Syndicate and Hague

After riding the high that is MinneWebCon, the coming down off that today was more brutal than it has ever been.

Today, two of my 6 coworkers were told that as of July 1, they would be laid off.

While I’m glad I’m not among the casualties, the skill sets that we are going to miss are so profound that it is going to be like losing our eyes and at least one limb.  I reserve a great deal of my vitriol in this for Pawlenty and his absolute hatred for higher education as evidenced in his budgets, but I am truly baffled by the decision-making process going on behind closed doors at the U.

Basically, if you’re at the U, take note: none of your jobs are safe. You may be mission-critical to a department, but that doesn’t matter anymore.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This post is in absolute danger of becoming a long, long rant about trickle down economics, deregulation, supposed “free market” capitalism, and the decimation of the true middle class. I will throw down some knowledge on that this week, but not today. Today, I want to focus on a small, small portion of the Social Security issue in light of what has happened on Wall Street this month.

It starts as simply as this. McCain wants to privatize Social Security. Obama doesn’t.

I believe, last week, that McCain compared Wall Street to a casino and had all kinds of quasi-regulatory talking points (”Cleaning up Wall Street” is not the same as saying you’re actually going to hold them accountable. It’s all talk.)

If Wall Street is a casino, why does McCain want us to trust the entirety of our retirements to it?

Imagine the absolute freak out that would be happening in this country if the entirety of not only our pensions and 401ks were on the line, but our Social Security as well. Of course, the government bailout essentially puts Social Security on the line, but that’s another topic.

So here’s your choice on your future.

Vote for Obama and you vote for someone who argued against privatization at the National Press Club in 2005 and has voted against Republican amendments to privatize Social Security.

Vote for McCain and you vote for someone who, if he’d had his way, would already have had your retirement in the rollercoaster stock market and free the government from any accountability for its citizens in their old age, despite them working to build the economy of this country for their entire lives.

Do not let McCain rewrite his own history on this. In 2000, part of his presidential agenda that he ran on was to privatize Social Security in “personal accounts” and he voted for Bush’s 2006 Social Security Privatization Plan, which would have moved Social Security’s annual surpluses into a reserve account that would become private accounts (ahem, you know, in the Wall Street Casino). [SCR 83, Vote #68, 3/16/06; SCR 83, Vote #68, 3/16/06]

Seriously, people. We cannot afford for McCain to be president. I don’t care which “culture war” issue may have to hedging to the Republican side, the downfall of our economy is NOT worth it. I’ll address the “culture war” issue - and how those issues are used to distract people - in another post.

This is so dire, folks. I really hope that anyone who is remotely considering voting for McCain or not voting at all hears this one, because if there is anything at all that will kill your budget, here you are.

I’m going to throw a lot of sources at you, because I want you to see that this isn’t some far out rant from the Huffington Post. This is real.

John McCain wants to destroy employer-based health benefits. Is destroy too severe of a term? I don’t think so. Part of McCain’s plan is to tax you for the amount your employer contributes to your health care benefits as if it were income. More on that after this public service moment.

First, you need to see through the carefully constructed terminology he uses on his website:

John McCain Believes The Key To Health Care Reform Is To Restore Control To The Patients Themselves. We want a system of health care in which everyone can afford and acquire the treatment and preventative care they need. Health care should be available to all and not limited by where you work or how much you make. Families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care…An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people’s needs, lower prices, and portability…While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider.

What this means: this means that you are on your own. Things like “restoring control to the patients” and “families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care” sound really nice. What they mean is that you are on your own. Have you ever tried to afford insurance on your own or worked for a small business whose coverage was minimal? I have. Cheap health insurance comes with ungodly deductibles before they even begin to cover doctor visits; caps on prescription drug spending; and bureaucratic nightmares if you need something actually covered. Small business’s insurance policies have similar problems.

The problem is, people often don’t notice these things until they get sick. Or in an accident.

The basic concept behind health insurance is one that is anathema to conservatives like Phil Gramm and John McCain - in theory, everyone pays into a system that disproportionately benefits those who need it most. It’s essentially making the burden of risk and the profit of benefit public. I would argue that conservative philosophy is exactly the opposite - they prefer privatizing profit and have no problem lobbying for the public carrying the burden of risk. This is where health care would go under McCain. Private profit, public risk. Keep repeating that. Private profit, public risk.

So back to the employer benefit and taxation issue. Highlighted in today’s Huffington Post is what is rarely spoken. I’ll quote:

McCain intends to tax workers for the value of health insurance that they receive from their employers. Really. It’s not included in the description of his plan on his web site. It is, however, on the site of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization that specializes in health policy…It says McCain would “reform the tax code to eliminate the exclusion of the value of health insurance plans offered by employers from workers’ taxable income.”

Gerard breaks it down in numbers: “The value of the typical plan provided by an employer to a family is $12,106, of which the employer pays $8,824, and the worker pays the remaining $3,282. The median household income is $44,389, which places most American families in the 15 percent income tax bracket. McCain wants to add the employer’s cost — an additional $8,824 — to that middle class family’s income, then tax it. The hit to the average family is 15 percent of the McCain-added income — $1,323 more in income taxes. And since the McCain tax credits are for privately purchased health care ONLY and do not extend to employer-paid benefits, you are literally losing at least $1,323 per year. I just ran the numbers for myself and - as a single person with no dependents, which means less costly health care - I would be looking at a $1300 increase myself.

Know what I don’t have? $1300. It is ridiculous for workers with benefits to be pressured to buy substandard insurance on the market.

Want to read more? I hope you’re outraged. I hope you know where you have over a thousand dollars to cut from your annual budget. Tell people about this. McCain Health Plan Could Mean Higher Tax (NY Times) The Tax Increase McCain Doesn’t Want to Talk About(Washington Monthly) McCain’s Health Care Proposal Will Increase Costs and Reduce Benefits (AFL-CIO) McCain’s $5,000 Promise (FactCheck.org) McCain’s Health-Care Proposal (Businessweek)

What I wish I could give you is more focused discussion of Obama’s health care proposal. Part of the problem is that the majority of time the news spent discussing any of Obama’s proposals/issues were in contention with Clinton. Since then, the news really couldn’t care less about his policy ideas. I’ll give you some info from his website and then add a couple of highlights. God he has so much more specificity on his site than McCain does. It’s beautiful.

I really encourage you to review Obama’s site that I linked to above. The plan is so detailed that I have a hard time summarizing it. But this is my attempt.

The goal is to have a publicly backed health care system. Key elements include guaranteed eligibility, benefits on par with the plan members of Congress have, affordability, subsidies for individuals in need, and accountability on the part of insurance companies. The National Health Insurance Exchange concept is to also allow individuals who want to purchase a private plan - it will act as a watchdog group and create rules/standards (accountability!) for private insurances. They would be required to issue everyone a policy and charge rates that aren’t dependent on health status. Employers must make a contribution, except for small business who can also receive a tax credit to help reduce their health care costs. Mandatory coverage of children. Ensuring Medicaid and SCHIP. Providing a safety net for the cost of catastrophic illnesses for employers/employees IF such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’ premiums.

You guys, it just keeps going. Go to the site. He addresses women’s issues, civil rights issues in health care, disability/mental illness, technology research, prescription drug companies AND ON AND ON.

This is the man to vote for. He’s got the ideas, he’s got the plan, he needs the platform.

Ron Paul supporters frighten me.

I keep reading things about his candidacy and his supporters and I just don’t understand how people can throw their support behind the man.

From the Seeing the Forest blog:

Ron Paul is this year’s Howard Dean. You can’t go to a farmer’s market around here without encountering a Ron Paul volunteer. In their enthusiasm to help fix the country many new voters are being drawn into the Ron Paul sphere.

Bringing in new voters is always a good thing. And opposing illegal aggressive war. torture, and demanding that the Constitution and laws be followed are to be praised no matter who is doing it. Heck, listening to Paul talk about these things almost makes me want to support him!

But then these recruits are then subjected to the other side of the far-right libertarian agenda. First there is the lunatic “Secret NAFTA Superhighway” conspiracy stuff. It’s a catchy phrase that seems to affect people’s brains, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just nut stuff. People’s understandable concerns about trade deals that practically require the destruction of jobs and the environment are used by Paul as a way to mainstream far-right “black helicopter” thinking.

Then comes a dose of really bad economics. There’s the “get rid of the IRS” and gold-standard nonsense. And the talk that the Federal Reserve is some kind of secret internationalist cabal has a hint of the old-time antisemitism of those who say that Jews have a secret conspiracy to control all the money.

And I don’t fault a candidate based on who supports him or her, but Ron Paul sure does have a lot of militia, white supremacist, etc. groups endorsing him. So I do have get a bit suspicious about where he is coming from.

Unfortunately he is also a possible Ralph Nader whose independent run could siphon off enough votes that would otherwise have gone to Democrats to throw the election to the right. Anti-war, pro-Constitution support draws votes away from the Democrats, not Republicans. That guarantees the war continues and the shredding of the Constitution is completed.

Now, I’d like to note that the only similarity between Ron Paul and Ralph Nader is the same thing that makes him similar to Ross Perot or John B. Anderson in that he could be a spoiler.

I actually don’t think this will be the case. If Ron Paul became a truly viable candidate, not just the object of obsession amongst a primarily male, internet-lovin group of anti-war libertarian isolationists with dreams of not paying taxes, the exposure his crazy ideas would have would destroy his candidacy.

So I’m not worried about him. But I just would like to understand his support. Especially in light of things like this (from Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s column on HuffPo):

Then there’s Paul’s now infamous slavery quip that he made on Meet the Press. Paul claimed the Civil War was an unnecessary bloodbath that could and should have been avoided. All Lincoln had to do was buy the slaves. Other slave promoting countries, asserts Paul, didn’t fight wars and they ended slavery peacefully. Paul’s historical dumbness would have been laughable except for four things. One, he was dead wrong. Lincoln twice made offers to the slave owners to buy the slaves. They turned him down flat. The countries that freed the slaves without war, presumably France and England, unlike the U.S., did not practice slavery in their countries. And France did fight a war– Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Haiti to put down the slave revolt there.

He goes on:

In fact he even highlights this as “Issue: Racism” on the site. “Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry.” In other words, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of education school desegregation decision, the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and legions of court decisions and state laws that bar discrimination are worthless.

I think it’s necessary to interject here that this is an argument I have heard in more subtle variations from a lot of white people - predominantly, though not exclusively, Republicans. Personally, I think it shows a fear of a slowly (sloowwwwly) leveling playing field and ignores how entrenched racism is institutionally. I don’t want to digress too much from my focus on Ron Paul here, but I think it’s really time that we disregard the notion that ‘changing our hearts’ is the most effective way to end entrenched racism. Because if you’re privileged, you can feel that everyone is equal, but the world that has been set into motion from before you were born has already made that not so. I guess I can talk about this more later. Back to RP.

He’s trying to get Dems with targeted messages. From Bleeding Heartland:

On Sunday night or Monday night, I got a robocall supporting Paul. The script emphasized that Democrats in Congress have failed to end the war, and none of the Democratic candidates would be able to end the war. It urged me to caucus for Ron Paul because unlike the Democrats, he has always been against the war and would be able to end the war. It also mentioned a few of Paul’s other policy positions.

He also doesn’t accept the theory of evolution.

Pet peeve alert. In vernacular, theory and hypothesis are used more or less interchangeably. I’m guilty of this. Totally. HOWEVER! In science, a theory is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena, like the theory of relativity. A hypothesis is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serves as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth. (from Dictionary.com). Loony creationists are exploiting the broad usage of the word theory to minimize what a scientific theory is.

God, I could go on, but I just don’t get Ron Paul. Or his supporters. And I don’t think I will.

If you’d have asked me even six months ago, I would have hemmed and hawed and said “I don’t know what I’d even do it in.” But the last six months of my life have been, well, eventful. Things have been happening so quickly and I’ve been forced to make decisions and trust my instincts.

It’s been a practice in knowing what to toss off and what to embrace and how to risk the comfort of the known for possibility.

This morning, I got my official acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota. Starting in the fall of 2008, I am officially a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction.

I already feel tired. And super excited. And terrified. My mind is flipping between enthusiasm, fear for my time, fear of being poor…but there’s no time for that. I always land on my feet.

Let’s do this.