the internet.
The right for years has made a cottage industry out of making false accusations and perpetuating lies. They have been masterful to discredit anyone that factually corrects them. A college professor teaches economics or public policy and it doesnt square with conservative ideology, well then naturally Universities are a haven of socialism. Not only that they continue to make fun of anyone holding an advanced degree and continue a war on education at all levels. The media reports stories and conducts journalism that flies in the face of their ideology and naturally the media has a liberal bias. This started decades ago but was brought to a new level with shout radio. With the advent of FAUX "news" they reached even more people. But now they have surpassed their wildest dreams through chain emails on the internet.
The large D Democrat in me says go ahead, keep talking about the Pres. being born in Kenya and socialism and we will kick your ass in 2012. Go ahead nominate Bachman or Palin, we'd love it. But the small d democrat in me is disgusted by all of this. Dont tell me that Obama care is socialism, tell me why you think its a bad idea to insure more people and how creating health insurance buying pools (once a Republican idea until Obama liked it) is a bad idea. As a liberal we are constantly trying to raise the level of debate. We are the policy wonks that want to discuss in depth the economic history of America in relationship to tax rates. We want to talk about the science that over 97% of earth scientists are in agreement over. But we find ourselves only debating with ourselves. The other side doesnt believe in science, history or economics. They know better because after all they read it on the internet.
Paul Schwarz
Another friend recently posted on his facebook that Pres Obama wanted to freeze the pay of the military in his budget. It was a blatantly false accusation that has been widely proven wrong. I used my trusty Snopes to debunk his claims. I had no idea until my friend pointed out that Snopes has a liberal bias. (this is because they point out 2+2=4 when conservatives say 2+2=5) Sure enough I googled it and several sites told me that Snopes was indeed a left wing shill. Of course it was all very right wing sites that pointed this out, and several of them bloggers that no doubt have really studied this...on the internet.
The right for years has made a cottage industry out of making false accusations and perpetuating lies. They have been masterful to discredit anyone that factually corrects them. A college professor teaches economics or public policy and it doesnt square with conservative ideology, well then naturally Universities are a haven of socialism. Not only that they continue to make fun of anyone holding an advanced degree and continue a war on education at all levels. The media reports stories and conducts journalism that flies in the face of their ideology and naturally the media has a liberal bias. This started decades ago but was brought to a new level with shout radio. With the advent of FAUX "news" they reached even more people. But now they have surpassed their wildest dreams through chain emails on the internet.
The large D Democrat in me says go ahead, keep talking about the Pres. being born in Kenya and socialism and we will kick your ass in 2012. Go ahead nominate Bachman or Palin, we'd love it. But the small d democrat in me is disgusted by all of this. Dont tell me that Obama care is socialism, tell me why you think its a bad idea to insure more people and how creating health insurance buying pools (once a Republican idea until Obama liked it) is a bad idea. As a liberal we are constantly trying to raise the level of debate. We are the policy wonks that want to discuss in depth the economic history of America in relationship to tax rates. We want to talk about the science that over 97% of earth scientists are in agreement over. But we find ourselves only debating with ourselves. The other side doesnt believe in science, history or economics. They know better because after all they read it on the internet.
Paul Schwarz
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Public Launch of Left Side of Minnesota
Here we go folks we are going public! Brian Wojotalewicz is an attorney and DFL District 20 chair. Carson Starkey is an activist, Iraq war vet, and Law Student. We are also looking for more contributors and suggestions on improvement. Thanks and we hope to start bringing progressive thinking back to Western Minnesota.
Paul Schwarz
Editor Left Side of Minnesota
Paul Schwarz
Editor Left Side of Minnesota
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