[Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

Wed Jan 4 01:55:35 PST 2012

Our country is overtaxed and in debt simply because it refuses to manage its health care system. Allowing for the charging of $10 for a band-aid, $100 for a pill, $1000 for a night stay in a hospital, and not focusing on prevention of illness and disease will bankrupt this country quickly. 60% of our budget is health-care or health-care related, start there.

Not going to war with every Tom, Dick, and Harry that rubs us the wrong way is also a good start to slowing wasteful spending. 

Donovan Arnold

________________________________
 From: Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm>
To: 'keely emerinemix' <kjajmix1 at msn.com>; dickow at turbonet.com; vision2020 at moscow.com 
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 12:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

Thanks, Keely, for your response.  You said it all, I think, but I wanted to add a couple of comments.

Keely wrote:
“The only answer isn't to cut spending.  Cutting waste, bloat, and fraud -- yes.”

The irony, of course, is that to detect fraud in any meaningful way, you have to have sufficient staff to do so.  Given the “government is bad” attitude that permeates & results in funding cuts, spotting fraud just ain’t gonna happen when there aren’t enough “worker bees” to do the basics, let alone look for fraud . . . and I think we all know that the administrative bloat isn’t in any position to look because they are far removed from the source & too busy justifying their personal paycheck bloat.  And, with respect to human services, there’s a ton of fraud that’s happened under the banner of privatization, or has the GOP missed that inconvenient fact in spite of extremely visible instances?

Keely also wrote:
“But vital human services are just that, vital, and are part of not just a social safety net, but a contract between taxpayers and the government to whom they pay those taxes.”

Amen!  One of many things that puzzles me is this attack on Social Security and Medicare & the inane suggestions that they should be privatized.

First, am I the only one whose grandparents told me what it was like for their parents and grandparents before Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid?!  Surely that can’t be the case with all those stalwart “family values” kind of GOPers, can it?

I just had a birthday, so I’ll ‘fess up to just turning 51 – do the math.  I have very clear recollections of three of my five grandparents telling me what life was like for those before Social Security & Medicare – is that knowledge not something everyone in my age group has?  And, each grandparent had stories of this or that unfortunate child/young adult/aged community member turned over to the “state” because the family just couldn’t financially care for them.   As some know, my roots run deep in the midwest & south – these were hard-working, salt of the earth people so frugal they squeaked.  At the time, I was ignorant of politics so never asked, but I think my grandparents were likely Republicans . . . yet they told me of the importance of that “safety net,” and what was the consequence of the absence for other hard-working, salt of the earth people in their generations.

What in the world has happened that those important lessons have been forgotten?!

Second, part of the explanation might be the frank ignorance of the GOP.  Did anyone see 60 Minutes on Sunday when Eric Cantor’s press secretary made an absolute ass of himself insisting that Reagan didn’t raise taxes?  I used the word ‘ignorance’ to be generous; a more logical explanation would be revisionist history of the disgusting kind.  The sad result, though, is that people actually believe that lie.  Please, dear Lord, preserve philosophy & political science classes so our youth at least has a hope of learning the facts rather than listening to crackpots like Cantor, Boehner, Paul, etc., tell blatant lies.

Third, it is completely mind-boggling to me that anyone with a brain cell would continue to advocate the privatization of crucial programs like Medicare & Social Security given the Wall Street crisis & revelations.  I don’t know about anyone else here, but I worked hard, saved, invested “sensibly”  . . . and took a huge financial hit in The Troubles.  It absolutely makes me nauseous to think that my parents & grandparents would been true victims of Wall Street greed had they had to depend on “sensible market” investments – rather than Social Security --  to ensure their retirements, and my heart breaks for those amongst us who bought into that crap.  If folks didn’t learn anything from the private pension fund raids so many hard-working Americans have been victims of, I don’t know that common sense has any hope in this country L

I’ve rambled on too long already, so I’ll wind up with . . .

Keely also wrote:
“Let's assume that good Americans ought to face taxation that's fair, proportional, reasonable and brings in revenue that's spent wisely, building our nation and not tearing down others.  That would seem to be neither a Democratic nor a Republican position -- just a solid, fair, strong and pro-American one.”

Again, amen!

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, the GOP got ordinary people to think paying one’s fair share was a sin while my parents’ & grandparents’ attitudes were that they were very proud of paying their fair shares of taxes to help this nation continue to be great.  Conservative though they may have been, the notion of “off-shoring” jobs to allow some to live in obscene opulence would have been frankly unfathomable to them.  <shaking my head>

JMHO,
Saundra Lund
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
~Edmund Burke

From:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 2:02 PM
To: dickow at turbonet.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care

I spent most of the 1970s sporting a pin that said "Wouldn't it be a great day if schools had the money they needed and the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber?"  A woman can dream, can't she?

No, Paul -- The only answer isn't to cut spending.  Cutting waste, bloat, and fraud -- yes.  But vital human services are just that, vital, and are part of not just a social safety net, but a contract between taxpayers and the government to whom they pay those taxes.  To a large extent, infrastructure maintenance and additions are, too.  Cutting spending in areas and on projects left wallowing because of the eight years of horror that was the Bush administration -- eight years that took us from surplus to debt by waging two wars while slashing tax revenues -- is penny wise and pound foolish.  Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes several times during his administration, also took the richest Americans from a 70 percent income tax to a level half that.  No one wants to go to 70 percent again, but today's pledge-signing GOP wants to give away the farm.  No reasonable person believes that the debt can be addressed without asking those who most  benefit
 both from the liberties preserved by those wars as well as from the tax policies currently in hand to pay a reasonable percentage of their income.  It seems beyond belief that the GOP also believes that overseas profits made by U.S. corporations should be off-limits as well.  I'd love to slash welfare programs and actually RAISE revenue -- that is, do away with policies that coddle the superwealthy and spend wisely the revenue that that attracts.  But don't penalize veterans, students, the elderly, the sick, the unemployed and the already-struggling.  And don't "penalize" the rich -- just respect the needs of the citizenry by asking that they do what the rest of us have to.  

Let's assume that good Americans ought to face taxation that's fair, proportional, reasonable and brings in revenue that's spent wisely, building our nation and not tearing down others.  That would seem to be neither a Democratic nor a Republican position -- just a solid, fair, strong and pro-American one.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

________________________________

From: dickow at turbonet.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:27:30 -0800
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Budget cuts could slash $1B from vets health care
Another solution is the take in more revenue to offset expenses. Since increased taxation seems to be a dirty word, how about car washes and bake sales? We have do it at the community level, in schools, etc, why not the Fed? Shouldn’t the government have a PayPal ‘Donate Now’ button on their website?

Bob Dickow, troublemaker

From:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Paul Rumelhart
<snip>
The simple fact is that we are spending more than we are taking in.  The simplest solution is to stop spending so much.

Paul

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