Federal Government

Medicaid Expansion And State Governors: Reaction Based On Party Affiliation!

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The federal government has offered to cover Medicaid expansion for the poor and uninsured in 2014 and after, because otherwise, millions of Americans will have no health care coverage, and that will increase the number of serious illnesses and deaths long term.

But predictably, and sadly, we find most Republican Governors refusing to expand their Medicaid system, including Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, Jan Brewer of Arizona, Paul LePage of Maine, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, among others.

Meanwhile, most Democratic Governors, including Andrew Cuomo of New York, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Dan Malloy of Connecticut, Martin O’Malley of Maryland , Jack Markell of Delaware, Mark Dayton Of Minnesota, Pat Quinn Illinois, and Jerry Brown of California, among others, have made it clear they will expand the Medicaid coverage.

The contrast is startling, as GOP Governors, following in tune with the Republican House and Senate minority members, are in lockstep, making it clear they will not support expanded medical coverage, as part of their plan to wipe out ObamaCare, despite the Supreme Court decision last month!

The fact that the federal government would pay most of the costs, an estimated $931 billion through 2022, with the states only having to pay $73 billion, has had no effect on the Republican Governors!

Rush Limbaugh’s Attack On Government, Media, Academia, And Science: The Promotion Of “Know Nothingism”!

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Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the largest, in all ways, of windbags, who loves to divide America, on the road to further enrichment of his massive fortune, is at it again, but what else is new?

Limbaugh now claims that America has four enemies within its midst: the federal government, the news media, the academic community, and the field of science!

Limbaugh has no problem with the hypocrisy of organized religion; the corruption of Wall Street and the massive corporate influence; the massive rise in the national debt under George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and others in the past three decades; and the tremendous costs of constant warfare overseas in the past decade, and its effect on military personnel’s physical and mental health.

Limbaugh is disturbed if the government does anything to deal with the disaster visited upon the middle class and the poor by the events of the past decade. He is also upset that the news media have the gall to expose the evils and problems that exist, due to the deleterious influence of the Republicans in the past ten years. Of course, academia is seen as evil because it actually promotes knowledge, learning, interpretation, analysis, thinking–all characteristics which Rush Limbaugh lacks! And rather than look at science as something to be respected, instead Rush promotes corporate greed which undermines the future of our environment and planet long term.

Rush Limbaugh is an extremely obscene individual who revels in promotion of ignorance, prejudice, narrow mindedness and hatred, and is only out for his own aggrandizement! When will his audience wake up and realize the truth, and that he has no concern for those who listen to him, except to glorify his own ego and enhance his own fortune?

Will people ever learn and see the truth? One would hope so!

Rick Perry And Michele Bachmann Both Claim They Hate The Federal Government They Want To Lead, But Both Have Benefited From Federal Money While In Office!

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Governor Rick Perry of Texas and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann both are favorites of the Tea Party crowd, and like that radical, anarchistic group, they both rail against the “evil” federal government that they wish to lead!

At the same time they are condemning, both have benefited from the federal government they despise!

Rick Perry has been very willing to take economic stimulus money, while claiming earlier that he would refuse to take it, and that money has helped Texas to be able to create more jobs than any other state! Of course, population growth, and the fact that Texas has the second largest population, fueled a lot of the economic expansion, with much of it being from military expenditures, the space program, and the stimulus money. But even with all that, the unemployment rate is not low, being 26th in the nation, at 8.4 percent and rising, and many of the new non government jobs are minimum wage! But without these advantages, Texas would not be able to brag falsely that it is a great success story of private enterprise!

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann, who worked for the Internal Revenue Service for years, and works now in a federal job in the House of Representatives, has been able to get federal funding for her family farm, federal Medicare money for her husband’s psychological counseling center for gays, and a federally guaranteed loan for a home purchase, even though she condemns federal housing loans!

So both are totally hypocrites and liars, just sowing distrust of a federal government which has benefited them, as it does millions upon millions of Americans every day, and which is essential in the modern 21st century world!

Death Of Alexander Hamilton On This Day In 1804: What Would He Think Of The Debt Ceiling Crisis?

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On this day, 207 years ago, in 1804, former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was killed in a gun duel with Vice President Aaron Burr!

The tragedy of this bright, intelligent, brilliant man, who made such a dramatic difference in our history, dying at the young age of 47, still reverberates through our nation, as we desperately need a financial genius such as Hamilton to resolve our financial difficulties, where we are on the brink of default of our debt payments by August 2, unless cooler heads prevail and a compromise is reached!

Would Hamilton be proud of the Republican Party refusal to consider any tax adjustments, reforms, or increases, when the tax rate is the lowest it has been since the 1940s, and our greatest prosperity came during the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, when the tax rates were as high as 91 percent under Eisenhower, and were dropped to 70 percent under JFK?

Hamilton, who believed in the power of the federal government, would be appalled at the states rights emphasis reviving today, as if there was no Civil War to resolve that matter!

He would be shocked at the ignorance of Republican leaders and supporters who feel no loyalty to the country, but only to their own selfish, greedy personal desires!

Hamilton revived the American economy 220 years ago when it was in desperate circumstances, making certain that all debts were paid!

It would be ironic if now we saw our nation declare bankruptcy, which will damage the nation and its citizens for generations to come, all over refusal to promote what the definition of politics is, that it is “the art of compromise”!

The Transportation Infrastructure Crisis In America’s Future

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The United States became the nation it is today because of the development of transportation infrastructure, highlighted by the transcontinental railroad system in the middle and late 19th century, and the interstate highway system of the middle and late 20th century, along with the growth of cities and mass transit.

Now, a century and more later, with growing population and the aging of the infrastructure, there is a dire need for renovation and rehabilitation of our transportation network, but the cost will be substantial, and the trend is toward delay and avoidance of the responsibility of our government at all levels to deal with the essential rebuilding and expansion of our transportation network.

With the Republicans in control in the House, it seems as if there will be major cuts in spending on infrastructure, estimated to be a one third cut on interstate highways and mass transit, and attempting to end federal support of the Amtrak train system in the Northeastern United States.

It is estimated by experts that $1 trillion needs to be spent on maintenance and growing demand with increased population, and this does not include the estimated $2 trillion necessary to rebuild roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems, and dams that have reached the normal level of longevity. These estimates do not even include the cost of air transportation investments for the long term future.

The US is way behind investment in the area of infrastructure, as compared to Russia, China, India, and Brazil, and the economic competition of the future will be shaped by decisions made now, often in a short sighted momentary way, to our tremendous need for investment in large amounts.

Are we again to wait until there is a literal short term crisis to react to the reality of what needs to be done? Is the answer just to patch up with band aids, rather than to face the responsibility of dealing with the future now, rather than later, when it will be more expensive?

The reality is that lack of action will cause state and local governments to raise sales and property taxes to deal with what the federal government has reneged on, and it will also lead to more privatization of services, which will also cause much higher taxation down the road, no pun intended!

There is an old saying that applies here: “Penny wise, Pound foolish”!

State Budgets And The Link To Federal Stimulus Funds

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It is truly ironic that in a time of tremendous stress for all state budgets, it is the federal stimulus money passed a year ago by Congress, with the urging of President Barack Obama, that is “saving” many states on cutting teachers, firefighters, police officers, prison guards, and state government agency workers!

For instance, the state of Florida, seemingly hellbent on becoming as reactionary in government policies as South Carolina and Texas and Mississippi, seems unwilling to attribute their final state budget to the help of the federal government, but if it was not for $3 billion in federal money, there would have been no way to deal with state problems in a fairly reasonable way!

Not that what Florida and other states are receiving this year is adequate enough, as already there are hints in various counties in Florida, and other counties in other states, that there will be an education crisis, law enforcement emergency, and public safety shortcomings!

Despite all the attacks on the federal government, it seems clear that another economic stimulus is essential to keep the states afloat in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression!

What it comes down to, again, is that the states “hate” federal intervention, but in the modern world since the Great Depression and World War II, it has been unavoidable that the national government must play a major role in the lives of all Americans!