A Major Difference Between a Liberal and a Current Day Republican

Dear Friends,

This morning both David Brooks (here) and Paul Krugman (here) wrote Op-ed pieces in the New York Times about the yesterday's healthcare summit.  David Brooks approaches life as a conservative, and Paul Krugman approaches life as a liberal.   Both men are intelligent and articulate, and we should be open to their views.

However, I must say that after reading their respective columns this morning, I was skeptical that they were discussing the same event. 

David Brooks concludes, "Health care reform probably will not get passed this year."  Paul Krugman conlcudes, "But Democrats can have the last laugh. All they have to do — and they have the power to do it — is finish the job, and enact health reform."

We all know that we tend to hear what we want to hear. 

The reason that it is impossible to bridge the gap between President Obama's health care goals and the Republicans is that liberals believe in social justice and the current brand of Republicans do not. 

The Republican plan would insure an additional 3 million people, and President Obama's plan would cover an additional 30 million people.  The United States is the only developed country in the world that does not cover all people.  The Republican response is that the United States has the best health care in the world.  That is just not true.  It may be true that those that can pay can get the best health care in the world.  But based on the health care that is actually available to all Americans we rank very poorly.

The Republican mantra these days is that we cannot afford it (with it being anything that provides benefits to the middle class and the poor).  Representative Cantor, the number two Republican in the House said, ''We have a very difficult gap to bridge here. We just can't afford this. That's the ultimate problem.''

We heard that same refrain today when the Senate failed once again to extend unemployment benefits.  Senator Bunning a Republican from Kentucky, singlehandedly stopped a one month extension of extended unemployment benefits because it would raise the deficit by $10 billion.  Here is the New York Times article.

In my home state of Minnesota, Governor Pawlenty, who has been rapidly moving to the right in an effort to win the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination recently veto a bill to continue funding of General Assistance Medical Care.  Here is an article describing the issue in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The refrain is the same.  We cannot afford to do this or that.

The fact is we choose not to be able to afford.  We pass tax cuts, disproportionately benefiting the rich, because they are popular and please the money that runs campaigns, and then we claim we cannot afford to provide decent health care to all people, we can't afford to pay teachers a wage that attracts and retains great teachers, we can't afford to fix our roads and bridges so they fall down and kill people, etc.

We need to stand up and be clear.  Many things that our government refuses to pay for kill people every day.  45,000 of our fellow citizens die every year, one every 12 minutes from a lack of health care.  (here)
We can argue about what we can afford and what we cannot afford, but how can the richest country in the world kill 45,000 of its inhabitants every year by failing to provide them with adequate medical care?  We can also argue about the legal definition of killing, but if we knowingly permit a situation to exist that we can change and by not making that change 45,000 people will die, isn't that murder?

The richest country in the world that has perhaps the best medical care in the world available to it is not doing well today because our government says it cannot afford to provide that care to all its people.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Greenhouse Gases, Health, the EPA and Money

Dear Friends,

The Obama Administration EPA, unlike the Bush Administration EPA, is determined to take action to limit the harmful impact of greenhouse gases.  A good summary article entitled, "EPA Prepares to Take the Lead on Regulating CO2" by Bryan Walsh at Time.com (here).  Mr. Walsh gives the background:

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases like CO₂ could be considered pollutants and gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. Although that authority went unused in the waning days of former President George W. Bush's Administration, the Obama EPA has spent much of the past year preparing the groundwork for regulation. In the absence of a climate bill, the EPA has the power — and is legally mandated by the Supreme Court — to step in and address carbon emissions.

The Obama Administration is doing the right thing.  Greenhouse gases are harmful to the environment and the health of the planet and all its inhabitants.  But in Washington, the health of the planet and its people take a backseat to money and resistance to change.  As Mr. Walsh's article continues:

Problem solved, right? The trouble is that as controversial as cap-and-trade legislation has become, EPA regulation is an even bigger political minefield. Republicans are universally against it, claiming that clumsy top-down CO₂ regulation will kill American jobs by strangling power plants and other industry. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, introduced a bill late last year that would explicitly prevent the EPA from regulating carbon, and she already has 40 co-sponsors. Many Democrats also have their doubts — eight Democratic Senators from coal-heavy states sent a letter on Sunday, Feb. 21, to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson listing "serious economic and energy security concerns" with greenhouse-gas regulation.

For the record, the letter was drafted by Senator Rockefeller (West Virginia) and co-signed by Senator Begich (Alaska), Senator Byrd (West Virginia), Senator Brown (Ohio), Senator Casey (Pennsylvania), Senator McCaskill (Missouri), Senator Levin (Michigan) and Senator Baucus (Montana).  If one of those Senators is from your state, you might want to contact them to tell them that the health of the planet and the beings that live on it are more important than their campaign contributors.

 

The Obama Administration is standing its ground.  The article continues:

But the EPA's Jackson, at least, seems ready to fight. At the Senate hearing Tuesday morning, she tangled with Republican climate skeptics and emphasized that the Supreme Court required her agency to act. "The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming," she said. "That conclusion is not a partisan one." That's true, but just about everything else in Washington still is.

Bravo to Ms. Jackson.  She is willing to speak the truth to the special interest power groups and their purchased legislators.  But now more Democrats are selling out to their campaign contributors.  Representative Colin Peterson from my home state (not my district) of Minnesota, the Chair of the Agriculture Committee, and Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the Chair of the Armed Services Committee, have joined as co-sponsors of a Republican sponsored House Bill to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.  

When will our elected representatives understand that their duty is to the American people and not to their campaign contributors?

We can only hope that the Democrats in the Senate will remember the filibuster and use it to be sure this anti-science, anti-health, anti-life, pro-money bill does not pass.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Vermont Democrats Take a Stand Against Nuclear Power

Dear Friends,

I am happy to report that the Vermont Senate refused to extend the license to operate the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012 by a vote of 26 to 4.  There are 7 Republicans in the Vermont Senate so three of them must have voted for the closure.  The plant needed approval from both the Vermont House and Senate in order to continue to operate after 2012.  So unless the Vermont Senate reverses itself, the plant must be closed.

The reason for the vote is summarized in the following paragraph from Matthew Wald's article in The New York Times this morning entitled, "Vermont Senate Votes to Close Nuclear Power Plant".  The full article is here.

In a small, ornate chamber packed with plant opponents, the Vermont senators voiced frustration over recent leaks of radioactive tritium at the 38-year-old plant as well as the collapse of a cooling tower in 2007 and inaccurate testimony by the plant’s owner, the Louisiana-based nuclear operator Entergy.

The plant is 38 years old.  The plant leaks tritium.  A cooling tower at the plant collapsed.  The plant's owner and operator lied to Vermont by saying there were no underground pipes that could leak tritium, but there were. 

I don't know how to make a better case against nuclear power.  Oh except the article continues:

Mr. Hébert [spokesperson for the plant's owner and operator] acknowledged in an interview that the leaks, the cooling tower collapse in 2007 and other problems had been “almost a perfect storm” for the plant.

It is lucky it was just "almost a perfect storm".  How many lives of people alive today and future generations would have been destroyed if it were a perfect storm?

Oh, I also almost forgot we still have no place to store the radioactive waste created by this plant and all the other nuclear power plants.

So today the Vermont Senate comprised primarily of Democrats is doing well.  It stood up and did the right thing. 

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal