So the GOP made sure they gave big, fat tax cuts to the already-wealthy in the nation but now want to cut unemployment benefits from this. the worst, most killing pandemic and also worst economic crisis since the Great Depression because, I guess, the unemployed make and have too much money?
Not done there, of course, they add this little beauty.
The United States is different. In nearly every other high-income country, people have both become richer over the last three decades and been able to enjoy substantially longer lifespans.
But not in the United States. Even as average incomes have risen, much of the economic gains have gone to the affluent — and life expectancy has risen only three years since 1990. There is no other developed country that has suffered such a stark slowdown in lifespans.
...Nothing illuminates the problems with an employer-based health care system quite like massive unemployment in the middle of a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease outbreak. For one thing, uninsured people are less likely to seek medical care, making this coronavirus that much more difficult to contain. Also, people with chronic or immune-compromising medical conditions are particularly susceptible to this new contagion — which means the people most in need of employer-sponsored health benefits are the same ones who can least afford to return to work at the moment.
“The pandemic has amplified all the vulnerabilities in our health care system,” says Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, including “the uninsured, racial disparities, the crisis of unmanaged chronic conditions and the general lack of national planning.”
So there's just a short list of articles that I think are important to us, to Americans, to the entire nation, along with this one video from Professor Reich.
We have fixing to do, America. Let's get out, vote, vote blue and get to the hard work of more justice and equality.
It will make us all, it will make the nation, stronger.
"Since the start of the pandemic, collective U.S. billionaire wealth has surged by more than $584 billion, while $6.5 trillion in household wealth has disappeared. That's according to an Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness analysis published on Friday which stated that the U.S. billionaire class saw its wealth climb 20% between March 18 and June 17 with 29 new billionaires added to the total. Using Forbes data, the analysis found that the total net worth of the 643 U.S. billionaires climbed from $2.9 trillion to $3.5 trillion. During the same period, 45.5 million Americans filed for unemployment."
The first thing you need to know about the very rich is that they are, politically, different from you and me. Don’t be fooled by the handful of prominent liberal or liberal-ish billionaires; systematic studies of the politics of the ultrawealthy show that they are very conservative, obsessed with tax cuts, opposed to environmental and financial regulation, eager to cut social programs.
The second thing you need to know is that the rich often get what they want, even when most of the public want the opposite...
Why do a small number of rich people exert so much influence in what is supposed to be a democracy? Campaign contributions are only part of the story. Equally if not more important is the network of billionaire-financed think tanks, lobbying groups and so on that shapes public discourse. And then there’s the revolving door: It’s depressingly normal for former officials from both parties to take jobs with big banks, corporations and consulting firms, and the prospect of such employment can’t help but influence policy while they’re still in office.
Last but not least, media coverage of policy issues all too often seems to reflect the views of the wealthy. We're got to work our way out of this mess, these messes.
To what other conclusion can one come about AARP, ostensibly named the "American Association for Retired People" than that they are useless, ineffectual?
Sure, you can get discounts to buy things if you want, if you join as a member but when it comes down to representing, really representing those "retired people", do they do anything?
When one political party in this nation not only comes out for taking funds from even just Social Security, let alone Medicare and then Medicaid, too, all so already-wealthy people can get still more of the nation's wealth, does the AARP do anything? Do they speak up? Do they attack even the IDEA of depleting the Social Security fund, let alone the political party that wants to do this?
Oh, hell no.
No, they don't.
Not only do they not attack the idea or the person proposing it or the idea, AARP does----nothing.
And it's not that this has only happened once that a person in that political party has tried attacking, depleting the Social Security fund, as just one example, it keeps happening, again and again, over the years.
AARP?
Silent. Deafeningly silent. Not a word.
If you're a member and get their magazine in the mail, what are the articles about? Some examples:
--Commit Yourself to an Exercise Routine
--Get Financial Advice Without Going Broke
--Test Your Knowledge of Voting Facts
--Find the Best Health Care Where You Live
And this one. I love this next one:
--Why a Vacation Might Make You Feel Better
Like we need an article for that.
All no doubt fine articles but let me say this again---ONE POLITICAL PARTY IS REPEATEDLY, OVER THE YEARS, WORKING, FIGHTING TO DEPLETE THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND.
And if you're an AARP member, you wouldn't know it.
It's almost as though they don't want to upset or alienate any people in that political party--let's go ahead and say it---Republicans, either members or, God forbid, members of Congress.
Sure, don't upset any Republican or Republicans, even though they vote and have voted, time and again, to drain the Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid funds for other purposes.
And the latest use or attempted use of Social Security funds?
Well, those pesky Republicans voted for TAX CUTS FOR THE ALREADY-WEALTHY AND CORPORATIONS earlier this year. It's blowing up the deficit so THEY WANT TO TAKE MONEY FROM SOCIAL SECURITY and what they call "entitlements" to pay for those now deficits. Don't believe it? Check out the very recent headline:
You would think that, since they're supposed to be for retired people--it is in their name, after all--that each and every time a politician, any politician, from any party, even mentioned, once, aloud, draining the Social Security fund or Medicare or Medicaid, that that same organization would be screaming bloody murder to its members to, for heaven sake, contact their representative and express their disbelief and strong support for these programs.
But AARP?
Not a word. Never. Not a peep.
But if you want a tote bag with your new membership and 5% off your next purchase of some tchotchke or a roadside atlas or advice on why you might enjoy a vacation, well, then, AARP is just the group for you.
The Democratic Party, which helped build our system of inverted totalitarianism, is once again held up by many on the left as the savior. Yet the party steadfastly refuses to address the social inequality that led to the election of Trump and the insurgency by Bernie Sanders. It is deaf, dumb and blind to the very real economic suffering that plagues over half the country. It will not fight to pay workers a living wage. It will not defy the pharmaceutical and insurance industries to provide Medicare for all. It will not curb the voracious appetite of the military that is disemboweling the country and promoting the prosecution of futile and costly foreign wars. It will not restore our lost civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from government surveillance, and due process. It will not get corporate and dark money out of politics. It will not demilitarize our police and reform a prison system that has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners although the United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population. It plays to the margins, especially in election seasons, refusing to address substantive political and social problems and instead focusing on narrow cultural issues like gay rights, abortion and gun control in our peculiar species of anti-politics.
So many in America call out the poor as "moochers" and the programs for them as unnecessary and even wasteful. They say having these "welfare programs" keep them poor and "enables" them to be and stay poor.
Being Sunday, I think it an especially good day to examine just what and who the poor are and what, exactly, they do.
They built it. The country was literally built on the backs of poor immigrants and slaves. To this day, construction workers are some of the hardest working people in the country, yet their average wage is only $50,000 per year, which includes management. People that maintain the roads driven by the wealthy (and everyone else) are paid only $30,000 per year.
They care for our children. The average nanny is paid only about $30,000 per year, usually without benefits.
They teach our children. The average teacher makes around $45,000 a year, which might not sound poor, but for that salary, most positions require advanced degrees.
They make the world beautiful. It would be difficult to determine the average salary of an artist, but very few of even the most talented artists achieve financial success.
They inform and entertain. Writers, actors and filmmakers are just as likely to live in poverty as visual artists.
They create. Inventors are often poorly paid for their inventions, if paid at all.
They are entrepreneurs. Two thirds of startup businesses fail. Many of them fail because they were simply out financed (think the big coffee chain moving on to the same corner as the independent coffee house).
They keep our world clean. People that do the dirtiest jobs are notoriously some of the least paid, yet can you imagine a world without people emptying our trash and cleaning our toilets?
They keep you alive. Without poor people, produce would rot in the fields. There would be no goods on the shelves. There would be no store clerks to sell them to you. Most Americans would most likely starve.
They fight for our country. The average starting salary of enlisted personnel is about $30,000 per year.
They save the world. Many of history’s most selfless people live their lives in or near poverty. They join the Peace Corps. They work for or start charitable organizations.
They pay their taxes. Much is made of the statistic that between 40 and 50 percent of people don’t pay federal income tax. That is typically because they are too poor. But even if they don’t pay federal income tax, they pay taxes. They pay Social Security taxes. They pay state taxes. They pay the identical sales tax on food and clothing as their wealthy brethren. They pay identical gasoline taxes as their more fortunate counterparts. Unlike the wealthy, taxes deeply impact the well being of the poor, yet, unlike the wealthy, they are unable to take advantage of the loopholes that were designed to specifically benefit the wealthy.
What have the poor ever done for this country?
Everything.
Of course, we can debate the definition of the word, “poor”, but the fact is that the gap between the people that have the most and the people that have the least is growing. People are not becoming less valuable. They are simply getting paid less.
It needs to be said, pointed out and emphasized just what this new AHCA, "Trumpcare" is, at its heart. It is, at its core, not concerned with heath care virtually at all. If it were, more Americans would be assured of having health insurance, not less.
No, at it's core, this is yet one more, again, Republican Party, Right Wing money grab for the already-wealthy.
Warren Buffett famously said it so right and this, some years ago.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Missourians got, in effect, a pay cut when their new, Republican, pretty boy Governor, Eric Greitens and his fellow Republicans put in their "Right to Work" legislation recently. This just makes it that much tougher for the middle- and lower-classes to get, have and keep health insurance.
I've been heartened this morning over what I've seen out in the world today of opposition already to this monstrous "wealthcare" bill the Republicans created. Here is just some of that opposition.
According to this page of Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper, "Over 50 organizations oppose the proposed healthcare plan that will make Americans will pay more for less. The list includes nurses, doctors, hospitals, teachers, churches, and more."
And thank goodness.
Here are just some of those organization from this link.
Fortunately, even some Republicans in Congress realize this bill is a virtual train wreck, even for themselves, let alone us out here, their constituents.
The fact that they created this healthcare stealing, tax giveaway to the already-wealthy is bad and scary enough. Fortunately, the light of day and information about it is swiftly creating opposition to it.
And rightly so.
Please contact your Congressional representative, especially any Republican. Tell them you're against this AHCA of theirs, that it takes away health care options from Americans--because it does--while it gives yet more tax cuts to the already-wealthy and corporations.
Senator Blunt, one of our two Senators here in Missouri, posted on Facebook today. What he posted is not just a lie but it makes me angry. What he wrote: Obamacare is imploding. In Missouri, premiums on the Obamacare exchanges have increased by 145 percent, on average, since 2013, and 25 counties may have no provider offering health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year.
That's what he says and what Republicans in that political party want us to believe but here are the facts.
First, Obamacare is anything but "imploding."
If you already have money, here's yet one more plan--and a great one--for you. If you're sick or get sick or you're elderly or disabled or a Veteran?
It sucks to be you.
So while the rich get even richer, more Americans would be dropped from heath care insurance, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office or CBO.
So, it seems clear here, given all the above, that Senator Blunt and any and all like him who would say or are saying that Obamacare is collapsing in on itself and/or that Americans don't want or don't like Obamacare clearly don't know the facts or, especially, the wishes of the American people.
Don't tell us it's raining, Senator Blunt. We know better.
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