Federal government of the United States :slashingtongue

Why Howard Dean is right

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 5:36 pm  
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We have not talked about health care for a while on this site. But this I cannot ignore. We have said it for a long time and this time I am being echoed by Governor (Dr.) Howard Dean months later : No public option; Kill the Bill!

In a segment with the ever so boring Dylan Ratigan, Governor Howard Dean basically threatened to stop sending in money to the respective Democratic committees in Congress if they do not have a bill in it that has a public option.

Looking back, we know that not nominating him is the biggest mistake that the Democrats ever made. They overlooked a governor that is a proven success and a person that is well informed in 2004, and they picked a long-jaw douche-bag named Senator John Kerry. So not only are the politicians pathetic, their far left voting base in the primaries are pathetic too.

Coming back to health care, I stress that this is the most important part of health care reform : the public option. The biggest problem with the health care cost in our country is cost. That should be the primary objective. And yet, our politicians came up with just one solution to curb costs : public option. (For Republican readers, I would explain in paragraphs below why their idea of buying across state lines would not work.)

Without the public option, there would be a mandate for the public to have health insurance to drive up demand and there is no other counter measure to keep the cost down. Therefore, we are literally throwing our money to the insurance companies with the Bill.

With the public option, there would be pressure to keep the price of the insurance down. If the insurance companies charge us too much, people would switch their plans to the public option which is non profit. It is not very difficult to understand the public option actually.

The Republican proposal of allowing customers to buy across state lines would not work. For it to work, there need to be national rules and guidelines. For example, in football, the rules in Saint Louis is the same as that in Dallas. If you cannot spit at the referee in Dallas, you cannot do it anywhere else.
The rules need to be the same, else you would have all the companies flocking to the state with the lowest amount of regulation. That is the case for the Credit Card companies.

So why can’t there be a national rule: The tenth amendment which guarantees states rights. With that, the federal government cannot force local governments to conform with other states on these issues. Even if our politicians want it, it would be very tricky. I also do not want it to go down that path as I think states rights are very important in our country.

A way around the Republican proposal is the idea that we in ST put up months ago. Allow the foreigners to flood the market. If the Japanese can make cars here, they can also sell their insurance, which is much more cheaper than ours, here. If Indian companies can create for us computer programs, they should also sell their insurances over here. Then let the competition begin!

Though, I hate it when politicians make threats when they can, in this case I am with Governor Dean. The Democrats should not receive any party donations if they cannot fulfill what the people want. A health care bill without the public option would wreck our country and make our lives much tougher than it already is.

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Public option compromise

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 7:59 am  
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A new version of the “public option” has been released. Now, it is going to allow states to decide whether they want the public option or other wise. This has been backed by Governor Howard Dean, the ex-Governor of Vermont.

I have always been jittery when it comes to the clause of the public option in the health care reform bill. I think it is way too close to single payer universal health-care. Though I am not against single-payer universal health-care, I think that we should try all other alternatives first.

However, both parties did not even make an inkling of a suggestion to increase the competition other than the public option. That was all that they could come up with. Hence, when the public option was removed from the bill, I decided to oppose the bill and think that we should kill it.

Right now, there is a compromise being chiseled out by Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Carper. It is a very simple thing, if you really feel that your state does not want “government in health-care”; your state can opt-out and let other states that want it keep it. It is incredibly straight forward.

That being said, I think that there should be an additional condition to this option. Right now, if you go to the emergency room and you cannot pay for your operation as you do not have health insurance, it would be the Federal Government that has to foot the bill. They cannot just let you die.

Lets assume that this clause is passed, and some states passed public option and some other states did not. If you were a citizen of a State that does not have the public option, you do not have health insurance and you need to go the emergency room, there is a higher chance that the Federal government has to step in. Why should the I, via my federal taxes, be paying for another State’s irresponsibility?

Therefore, should this compromise of the health-care bill be passed, I think that the cost of uninsured health care should be passed on to the States. In that way, whether they have the public option or not, they pay for it. The federal government should lower taxes and the states would increase the taxes. Overall, it should not effect us financially.

I think that the continued opposition to this really underlines how much potential the public option has to be successful. The Republicans fear that this would over time force their states to also adopt the public option. Do you really think that all the 60% of the people in the poll that support the public option are liberals?

When California has the public option and people start to receive health-care as a result of it, don’t you think Arizonans would demand that their state have it too? They know that it would lead to the public option coming up in all the states. In fact, people like me think that it could even lead to a single payer system in the future.

An additional benefit to that is that the State would also be interested in preventive measures so that they can save money. They would rather invest in fitness regimes for children rather than paying their bills when they are older. It is much easier to execute this at a state or local even level rather than the federal government being involved in it.

However, as of now, there is no movement of this new public option plan. Until it has passed the committee votes, I would not be calling for support to kill this bill!

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Another terror plot uncovered : Good job FBI

Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 6:31 pm  
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Yet another terror plot has been uncovered in America. This time there was a Jordanian and a local American Muslim convert wanted to blow up buildings in Illinois and Texas respectively. They seem to be separate incidents and that America was saved yet again by the brilliance of the FBI.

A 19 year old teenager named Hosam Maher Husein Smadi wanted to bomb the Fountain Place in Texas on September the 20th. He was also an illegal immigrant. Though, there were no official words from news stations, I wonder if there was intention of it being carried out on Eid, Islam’s holiest day. He was caught when he told an undercover agent his plans over chat lines.

There are several things I have to say about this capture. Firstly, how dim is this novice? Boasting about what he intended to do to someone he had never met! For that reason, I really doubt that this guy is really linked to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda members would not have made these kinds of simple mistakes.

Secondly, there is also the issue of immigration being a national security concern. He could have come from the Canadian or Mexican border illegally and overstayed his stay here. Even though he resides in Texas, I believe that he could have crossed from the Canadian border which is much more porous than the Mexican one. I have always believed that we need to have fences on BOTH sides of our borders. However, I do not support closing either border.

The Illinois case though is the one that sends a chill down my spine. Majority of the cases that we have reviewed, we note that Al Qaeda usually targets American minority youth that are poor, have experienced racism and are hard core criminals. In this case, an upper-middle class, White person that is nearly 30 is the terror suspect. This breaks the profile. Michael Flinton is born, educated and seemed normal in America.

This guy is not just another low life. He is a person that had planned for premeditated mass murder. Unlike Smadi’s case, details of this is not told to the public yet. All we know that this was a vehicular bomb plot that targeted the Illinois Federal building. He even had a back-up plan to kill Republican Representative Aaron Schock, in case his primary objective was not met. The person that does this is not an amateur. Knowledge of bombs enough to blow up a building of that scale is not self taught.

Like many other right wing nuts, he hates the American government. I hope that this guy does not inspire other anti-government nuts to react, especially with the “anti-Fed” murder of the Census employee recently. Flinton himself took J.W. Lindh as an icon of inspiration. I think that we should take the National Security threat of domestic right-wing terrorism more seriously, especially those with hate stemming from racial or religious grounds.

The very fact that the details of this guy is not being released is of some concern. The FBI only does this when they think that his plan could cause panic or that it could inspire other terrorists to copy his methods. That is not very good, America.

Also, ST really appreciates the work of the FBI. We applaud their brilliance in keeping our country safe. We salute them for sticking to American principles and showing the world that you do not need to use “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” a.k.a torture to keep America safe. Thank you, FBI.

Lastly, we should execute these terrorists. This is because, keeping them in prisons for life would mean adding the risk of hostage to release these terrorists. This has happened before around the world and America should learn the lesson from them, before it happens on our soil…

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Delay foreclosures, Obama!

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 7:14 pm  
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Reuters reported that President Obama is trying to find new ways to delay foreclosure of homes for unemployed Americans. Slashing Tongue support hims whole heartedly on this issue and hope that he takes it up with more urgency.

The single major factor that had brought to the world’s economy to her knees is the collapse of the housing sector in America. So I find it regrettable that the US has made headway in getting fat-cat banks back up to health (especially Goldman Sacs), but jobs are not created and foreclosure rates are still high. You have to wonder where the priority of governments really lies : In the people that voted them into power, or the supporters that contributed millions to their election campaigns.

Why is President Obama and company mulling over this? This could be too costly? The US government has already spent trillions trying to get the economy back and the deficit has passed the 1 trillion mark for the first time; And you are telling me that we cannot help people stay in their homes?

Could this not have support from the other side? I dare the Republicans to vote against this! Try telling their own constituents that you cannot keep your home because of big government. It would be a great political point to score for the Democrats if this happens. There is no way in hell that the Republicans would not back helping people stay in their homes.

Could there be a feeling amongst some people, with homes that they can afford, that this is making them pay for the homes of others who do not deserve it? Yes, there would always be some people feeling that way. But do you think that these people would like to have more homeless people in their neighborhood? What do you think would happen? You think crime rates would not go up in their neighborhood? You think the value of their house would not drop in a neighborhood that has become unsafe?

Having a home is not a luxury, it is a need. Be it a hut or a mansion, a roof over one’s head is essential to one’s life. It is on the basis that lives are made and lived. After food, water and jobs, homes are critical. And saving homes is a must to get this economy back to her feet.

President Obama would fundamentally fail as a President if he chooses to ignore this. Health care is not the biggest priority, this is. We have stated in earlier articles that the economy would roar back if three sectors are tackled. One is jobs, the other is the stability of the banks and lastly, it is housing. Failure to address any one of these three components would not lead to an economic recovery and ultimately, a failed Presidency.

It is amazing that no media really gives a damn about this, with the exception of Reuters. Why?! Isn’t this the news that is important and affects the lives of millions of Americans? Why does the words of the Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, have more coverage than this? Why is it that people know more about rumors of Michael Jackson being gay than about the homes that they live in? It is one thing that people not care to read an important article, it is another for news agencies not to report it at all!

I hope that people take note about this and call their leaders. Pressure them to ensure that people can stay in their homes!

Please visit www.reuters.com for more information on this.

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3% R&D : Enough or too much?

Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 3:40 pm  
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While there are many news that has been coming out of th news lately, there is one that is relatively ignored by all media. On print you can only find it on Reuters prior to this and the source of this article, CSPAN.

What President Obama basically said is that the US would spend 3% of her GDP on Research and Development. This is the kid of news that an American should look out for as it is this kind of move that has far reaching effects into their future.

The reason that President Obama want to do this is rather obvious. Any economist, right-wing Austrian School of Economists or left wing Keynesians would tell you that the most important thing for America to get back us is to restart manufacturing in the United States.

President Obama can do some manufacturing in the short term by investing heavily in green technology today. But that is just for the short term measure. Once the wind farms are up and the geothermal generators are up, there is only so much jobs that they can accommodate and the chances of growth in the future for that industry would not be great in the long term.

So there needs to be a change once in a while that would create more and more jobs. That is where Research and Development comes in. It is something that would be giving investors new markets and ideas to exploit.

Nobody would go against R&D. Many countries take a huge chunk of their GDP out to spend on R&D. It was R&D that eventually allowed America to land the first man on the moon. It is because of R&D by the US Army that we have the Internet today.

But the question is who should spend for it? It is one thing for private companies to fund for it and is another for the government to fund for it. Why is it that the government spend money on something when they cannot make it directly back later?

This really goes back down to the Mathematics that has yet to be shown. Unlike the Keynesian or Austrian school of Economics discussion that I made in the first days of this site, I cannot make even the stand that this could work as there is no Mathematic equation that I can see at all. This was unlike the economic discussion where I said that it could work if the assumptions made by either were right. So the entire view of mine would be at a view-point of logic and I can understand if people disagree.

I feel that unless the US government sells these rights in the future, I really do not see any direct way of earning money after spending 3% of GDP on research. The US government cannot be the main manufacturer as that would put the entire US economy in jeopardy should anything go wrong.

Secondly, where is the private companies coming into this equation? In the end of the day, it would be them who would be making parts and employing people. Are they going to get things cheaply from the US government at the detriment of the US taxpayer? Even if they bought the right, would they then still produce them in overseas factories? That would be coming back to square one again and not solving the problem of lack of manufacturing in this country at all.

Another angle would be this : What kind of R&D would President Obama be doing? Would it be for green energy, something that I said was for the short term, military or a mission to Jupiter? That is something that I feel that the President should be more open about. After all he is not doing this cheaply.

I think the solution would be something that is similar to what some Asian governments do. Give companies a loans for R&D. This would decrease the chances of a loss that the US government would incur though it would still be high risk of loss.

While I disagree with the manner President Obama is trying to do this, I think that it is very positive that at least there is this realization and an attempt to restart manufacturing in USA. I think that this should open a box of ideas had the media concentrated on this.

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