State of the Union?

“President Bush says, ‘America is addicted to oil.’” That was what I heard as I started my car this morning. I laughed outloud! I guess it was good that I was driving alone.

But it gave me an idea. What else did President Bush say in the State of the Union Address (SOTU)? What was true, what was spin and what hope, if any, can we take from his speech last night?

I am trained in biblical exegesis, so I know that you can take any quote out of context. I have supplied a link to the official version of the SOTU, see the context for yourself. What I would like to do is supply context to what he said, to give him props when I can, and to call him on things that make no sense.

“Today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream.”

Kind and well deserved words for Coretta Scott King who died on Monday.

“In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger. To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of goodwill and respect for one another -- and I will do my part.”

I hope that this signifies that the administration is turning the page. A truly civil, democratic dialogue would be refreshing and good for our country. Keeping Karl Rove around suggests that this is spin, but we shall see. Questioning Rep. Murtha’s patriotism is not exactly civil discourse, so there is need for change from the President, Vice President and others who work for him.

“In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting -- yet it ends in danger and decline.

“The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil.”

Just who is the isolationist? The one who goes to war when most of the world is against it? And, why are there so few mentions of world affairs in SOTU? Aside from terrorism and countries that in the past he has labeled, “The Axis of Evil” he gives few concrete references. No mention of Latin America, where the Bush administration’s policies are failing. No specific mention of Africa? That sure cannot make Bono confident that Bush will keep his promises on debt and HIV.

Secretary Rice deserves credit for patching things up with Europe especially. She has made her mark and perhaps the last four years of Bush’s administration will be less isolationist. Of course, we could use a President who knew the world better and traveled a bit more.

“Along the way, we have benefitted from responsible criticism and counsel offered by members of Congress of both parties. In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet, there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. (Applause.) Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy. (Applause.)”

“Strategy?” Hello! Was there a strategy in going into Iraq? Did anyone plan for the predicted insurgency? Were our troops given the proper armor and equipment? I heard an interesting presentation from The Commonwealth Club this week. It was apparently taped in December and featured several service men and women who had returned from Iraq. One, a woman, was there at the beginning. All she had was a Kevlar vest. She had to buy her own body armor. Their Humvees, she said, were about 20 years old and pretty beaten up. They were also not well armored. Another, a man, had arrived about 18 months after her. He said they had good equipment including, “Up armored Humvees,” which were pretty, “Robust.” Did the public outcry about armor cause the Pentagon to correct bad planning?

“The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace. (Applause.)”

The results of the Palestinian election point to the failure of Bush administration policy, and bias toward Israel. We need a more balanced policy that calls for justice on both sides.

“Our work in Iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal….Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning. (Applause.)”

In some ways winning in Iraq is irrelevant. Are we winning the “War on Terrorism?” Iraq has been a diversion; have we caught Osama? Because we are in Iraq there are hundreds more terrorists, a decentralized command structure that will be harder to root out and we have provided a training ground in terrorist technology.

“It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack –- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed. The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again. (Applause.)”

The President came to Buffalo in April 2004. He lied to about 500 law enforcement officers. He said, “Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires _ a wiretap requires a court order. "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." Why did he need to lie if he had the constitutional and legal authority to order wiretaps?

“Our economy is healthy and vigorous, and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs -- more than Japan and the European Union combined. (Applause.)”

The President conveniently fails to note that this 1.5% job growth is low for comparable stages of economic cycles. He also fails to tell you that only the top 5% of families experienced any real wage growth on his watch. Are his tax cuts working? They are only if you are among the very rich.

“Tonight I will set out a better path: an agenda for a nation that competes with confidence; an agenda that will raise standards of living and generate new jobs. Americans should not fear our economic future, because we intend to shape it.”

OK! I am waiting for him to shape the economy in this world of global competition in ways that are fair to American workers. How is he going to help American industry to compete? Is his healthcare reform going to help?

“We must also confront the larger challenge of mandatory spending, or entitlements. This year, the first of about 78 million baby boomers turn 60, including two of my Dad's favorite people -- me and President Clinton. (Laughter.) This milestone is more than a personal crisis -- (laughter) -- it is a national challenge. The retirement of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices -- staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending. ‘Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security -- (applause) -- yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away. (Applause.) And every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.

“So tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This commission should include members of Congress of both parties, and offer bipartisan solutions. We need to put aside partisan politics and work together and get this problem solved. (Applause.)”

Thank God and some smart Congresspersons who saw that Bush’s plan to “personalize” Social Security did not solve the problem of solvency of the Social Security Trust. So, we need another commission? I hope it is truly bipartisan, has no one on it that is afraid of getting bounced from office, and has some guts. It is a good way to dodge the issue for a few more years. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

“Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care. (Applause.) Our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly,and we are meeting that responsibility. (Applause.) For all Americans -- for all Americans, we must confront the rising cost of care, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, and help people afford the insurance coverage they need. (Applause.)

“We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology, to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors. We will strengthen health savings accounts -- making sure individuals and small business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get. (Applause.) We will do more to make this coverage portable, so workers can switch jobs without having to worry about losing their health insurance. (Applause.) And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice -- leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB/GYN -- I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year. (Applause.)”

Well they cut Medicaid. Medicare prescription drug plan is a disaster, good thing he did not brag about it in the speech. Medical insurance accounts. Give me a break! Does he have any sense of decency and understanding about the poor, the working poor, and the average American who works from paycheck to paycheck? We need real healthcare reform, and yes the poor need real protection as does the middle class family that can be wiped out with one hospitalization. Oh, tort reform, like that for the gun manufacturers that takes away all responsibility and gives them a free ride?

“America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”

Who knew? How much are we paying this guy to tell us the obvious?

“To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy. (Applause.) “Breakthroughs on this and other new
technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. (Applause.) By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment,move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past. (Applause.)”

Let’s see if we get some real proposals and the money to back them up here. I am no expert, but so far there is no such thing as clean coal. If we can make zero emission coal happen, we may have something. Nuclear? You have got to be kidding!

“Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy, and to give our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science. (Applause.)”

“Every Child Left Behind” gives me absolutely no confidence that Bush will fund any of his educational mandates. They have it so convenient in Washington; you pass a law, then fail to authorize the funding. You then brag about it for four more years.

“A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust. (Applause.) Honorable people in both parties are working on reforms to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington -- I support your efforts. Each of us has made a pledge to be worthy of public responsibility -- and that is a pledge we must never forget, never dismiss, and never betray. (Applause.)”

Both parties are sinners here. Let’s not talk about lobby reform, let’s talk about congressional ethic reform.

"In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country. The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child, and job skills that bring upward mobility, and more opportunities to own a home and start a business. As we recover from a disaster, let us also work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity. (Applause.)"

Mr. President, talking about this after the disaster and in the SOTU is not enough. Put the money on the table. Your current budget proposals leave out 140,000 homeowners.

Another Outrage

Their neighbors knew. The New York Times knew. But it took four months for John David Allen’s parents to find out he was dead and to recover his ashes and those of his wife. They were about to be, “disposed of.”

Allen’s parents got no answers when they called the Red Cross; too busy with the living to list the dead. Worse yet, FEMA had, “no information,” for months. Finally Allen’s father asked, “Where do you take the bodies?” He was told to call the local coroner. He finally got an answer. The coroner’s office had known for two months. The bodies of John David Allen and Susan his wife had been cremated.

When questioned by the media about this shameful episode, FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said it was the local medical examiner's job to call next of kin. If that does not work? They might have ''some discussion in the future of ensuring that the local coroner has the ability to do that.''

''We grieve with this family,'' he said.

Hello, is anyone home?

Why? With all the technology available today, why would the coroner and FEMA not have a central list? Why after being told that “Brownie” was, “doing a great job,” is there still so much incompetence in an agency that is integral to our response not only to natural disasters, but to terrorist attacks?

The Bush administration thought that FEMA was unimportant. Because of their radical ideology, they thought that disaster response was the work of faith-based (read churches) groups. Even after 9/11/2001, they downplayed FEMA’s work. They gutted the agency and replaced disaster professionals with political cronies. After all, Brown knew Arabian horses!

It is part of a pattern driven by the Bushies right wing ideology. Conservatives think that government is part of the problem giving us things like welfare fraud and lack of personal responsibility. To those who think I am a conspiracy theorist I offer a quote from a conservative guru, Grover Norquist. He says, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." So FEMA became one of their targets. What they gave us was shameful incompetence in the face of tragedy.

There is something ironic about this administration. They are social conservatives, even fundamentalists, but they are not true conservatives in the classic sense. They have not made government smaller and leaner. They have created bloat and deficits for as far as the eye can see. Don’t take my word for it; read George Will the columnist, he is fed up. Now there is a smart conservative!

Although the conversation may never be resolved, I welcome a discussion of the proper role of government. I get frustrated and indignant when the Bush administration cuts away at vital programs without public debate. Not that we should expect dialogue! This administration excludes alternative viewpoints and cordons opponents behind distant barricades whenever Bush appears.

What are proper government roles?

Faith-based groups have been nothing short of heroic in the face of the Katrina tragedy. My own brother was in the Gulf Coast region for about a week with a church group. There is a place for disaster response by churches, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and other charities.

However, they cannot provide the overall management that must be the responsibility of government, specifically FEMA. Each level of government; municipality, state and federal have their roles. When a major disaster strikes, someone should have a plan and someone should know who is in charge. FEMA has to know what the plan is and FEMA bears the burden of coordination. Only the federal government can bring enough resources to bear, both on the eve of impending disaster, and in the aftermath.

It seems to me that there are two issues here. First, we need a public dialogue about government roles. We could use the help of Congress here. Second, we need competence in government, not cronyism. Maybe we should hire some of the professionals who run their churches better than this crowd runs our government.

Now, if we could get the other party to see the light and provide a vision for change.

Take That Wal Mart!

Legislators in Maryland took a novel approach to Health Care reform yesterday. Both the Senate and the House voted (registration necessary) to require that an employer with more than 10,000 employees spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care for their workers. Absent the 8% the employer must make a contribution to the state’s Medicaid program.

Apparently Wal Mart is the only company known to meet the criteria of the bill. Legislators seem fed up with Wal Mart’s corporate policy to finance “Always Low Prices” on the back of low wage associates. As many as half must take Medicaid because their wages are too low to afford health insurance. “The taxpayers are giving a health-care subsidy to the largest retailer on earth,” according to Democratic Kumar Havre who voted for the bill. The vote on Thursday, January 12, 2006 provided an override of governor Robert Ehrlich’s May 2005 veto.

Certainly Wal Mart should be a better corporate citizen. Did they not once advertise that they sold “Made in America?” Now what they sell is made in China because they chase after the lowest possible price and they pay the lowest possible wage. One can hardly blame Maryland’s legislators for being tired of a giant who feeds off the public trough by forcing their workers to take Medicaid. Their shady employment practices have included denial of lunch breaks and mandatory overtime off the clock.

Is this law good public policy? Why should a person’s employer be responsible for her health insurance? True, union efforts led to health insurance coverage in many industries during the previous century. Union members are justifiably proud of contracts that include complete health care coverage and other benefits.

However, we live in a world of global competition and giants such as Delphi and their former parent General Motors are beginning to choke on the competitive burden of health care. Face it; health care in the U.S. is broken. Just this past week I visited a high-rise office building owned by a local health insurer. Each person in that building is part of our health care system, but not one of them is providing health care, either preventative or curative. Instead they are pushing papers and interfering in doctors’ lives:

"Above all, a large part of America's health care spending goes into paperwork. A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administrative costs took 31 cents out of every dollar the United States spent on health care, compared with only 17 cents in Canada." (Paul Krugman, NY Times Op Ed Columnist, April 15, 2005)

President George W. Bush believes that global competition is good, that it will engender jobs in the end. Low paying jobs, that is. No wonder he has admitted that he does not understand the struggles of the poor. He was born not only with a silver spoon, but also with a free pass to the oval office. It is time that our government did something to protect the American way of life and stop the shrinking of the middle class. Health Care must be one of the first priorities in this effort.

The American worker and her family don’t have time to wait for the federal government to fix health care. Krugman points to ideology and vested interests as the two barriers to real reform in the Washington of the Republicans. So, the Maryland approach to corporate leeches has one thing going for it. The fix must begin at the state level. Thirty other states are reportedly watching Maryland closely on this one. You could also look at Kansas where Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius recently unveiled CommunityRx Kansas, to make medications more affordable to lower income citizens. Like Maryland’s efforts these are just beginnings.

I am no expert on health care reform, but I am working on learning all I can. What I have learned so far follows.

First, we need to begin at the state level as Maryland has done. We may be able to bring change to Washington, DC but it will take too much time. I am a member of the Working Families Party of New York (see my links). The party has made health care reform in our state our focus for this year.

Second, and this pains, we will have to have some private sector involvement. My Aunt, who spent her life in health care and was married to a physician, would kill me if I called for single carrier coverage by the government. Nevertheless, I believe that the richest country in the world should not have 46 million uninsured, many of them children. So, given the current political climate, the pragmatic approach is to involve the private sector. One caveat, we have got to get the administrative costs down.

Third, there needs to be some incentive for individuals to control the costs of their own care. Choose generic drugs instead of pricey new pharmaceuticals and visit the doctor regularly but not too often. Such choices should be a personal responsibility and rewarded in some way to help keep costs down.

Fourth we can no longer put the burden of health insurance on the employer alone. Toyota is building a new plant in Canada at least partly because of the stability of health care there. Global competition is by nature an unlevel playing field. To protect the American middle class and care for those most in need, we need to view health care reform as a national priority.

We also need to be proactive and speak for the poor laborer in China to ensure human rights and equity in the global marketplace.

I owe some of these ideas, including the one about involving the private sector to the Progressive Policy Institute. If you are interested in further study, check out the link at the end of this post.

No Respect!

Rodney Dangerfield said, “I don’t get no respect!”

Jim Rice could say the same thing and occasionally did in his younger days. With 382 home runs, 2,452 hits, 1,451 RBIs and a .298 lifetime average, Rice missed the Hall of Fame today. He played in 2,089 games from 1974 to 1989. According Boston Red Sox historian Dick Bresciani, Rice’s numbers exceed all players active in his time frame.

In his rookie year (1975) he hit 22 home runs and batted .309 with an on base percentage of .350. We need some perspective here. The steroid-fueled home run totals of the ‘90’s cannot be compared. On any other team that went to the series (I am not going there) Jim Rice would have been MVP. Trouble was he arrived the same year another young outfielder did. Freddy Lynn was both Rookie of the Year and MVP with numbers a bit better than his.

Fred Lynn had a good career, but not near as good a career as Rice, who stayed with the Red Sox for the duration.

Today he received 64.8 percent of the vote. Each year he has gained votes keeping him on the ballot. But, next year Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken will be on the ballot. They will go in their first year.

There will also be a guy named Mark McGwire on next year’s ballot. He will have to await his fate.

Jim Rice don’t get no respect. He belongs in the Hall!