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Saturday, July 30, 2011

The GOP Changes the World to Fit Their Worldview

AlterNet.org

If the economy goes down, people will suffer. But don’t be so sure Republicans will. Why? Because if Republicans block an increase in the debt ceiling, then the debt hysteria they have so adroitly manufactured since President Obama took office will become objectively, albeit perversely, real.

One would hope that the leaders steering our ship of state would shape solutions to meet our problems (e.g. recession and rampant unemployment). But if America defaults, we will indeed have a deficit problem, and Republicans will have pulled off the remarkable feat of molding reality to fit their worldview.

The right wing is a wildly successful promoter of self-fulfilling political-economic prophecy: they disrupt our political and economic system to the point where their own dark fantasies become palatable to a growing number of Americans.

The Chamber of Commerce and the “country club Republican” Speaker John Boehner are likely wondering what sort of monster they have created. Both Boehner and the Chamber are down for starving the beast until it’s ready to devour our nation’s poor and vulnerable. No doubt. But they also want to make sure that profits get made on August 3.

“We have been telling you for weeks and months,” writes Chamber blogger Bruce Josten, “that defaulting on our debt is not an option – it has real, immediate, and potentially catastrophic consequences... Now, make no mistake; too much spending and the need for real entitlement reform has led to the debt crisis we’re in today. But jeopardizing our country’s credit rating and fiscal security by refusing to compromise isn’t the answer.”

Corporate America doesn’t hate the government--they just want it supine and obedient. Others on the right, however, decided to take the anti-government talking points seriously. They are now true believers in the corporate-funded propaganda that was initially designed exclusively for the consumption of the confused Election Day masses.

This applies to business leaders as well, if not to the same extent as to the voluble freshmen class in Congress.

Big business is so greedy and blindly vindictive that they no longer see past next week. See Wall Street’s punishment of Obama for, well, it’s not exactly clear. As outgoing FDIC chief Sheila Bair makes clear, the president has done basically everything the lords of finance want. But he gets little love in return.

This is no longer about results. During the Great Depression, FDR saved capitalism from itself because individual capitalists at a certain point fail to act in their own collective self-interest. The bad news for those cheering against capitalism today, however, is that crisis does not always lead to some sort of feel-good, take society back for the people, moment: the recent financial crisis and current recession, you’ll remember, created the Tea Party and not a new New Deal. If things get worse, American politics will probably just get crazier.

There is, of course, certainly a cold, political rationality behind a potential default: it would force immediate and drastic cuts to social spending that could never be achieved through our democracy’s legislative process.

“Depriving the government of revenue, it turns out, wasn’t enough to push politicians into dismantling the welfare state,” Paul Krugman wrote in February, well before we had any idea that we would be spending our summer mired in a debt ceiling debate. “So now the de facto strategy is to oppose any responsible action until we are in the midst of a fiscal catastrophe. You read it here first.”

But this isn’t just starve the beast anymore, though it’s not clear where right-wing strategy ends and delusion begins: they’re prepared to light the fuse even though it will blow up in their face. And though this might sound insane, these people are.

For example, the whole right-wing Tea Party “buy up all the gold” thing has been economically mainstreamed because their political representatives have waged years of war against the fiscal foundation of the dollar. This in turn makes the whole gold rush more economically sensible, pushing up the price of gold in the face of fiscal calamity. End of the story: the people who were all crazy about gold end up being right because those same people brought down the dollar.

Or, take The New York Times describing the mainstreaming of Ron Paul.

“Mr. Paul’s libertarian views have moved from the fringe toward the mainstream of conservative thinking in the past several years, with his warnings about fiscal meltdown gaining new resonance and the 2008 financial crisis allowing him to press his longstanding critiques of the Federal Reserve.”

Right-wing Republicans have leapfrogged over their prior goal of starving the beast--cutting taxes and shrinking revenue as a backdoor way to force spending cuts and decimate social programs. The goal, now, is to strangle it--even if the profits of their friends in corporate America get asphyxiated in the process.

The Republican mantra on the debt and deficit seems pretty surreal from Philadelphia, a city where thousands of public school teachers and staff were just laid off and forty thousand properties sit abandoned. But if Republicans push our teetering economy of a cliff, their paranoia will have become our reality. In fact, it already has. Pay close attention to what the right wing says. Thanks to political cowardice and shortsighted corporate machinations, our future is subject to their self-fulfilling prophecies.

By Daniel Denvir | Sourced from AlterNet

Posted at July 30, 2011, 10:13 am

Thursday, July 28, 2011

While Against Paying Debts Tea Partiers Chase Pork




Tea Partiers Chase Pork

Freshman Republican representatives lobby federal agencies for millions amid spending critiques

By Sam Stein

For years, Tennessee lawmakers have advocated for the construction of a major port on the northwest corner of the state on the Mississippi River. Known as the Port of Cates Landing, the project would include a 9,000-foot slack-water harbor, an adjacent 350-acre industrial park, improvements to local roads to connect it to US Hwy 78, and a short-line railroad to a larger rail line 28 miles away. It would, by some estimates, create thousands of jobs — a much-needed boon for the Lake County region, 37.8% of whose residents live below the poverty line.

It also would cost a fair amount of cash. By the spring of 2011, more than $33 million had been invested in the project; an additional $20 million — $13 million from the federal government, $7 million from the state of Tennessee — was on its way. But as Congress, in an effort to avert a shutdown, began looking for federal expenditures to shave off the budget, Cates Landing’s future suddenly became unclear. It was, among other transportation projects, on the chopping block.

Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), a member of the freshmen Republican class of the House of Representatives whose district includes the port project, faced a predicament. Elected as a fiscal hawk, with pledges to get spending under control, he could either go to the mat for Cates Landing or make a philosophical, self-sacrificial statement.

He chose the former. On March 8, 2011, Gannett news service reported that the funding for Cates Landing was being targeted by lawmakers looking to slash the federal budget. The same day that report came out, Fincher spoke directly with Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood about the funds. The next day, he wrote a follow-up letter seeking assistance in “obligating” the $13 million grant for the port.

“The contract is currently before your Department and ready to be signed,” the letter read. “I am respectively requesting you to help push this project over the final hurdle. There is no law, regulation, or other legal obligation to prevent you from signing this contract and I urge you to do so without further delay.” The lobbying had its intended results. The grant was signed on March 18, according to a Department of Transportation spokesperson, with the goal of finishing construction by the fall.

“We just wanted to make sure that we could do everything possible to create jobs, and this was a part we could play and I did everything I could and we were successful,” the congressman declared a few days later to reporters, onlookers and fellow lawmakers, at an event praising the incoming funds.

Two days after writing LaHood, Fincher voted for the a Republican House budget that cut billions of dollars, including from many other transportation priorities. His office put out a press release scolding “out of control” and “reckless” federal spending.

As lawmakers prepare to cut trillions of dollars from the budget as a condition to raising the nation’s debt ceiling, the story of the Cates Landing project underscores the dilemma that faces many members of the Republican-run House and the freshmen class in particular. Federal spending is derided as nothing short of a threat to the country’s future — unless, of course, it happens to be directed at that congressman’s home district.

Sara Sendek, a spokesman for Fincher, noted that the $13 million grant request was actually made by his predecessor, Rep. Jon Tanner (D-Tenn.). Even so, she added, “Congressman Fincher does support this project.”

As for the why: “He believes government does play a role in creating an environment that attracts private investment and job growth. This project does exactly that,” she said. “It is very important for Tennessee’s economy and for the country’s economy. So it was absolutely worthwhile.”

Such an explanation sounds like something out of the mouth of a Keynesian economist, rather than the musings of a congressman who proudly touts his support from the Tea Party movement. But Fincher is hardly alone. A Freedom of Information Act request of the communications between freshmen House members and federal agencies reveals that, in private, GOP lawmakers have pressed for tens of millions of dollars in federal help for their districts, even while decrying federal spending in front of the national press corps.

Take, for instance, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). On March 8, the freshman Republican co-signed a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration requesting that the Department of Transportation fund a project to improve a runway at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport. The cost of the improvement: $4.365 million.

Less than a month later, on the floor of the House, he declared that “our nation is broke. The federal government has maxed out its credit card.”

Unlike Fincher, Johnson — who wrote the letter with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) — was unsuccessful in his request. A spokesman for the FAA told HuffPost that no funds have been obligated yet for runway improvements. Yet on the broader question of whether it was inconsistent for a lawmaker who has repeatedly deplored government spending to privately request his own slice of the pie, Johnson’s office attempted to draw distinctions.

“There’s a difference between smart federal spending and the reckless, irresponsible waste of tax dollars the American people are fed up with,” said spokesperson Jessica Towhey. “Congressman Johnson joined with Rep. Tim Ryan in a bipartisan request to the FAA for safety improvements at a part of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport that the FAA has determined is not safe. This airport is a growing hub for travel and business in Northeast Ohio, and there is strong bipartisan support to ensure the safety of travelers and airport employees.”

The problem with this logic, as budget experts note, is that every member insists that the spending he or she requests is smart, not reckless, in nature. Not everyone, however, came to office on a promise to implement cuts across the board.

“I think members are conflicted,” explained Stu Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report and one of the most seasoned observers of national politics. “In the old days, the rules were pretty clear — you just tried to bring home the bacon. You sent out press releases, held press conferences, and got credit for getting jobs in your district … It’s more complicated now because there are pressures at odds with each other. As a US Representative you have, on one hand, a higher calling. You have to address runaway spending. But that is offset by the role you play for the folks back home.”

Complicating the landscape even further are the new budgeting rules that Congress has imposed on itself. Whereas in days past, lawmakers could earmark, meaning they tacked amendments onto bills that directed money toward provincial projects, today that practice is banned. As a result, lawmakers have forfeited a tremendous amount of power to the executive branch. Instead of being able to set aside funds for projects in their home states or districts, members are now reduced to lobbying federal agencies for unspent funds.

“It is what we have called ‘lettermarking,’” said Steve Ellis, Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national non-partisan budget watchdog. “It is something we have all recognized will become more prevalent with the lack of traditional earmarks. There are larger amounts of money going to agencies without it being designated for specific projects.”

Begging a cabinet secretary for help is humbling enough for any member. For House GOP freshmen, it’s created a nearly irreconcilable bind. And so many have chosen to simply remain quiet about their funding requests.

On March 1, Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, urging him to support a grant application submitted to the US Department of Agriculture Biomass Crop Assistance Program division by MFA Oil Biomass LLC. The company was spearheading a project to “provide farmers an alternative energy crop source, as well as new crop processing technology.” An infusion of federal funding, Crawford added, would “create a significant number of new jobs for Arkansas.” (A review of campaign finance records revealed no contributions from MFA Oil Biomass or its board to Crawford’s campaign committee.)

Type in “MFA Oil” on the congressman’s website and you get no result. When the project was approved in mid-June, however, a press release was posted on the websites of both of the state’s senators.

Even altruistic funding requests have gone largely below the radar. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), for instance, wrote the Department of Agriculture on Feb. 14, asking for $7,498,015 in cash and commodities contributions for the American Nicaraguan Foundation and Fabretto Children’s Foundation — groups that run education, health and nutrition programs in Nicaragua. Neither the congressman’s office nor the Fabretto Children’s Foundation returned requests for comment as to whether the funding went through. At a time when foreign aid is considered low-hanging fruit in the search for spending reductions, Walsh may have wanted to avoid drawing attention to that expense.

On the rare occasion when the press has gotten wind of a freshman House Republican making a funding request, it has turned heads. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), was criticized for putting out a press release on March 17 that praised the issuance of a $21 million federal grant to the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport for the construction of a second commercial runway. And Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) was praised locally, but raised some eyebrows nationally, when he sought federal grants and other aid for Staten Island’s two hospital systems.

Perhaps the most notorious example, however, came when the House put together a defense authorization act for fiscal year 2012 and members added on expenditures as “en bloc” amendments. According to their technical definition, they weren’t earmarks, and the defense department would still have the power to authorize the money.

Fundamentally, however, the add-ons were the type of bacon that House freshmen had pledged to do away with.

Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), one of those freshmen, secured $10 million to purchase land for training facilities as well as $19.9 million for ship preliminary design and feasibility studies.

Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.), another freshman, secured $2.5 million for weapons and munitions advanced technology — money that could end up in the Quad City Manufacturing Lab at the Rock Island Arsenal, located in his district.

As much as the spending requests raise questions about the ideological consistency of the freshmen Republican class, they also underscore the arguments Democrats have been making during the height of deficit-reduction debate: The government plays a vital role in activities that the private sector often avoids.

This, undoubtedly, was what compelled freshmen Reps. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) to co-sign an April 6 letter to the Department of Agriculture requesting that unused funds be spent helping the Rocky Mountain Region combat a bark beetle epidemic.

It also seemed to be the thought process behind another letter Noem wrote to the Agriculture Department, demanding that South Dakota get its fair share of federal funds for wildfire damage control. Noem’s office did not return a request for comment.

Whether these members can turn around and make that argument that, for all their anti-spending bluster, the money they have requested is both legitimate and necessary may prove a tricky — though not impossible — task.

Securing a contract for a defense company in one’s home district or getting a grant to build a new port are tried and true measures of securing voter support. And so long as the expenses are justified as legitimate and job-creating, even members of the Tea Party seem willing to limit their concerns to the practice of securing the money and not the money itself.

“Obviously there is going to be infrastructure spending, and one of the jobs of a Representative is to represent their district,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

“I would say that we should be paying close attention to this process of petitioning federal agencies [for money] … But I don’t think anybody is saying that when the federal government is spending money, that no congressman should try to fund projects his district needs.

“I think what they are saying is we don’t want egregious, crazy, pork barrel spending.”

Sam Stein reports on politics in Washington, D.C., for HuffingtonPost.com, where this appeared. Email him at stein@huffingtonpost.com. Alex Becker assisted in reporting.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

5 Reasons Right-Wingers Are Sabotaging Public Transportation Projects

AlterNet.org



Why Do Conservatives Hate High-Speed Rail? 5 Reasons Right-Wingers Are Sabotaging Public Transportation Projects

In addition to busting unions and gutting voting rights, Tea Party governors are refusing federal funding for high-speed rail. What do they have against it?

Photo Credit: AFP
High-speed rail is one of the rare areas where business, labor, and environmental activists are often in agreement. Republican transportation secretary Ray LaHood is a fan, as are, of course, President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

But Tea Party-supported governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Scott in Florida have made headlines by refusing billions in federal stimulus dollars aimed at creating new high-speed train lines between major cities.

The trains would be electric-powered, providing comparable travel times to regional plane flights but cheaper, running on cleaner energy, and without the same security concerns. Real estate developers and other business types saw new rail lines as an opportunity to invest in new places, and the rail projects would create both construction jobs and permanent jobs operating and maintaining the new trains.

So what's the problem? Why do conservatives hate high-speed rail so much? They claim it's all about money, but handing back billions in federal dollars while claiming to be broke doesn't seem to make much fiscal sense. We did a little research, and here's what we found:

1. Big infrastructure projects leave a big legacy--and this one would belong to President Obama.

It's no secret that the GOP's number one goal is to shoot down anything that Obama wants, even at the expense of their own constituents. It's also no secret that they hate government spending ideologically, and hate it even more when it actually accomplishes something positive--and visible.

Maybe Rachel Maddow is the only person who actually thinks infrastructure is a sexy political term. Yet high-speed rail is the kind of infrastructure project that is sexy. It's new technology, which requires research and development, and the trains themselves are sleek and futuristic.

And when the trains are built, they're there for everyone to see and use. Like the Interstate Highway System, built by Dwight Eisenhower, they'll be a lasting accomplishment, a testament to what the federal government can do when it decides to spend money instead of obsess over cuts.

High-speed rail investment was a signature project for President Obama, and if it happens and people like it, he'll get the credit. No wonder conservative governors are thrilled to have the opportunity to take his money and shove it back in his face.

2. Union jobs

You don't have to take our word for it—instead, take the word of Investors Business Daily:

“So who could possibly benefit from such a boondoggle? Unions, along with the politicians they vote for — in this case Obama and California Democrats, who'll be able to trade construction jobs and other union sop for votes.”

Construction jobs and other union sop are just what the country so desperately needs at the moment—employment for millions of people out of work. Union construction jobs would pay good wages and provide benefits as well. And union transit workers would be new, permanently employed workers in areas of the country, like Ohio, that have been hurting for work for years before the current recession.

So why are governors, who were elected to put their constituents back to work, so opposed to money going into projects that would create that very work? It would strengthen the unions, who support other policies that conservatives hate—Social Security and Medicare, universal health care, job protections, and other progressive policies. It's ideological opposition to unions as much as it is the continued war on the working class.

And speaking of the working class...

3. Collectivism! Socialism!

George Will thinks that trains are pernicious behavior modification:

“Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons -- to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they -- unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted -- are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.”

But before he was against high-speed rail, Will was for it. Back in 2001, after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Will wrote a column calling for trains as an anti-terror measure. Seriously. Putting in high-speed trains would lighten the load on air travel, making airports easier to secure—and one would assume, though you could hijack a train, you can't drive it anywhere its rails don't go.

Will is right on one level, though. Public transportation puts everyone on the same level. Fast-food workers and bankers get off at the same stop on the train. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg famously rides the subway to work (even though he's a billionaire).

On the other hand, one of the concerns some progressives have about high-speed rail is that it will prove, like highways, to be yet another government subsidy for those who already have money. After all, high-speed inter-city transit won't be the same as cheap subways or buses—it'll be pricier and likely used primarily by business travelers.

But with decent public investment and proper administration, high-speed rail could be kept affordable and available to all. And that's exactly what conservatives like Will really don't want. Much better to keep pumping money into highways, which keeps individuals buying cars and gasoline. Because the same politicians who have a huge problem with high-speed rail have no problem with government spending on roads.

4. 'Urban' vs. 'Rural'

Public transit is an “urban” issue—it works best in densely populated areas. High-speed rail will be no exception, as it is most efficient when running from one urban center to another. And urban areas have more diverse populations, progressive politicians, and already-existing public transportation infrastructure.

Like much of the rest of the Tea Party's rage, opposition to public transit is based in values. Steven Harrod, writing at CNN.com, says, “Many critics of passenger rail emotionally identify it as an enabler of cultural values they fear.”

Urban vs. rural. People of color vs. white people. Public investment of any kind has been branded by the conservative movement as a way for the government to take away money from hardworking, independent (white) people and give handouts to freeloaders, usually seen as nonwhite people.

But Harrod notes that actually, when it comes to transit, urban folks are actually subsidizing rural drivers. Fuel taxes, he writes, are disproportionately paid by urban drivers on local roads that are often not funded by those taxes—and they go into maintaining highways on which everyone drives.

Public investment in an “urban corridor” rail project, by contrast, would pump money into those urban areas, and, Harrod writes, provide infrastructure and incentive for even more urban development.

More money and a denser population in cities seems like a recipe for more progressive voters. And as if to prove this point, apparently some governors are perfectly happy with spending money on high-speed rail as long as it doesn't do anything to help cities that oppose them—Scott Walker first rejected federal funds for a rail project that would connect Milwaukee to Madison, and then requested money instead for a train from Milwaukee to Chicago.

As Mike Hall at the AFL-CIO noted, “So, apparently Walker supports the concept of high-speed rail and doesn’t mind federal funds, as long as it doesn’t help get people—especially those pesky protesters—quicker to Madison.”

5. High-speed rail will change our lifestyles—and we like them!

Conservatives who fear changes brought about by high-speed rail aren't wrong, of course, that transportation will change us. The shape of our cities and suburbs for the past 50 years or more has been largely because of transportation. Without cars, we'd never have had suburbs, let alone exurbs.

With Obama's stated goal of making high-speed rail accessible to 80 percent of the US population within 25 years, that probably means cities that look different than they do now. It'll be time to encourage urban density rather than suburban sprawl, shift away from cars, and create public transportation systems that make environmentally friendly transit accessible to all, regardless of income or social class.

James E. Moore II complained in the Los Angeles Times that cheap gasoline means that high-speed rail will never be able to compete with cars and planes, but this is a short-sighted plan even if he does pay lip service to the oxymoronic idea of burning gasoline and jet fuel “even more cleanly.” We need to move beyond small changes to our existing lifestyle and make investments in what our lifestyle will look like 50, 100 years from now.

Jon Rynn at New Deal 2.0 wrote:

“Building infrastructure is what governments do best. In fact, one could say that civilization started when the first governments constructed the irrigation and drainage systems that enabled agriculture to flourish. The United States, like every successful country, has a long and rich history of infrastructure building, without which the country would have very likely stayed poor. From canals like the Erie Canal before the Civil War, to the railroads after, from the dams that even conservative Republicans like Calvin Coolidge initiated, to the WPA that built libraries, schools, airports, roads, and other structures in virtually every town, to the Interstate Highway System championed by a Republican president, the United States has kept itself at the forefront of the global economy by making the building of transportation, energy, communications, water, education, and other systems the foundation of prosperity.”

Our society will be fundamentally shaped by a major change in our transportation and infrastructure like a new high-speed rail system. And that's not a bad thing, as we face down global climate change as well as bedrock changes in our economic system.

It would be a bad thing, though, if conservative politicians and fearful voters shut down innovative technologies that could help us live more sustainably and justify their refusal to change by claiming concern for spending. The lack of willingness to invest in forward-looking programs like high-speed rail shows the utter lack of positive ideas at the base of today's Republican party.

Sarah Jaffe is an associate editor at AlterNet, a rabblerouser and frequent Twitterer. You can follow her at @seasonothebitch.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Why Boehner Cries

Alan Grayson

Why Boehner Cries





I know why House Speaker John Boehner walked out of debt ceiling talks with President Obama on Friday.

It’s because Boehner can’t deliver.

It doesn’t matter what terms the President offers. It’s that simple. Boehner can’t deliver the votes.

The President might as well be negotiating with Tiger Woods; Tiger can’t deliver the votes, either. But at least Tiger has a better swing.

On Friday, the President said, “I think that one of the questions that the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is, can they say yes to anything? Can they say yes to anything?”

The answer to your question, Mr. President, is no. The national Republican Party can’t even says yes to yes. And Boehner can’t do anything about that.

In May 1935, Pierre Laval, then the Foreign Minister of France, and also the once and future Prime Minister of France, met with Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator. Laval, a Catholic, urged Stalin to stop persecuting Catholics in the Soviet Union. Stalin asked Laval why it mattered. Laval replied that continued persecution could provoke a quarrel between Stalin and the Pope.

Stalin replied, “The Pope? How many divisions does he have?”

I don’t think that anyone could confuse John Boehner with the Pope, but nevertheless, at this point, President Obama might ask the same question about Boehner. How many divisions does John Boehner have?

Fifty-nine House Republicans abandoned Boehner on the “compromise” appropriations bill. Even though Boehner depicted it to them as a Republican victory on par with, say, the Battle of Stalingrad.

And now, Fox News has reported that between 80 and 120 Republican members of the House will vote against any bill to increase the debt ceiling, no matter what else is in it. You can be sure that Fox News knows what Republicans in Washington are thinking – because Fox News tells them what to think.

So somewhere between a third and a half of all of the Republicans in the House of Representatives are going to vote against increasing the debt ceiling, no matter what Boehner puts in front of them. Boehner is a general with no troops. The coach has no players. The teacher has no students. The chief has no Indians. The bride has no bridesmaids.

That’s why Boehner is always crying.

It seems as though all those rounds of golf lately between Boehner and the President aren’t likely to accomplish much, except maybe lowering the President’s handicap.

According to Fox, Boehner can’t deliver enough Republican votes to increase the debt limit. So where does that leave us?

Congress has over 200 caucuses. The largest is the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I think that what Congress needs is a new caucus, Democrats and Republicans, who are willing to raise the debt ceiling without cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

I’d call it the Sane Caucus.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Sunday, July 24, 2011

In Bid for Control of GOP, Tea Party Brings U.S. to Brink of Economic Calamity

AlterNet.org

TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT
The Tea Party doesn't care if it has to destroy the United States in order to grab the levers of GOP machinery.
For many, it's a head-scratcher. Don't those Republicans see the danger in their hardline stand against allowing the U.S. government to borrow the money it needs to continue operating? GOP members of Congress not only insist on tying any deal for raising of the debt ceiling to a deficit-reduction scheme, they are demanding that such a scheme not raise a dime of revenue -- not even from the wealthiest Americans, who are still basking in their Bush-era tax-cuts. On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner walked out of debt-limit talks with President Barack Obama, even after Obama offered the speaker a plan that would have made $650 billion in cuts to safety net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.


But, really, Boehner had no choice but to walk out -- if he wants to continue on as speaker, that is. The Obama deal, you see, included the elimination of certain tax breaks for the rich, and the closing of corporate tax loopholes, the president told reporters. And Boehner is on notice from the Tea Partiers within the ranks of the GOP that no means of increasing revenue is acceptable, not even for the easing of America's economic woes. Hot on Boehner's heels is the ambition of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

There's a temptation, when assessing the showdown over the debt ceiling that is bringing the United States to the brink of defaulting on its debt, to view the confrontation in terms of Republicans vs. Democrats, liberals vs. conservatives, Obama vs. Boehner.

What we're really witnessing, though, is a ruthless power-grab by the architects of the Tea Party movement for control of the Republican Party. And if they have to destroy House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to do it, they will. Heck, if they have to destroy the United States in order to grab the levers of GOP machinery, they will, content in the knowledge that, as elites, they will have first pick of the spoils.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the newfound love between Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party organization founded by David Koch, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the Tea Party-allied second-in-command of the House of Representatives. Cantor has made a specialty of undercutting his own speaker's negotiating power as Boehner tries to cut a deal with the president.

When, two weeks ago, Vice-President Joe Biden and GOP leaders were close to making a deal that would have given in to Republican demands for budget cuts, Cantor refused to go along because the deal included some tax increases. By walking out of the talks, Cantor won the hearts of Tea Party leaders, and, many said, a shot at the speaker's job. For if Cantor can prevent Boehner from brokering a deal with the president, the logic goes, the speaker could be so weakened as to lose his footing as the House Republicans' top man. That would leave Cantor positioned to step in.

Cantor's intransigence led Tim Phillips to laud Cantor in an interview he gave to Major Garrett in the Atlantic. "He has clearly emerged as the conservative on free-market economic issues," Phillips told Garrett. "Cantor's become the 'go-to' guy. There's no question about that."

Things were not always so chummy between Phillips and Cantor. When Cantor first ran for Congress in 2000, Garrett reports, Phillips, then a consultant to the George W. Bush campaign, opposed him. Phillips helped set up a group called the Faith and Family Alliance, which sent out campaign mailers and issued robo-calls against Cantor calling Cantor's primary opponent, Stephen Martin, "the only Christian in the race." (Cantor is Jewish.) Cantor squeaked out a win with a 263-vote margin, and set out to make friends with the right.

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 breathed new life into the institutional right, which created the Tea Party movement on the winds of racial resentment and the economic distress that came with the 2007 bursting of the housing bubble, and the September 2008 stockmarket crash. Cantor, then House Minority Whip, wasted no time cashing in, even meeting in 2009, as AlterNet reported, with a neo-Confederate Virginia group, the Constitutional Sovereignty Alliance, to receive a letter from its Virginia Sovereignty March delegation.

As the August 2 deadline looms for avoiding default on the U.S. government debt, the GOP Tea Party Caucus in the House pushed through a plan for raising the debt ceiling called "Cut, Cap and Balance," which would deeply cut government spending, even on social safety net programs, cap government spending and send a balanced-budget constitutional amendment to the states for ratification. The Washington Post's Ezra Klein and Dylan Matthews write that the plan:

...would increase the debt ceiling in exchange for $111 billion in immediate cuts next year, statutory caps on spending, and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that includes a spending cap of 18 percent of the previous year's GDP and would require supermajorities to raise taxes or increase the debt ceiling. If the amendment was ratified, spending would have to drop to its lowest levels since the 1950s -- despite the fact that we now have Medicare, Medicaid, more seniors, etc. -- and taxes would be almost impossible to raise. The White House has promised to veto the bill, saying that deficit reduction does not require changes to the Constitution, and that the cuts involved are draconian.

On Friday, when Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., that chamber's Tea Party kingpin, attempted to put the measure before the Democratic-controlled body, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was having none of it. No sooner was the measure tabled than AFP president Tim Phillips, Eric Cantor's champion, sent out an email to his activists decrying Reid's halting of the bill, and encouraging recipients to click through to a Web-form email instructing members of Congress to reject any deal that includes tax increases.

Note that it was not Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who put the Cut, Cap and Balance deal up for consideration. Thanks to the power of such Tea Party astroturf groups as Americans for Prosperity and Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, McConnell leads only at the mercy of DeMint and his merry band of Tea Party allies, who threaten to launch primary challenges to any Republican Senate candidate who doesn't toe their line. It's a lesson Cantor has taken to heart, doubtlessly observing that while the House Tea Party caucus does not comprise a majority, it does have enough members to deprive the speaker of a majority on any measure behind which its members unite. Like DeMint's cadre of fellow travelers in the Senate, theirs is the power of "no."

Today in the Washington newspaper the Hill, an op-ed penned by Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots threw down the gauntlet at the feet of any lawmaker who might be inclined to raise a tax or two in order to prevent any further collapse of the economy that is almost sure to come if a debt-ceiling deal eludes the August 2 deadline. They also took a swipe at Boehner:

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) found time to commend the president for making the case to raise the debt ceiling, saying on July 11: “I would agree with the president that the national debt limit must be raised. I'm glad he made the case for it today.”
It is clear they are not serious about cutting wasteful spending or they would have found a way to do it. When a family is on the brink of bankruptcy and can't make ends meet, what do they do? They cut back on their spending. It's very simple.

Tea Party Patriots is a "grassroots" group founded by FreedomWorks, which is led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. (FreedomWorks was also founded with Koch money, although both the organization and Koch say they have parted ways.) Armey earns a total of $500,000 per year from FreedomWorks and its foundation. It's doubtful his family has any trouble making ends meet. But if the cost of pushing Boehner from the speaker's podium in favor of Cantor (or another player more to his liking) is the economic calamity that would almost certainly result if the U.S. government fails to meet its obligations, he probably won't mind a bit. Your family might face financial disaster, but Dick Armey, Tim Phillips and David Koch will still be sitting pretty.

The House speaker has clearly gotten the message. He may not be a Tea Partier himself, but he stands ready to do the bidding of movement leaders. With the debt-limit talks having failed at the executive level, only Congress can provide a solution. And in the House, the Tea Party caucus still carries the power of "no."

Editor's Note: To learn more about how a failure of the debt-ceiling talks could impact your life, read 5 Desperate Consequences of a Debt Ceiling Meltdown, by Joshua Holland.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/addiestan

Debt Ceiling Holy War: Why Do Conservatives Have Unshakable Faith in Ideas That Are Totally, Demonstrably False?


AlterNet.org


TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT

Facts come second to faith in the GOP's populist brand of conservatism.

The Republican Party is holding the U.S. economy hostage. While the American people overwhelmingly support a solution to the debt ceiling impasse that includes a mix of tax hikes on the rich and cuts to the federal budget, the Tea Party GOP is deaf to their concerns. Moreover, even though President Barack Obama is willing to make painful concessions on entitlement spending—a move that hands the Republican Party a practical win—the Tea Party GOP remains intractable in its refusal to support even the most minimum of tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

The American people, the world’s financial markets and the pundit classes remain perplexed by the Republican Party’s dangerous brinkmanship. Why would they risk financial armageddon? What is the practical gain to be had from such irresponsible behavior? Is this a ploy to undermine the Democrats before the 2012 election?

Observers remain befuddled because they have failed to connect the dots between the Republican Party’s intransigent stubbornness and a populist brand of conservatism where the world of facts has been made secondary to the intoxication of faith.

Consider the following: faith is based upon a belief in that which cannot be proved or demonstrated by normal means. Faith is also immune and separate from tests of empirical proof. Not to be overlooked, the contemporary Republican Party is home to the Religious Right. Consequently, the primacy of “faith” as the decision rule in political decision-making is both a perfect and logical fit for conservative populism.

When coupled with conservatives’ penchant for authoritarianism, their adherence to simple moral scripts, and a either/or binary world view, the allures of faith mated with fiction are irresistible to the Republican Party. Thus, the idea that politics should serve the common good for all is truncated and superseded by the pursuit of a common good that is only for the faithful, the few and the ideologically pure.

This cognitive framework colors a wide range of the Republican Party’s policies. For example, in the face of overwhelming evidence the Tea Party GOP continues to deny the existence of global warming. Doubling down, history is made into a plaything; the U.S. Constitution is transformed into a fetish object where the intent of the framers is almost magically divined by “strict constructionists” who pray at conservatism’s altar. School boards in Arizona and Texas rewrite the historical record at a whim in order to indoctrinate students into right-wing ideology. And conservative darlings such as Mike Huckabee and “scholar” David Barton pander ideologically correct, snake oil, flimflam versions of U.S. history to the Tea Party GOP faithful who are suckered into buying their books and videos.

In all, the Republican Party is possessed by a spirit of willful denial: aided and abetted by the right-wing media, Conservatives can bend the world to their wishes; reality is subject to their fantasies; any belief, however specious, is made true because they want it to be so. This is a pathology that extends both to the debt ceiling debate and the broader assault by conservatives on the country’s social safety net. Both are examples of a frightening pseudo religion called Free Market Fundamentalism—a faith based on a set of assumptions that are immune to interrogation, challenge or the collective weight of reality.

Myth Number One: The crisis over the debt ceiling is an artificial panic. There will be no serious consequences if the United States does not resolve this issue by August 2, 2011. In fact, President Obama and the Democrats are trying to scare the American people into thinking that a calamity will occur if the United States chooses to selectively pay its bills. Alternatively, the United States Treasury has more than enough revenue to push the debt ceiling issue down the road to a future date.

While Tea Party darlings such as Congressman Allen West are saying this is "much ado about nothing,"a failure to resolve the debt ceiling crisis would be an unprecedented event in American history. A range of non-partisan organizations, financial giants such as Standard & Poor's, Moody's and even the Chinese government are warning the Obama administration that if the United States were to default on its debts a global financial crisis would ensue. Moreover, a myriad of government agencies would be closed and a shock wave would ripple out to all corners of the U.S. economy.

Myth Number Two: Supply side, trickle-down economics are always the solution to America’s financial woes.

In reality, there is little to no proof that tax cuts have ever paid for themselves. In almost all cases, they are a drain on revenue. As demonstrated by the Bush and Obama years, the latter’s continuing of the former’s policies have resulted in a net loss to the federal budget. Tax cuts for the richest Americans have not been broadly stimulating. Moreover, they played a role in causing (and deepening) America’s current fiscal crisis.

Myth Number Three: Unions hurt the economy, take away jobs from American workers and impede economic growth. The way out of the Great Recession is to complete the destruction of the public sector workforce through a final demolition of unionized labor and the elimination of minimum wage laws.

The truth is a different matter. Historically, strong unions were responsible for the growth of the American middle-class. As seen across the advanced economies of the world, there is a direct correlation between unionized labor, a high standard of living and wages that allow for a healthy level of long-term consumer spending and economic growth. Minimum wage laws, as well as other income supports, positively stimulate the U.S. economy.

Myth Number Four: “Job creators” are being punished by Obama’s tax policies and any increase in taxes to resolve the debt crisis will further extend the Great Recession.

The corporations and financier class (who ostensibly create jobs) have long benefited from some of the lowest effective tax rates in the world. Both have grossly and disproportionately gained from a financial bailout that has increased their profits and earnings to record rates, all the while new hiring remains stagnant. Coupled with this troubling phenomenon, the last three decades have witnessed the rise of neo-liberal economic policies that have exported American jobs while generating record corporate profits. There seems to be little if any connection between the policies that have enabled the corporateocracy’s growth, and the overall financial health of the average American worker, who is struggling with record levels of unemployment, a mortgage crisis of historic proportions, crippling debt, and a diminished standard of living.

Myth Number Five: An increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans is “class warfare” and proof of President Obama’s “socialist” policies.

The United States exhibits a severe and unequal level of wealth and income distribution: the top 1 percent of the population holds at least 20 percent of the wealth. Adding insult to injury, the very top 1 percent of Americans earns an average of $27 million a year per person, while the bottom 99 percent of Americans earns an average of $31,000 a year. The average salary of a corporate CEOis now at least 500 times more than the average worker.

In a progressive tax system those who earn the most income should pay higher taxes. However, in the United States the effective tax rate on the wealthiest Americans has decreased over the last 30 years, while middle-class Americans have seen relative tax burdens increase as a percentage of their respective incomes.

Yes, there is a class war in the United States. But it is being waged against the middle and working classes, where for the last 40 years the minimum wage has effectively decreased when controlled for inflation, and earnings have gone down when controlled for inflation—all in an era when highly favorable tax policies have encouraged unprecedented economic growth for the richest Americans. In a post-Citizens United era when corporations can donate unlimited monies to influence elections, these radical levels of economic inequality will only worsen.

The debt ceiling crisis has revealed the noxious hold that a politics of faith--one that is immune from reason and fact--has on the contemporary Republican Party. In practice, politics ought to be based on compromise. Because faith supersedes reason for conservatives in the Age of Obama, compromise is made difficult…if not impossible. As revealed by the debt ceiling crisis, the Tea Party GOP’s need for ideological purity is the fuel for a dangerous holy war where the target is the economy of the United States, and the American people are collateral damage.

This is a systemic challenge to the common good because the Republican Party’s steely resistance to compromise in the debt ceiling negotiations is a function of other trends. First, eliminationist rhetoric that vilifies liberals and progressives as un-American, traitors, evil, degenerates, a disease, a mental illness, or a group of people who should be destroyed through violence, is a type of lingua franca in the right-wing media echo chamber. From this point of view, why would conservatives ever compromise with those who disagree with them?

Second, the racially tinged right-wing populist rhetoric of Sarah Palin’s brigades, and the Tea Party with their yearnings to “take back America,” suggests a deep antipathy to an increasingly diverse and multicultural United States and its first black president. Here, the Right appears willing to see this version of America destroyed in order to advance their political agenda. The United States of the 21st century is at the apotheosis of empire. It is also a nation where white folks will soon “only” be a plurality of the population. Ultimately, it is no longer the “real America” anyway, so why would racially reactionary white conservatives want to save it?

In sum, as David Brooks sharply suggested several weeks ago, the contemporary Republican Party is not practicing “normal politics.” Rather, it is behaving like a cult, drunk on the cheap whiskey of political orthodoxy and deaf to the world of facts. To the present, the Tea Party GOP has painted itself into a corner in the debt ceiling fight. Frighteningly, they may see no other option but to salt the earth and bring the temple down on the heads of the American people in order to prove the righteousness of their cause.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The debt ceiling backlash within the GOP



Topic:

Debt ceiling

The debt ceiling backlash within the GOP

The debt ceiling backlash within the GOP
YouTube
Bill O'Reilly and Rep. Michele Bachmann

Wall Street is panicking, the credit rating agencies are increasingly nervous, and the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline is now less than two weeks away. But the loudest conservative voices in Congress and on the airwaves are still resisting compromise, and some are even arguing that the debt ceiling shouldn't extended under any circumstances -- even if it means a default.

But this posture is not universal on the right. In fact, an increasing number of influential conservatives are beginning to speak up, warning about the catastrophic effects of a default and chastising those who refuse to even consider compromising. Some highlights from this outbreak of sanity:

David Brooks: The conservative New York Times columnist surprised a lot of folks with this July 4 write-up on how a "normal" Republican Party would have handled negotiations:

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.

A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

But Brooks was just getting warmed up. This week he singled out individual Republicans that he says are to blame for missing what could have been a "glorious moment in Republican history":

Republicans now have a group of political celebrities who are marvelously uninterested in actually producing results. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann produce tweets, not laws. They have created a climate in which purity is prized over practicality.

Bill O'Reilly: The Fox News host began his July 19 interview with Michele Bachmann by telling her, "I believe Secretary Geithner when he says it will be catastrophic for America if the debt ceiling is not raised." He spent the rest of the seven-minute segment aggressively challenging her claims, telling her at one point, "Tough love is OK, as long as the rest of the country doesn't get hurt."


Doug Holtz-Eakin: The one-time chief economic policy adviser to John McCain spelled out the potential default consequences in a Fox News interview:

"There's the potential for something that looks like 2008 -- a financial crisis, with a spike in interest rates, higher monthly payments on everything that you owe, and the inability of households to get credit at all," he said. "We cannot risk another episode like two or three years ago."

Megan McArdle: The right-leaning Atlantic blogger provided a widely circulated list of the "very immediate, very theatrical" outcomes of not raising the debt ceiling:

The nation's nuclear arsenal is no longer being watched or maintained.

The doors of federal prisons have been thrown open, because none of the guards will work without being paid, and the vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity,etc.

The border control stations are entirely unmanned, so anyone who can buy a plane ticket, or stroll across the Mexican border, is entering the country. All the illegal immigrants currently in detention are released, since we don't have the money to put them on a plane, and we cannot actually simply leave them in a cell without electricity, sanitation, or food to see what happens.

All of our troops stationed abroad quickly run out of electricity or fuel. Many of them are sitting in a desert with billions worth of equipment, and no way to get themselves or their equipment back to the US.

No federal emergency assistance, or help fighting things like wildfires or floods. Sorry, tornado people! Sorry, wildfire victims! Try to live in the northeast next time!

The market for guaranteed student loans plunges into chaos. Hope your kid wasn't going to college this year!

The mortgage market evaporates. Hope you didn't need to buy or sell a house!

The FDIC and the PBGC suddenly don't have a government backstop for their funds, which has all sorts of interesting implications for your bank account.

Unemployment money is no longer going to the states, which means that pretty soon, it won't be going to the unemployed people.

Larry Kudlow: The CNBC host has taken to speaking out on the dangers of default, using an interview with Tim Pawlenty to lecture the presidential candidate about the unrealistic nature of hardline conservative demands on the debt ceiling. And writing in the National Review recently, Kudlow dismissed the notion that the Treasury can get by paying its bills without issuing additional debt:

The revenue-allocation view of not raising the debt ceiling really doesn’t hold any practical water. Why some of my conservative friends keep pushing this is beyond me.

Bruce Bartlett: The policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and treasury official under George H.W. Bush was one of the first to argue that if Congress can't get its act together, President Obama should invoke the the 14th amendment and circumvent the debt ceiling negotiations altogether:

The president would be justified in taking extreme actions to protect against a debt default. In the event that congressional irresponsibility makes default impossible to avoid, he should order the secretary of the Treasury to simply disregard the debt limit and sell whatever securities are necessary to raise cash to pay the nation’s debts.

David Frum: Frum was a speechwriter for George W. Bush, but here he comments on the GOP’s irrational demand for full surrender:

In this debt-ceiling fight, I'm having horrible flashbacks to the Republican debacle over healthcare. Then as now, what could have been a negotiated deal turned into all-out political war. Then as now, Republicans rejected all concessions by the president as pathetically inadequate. Then as now, Republicans refused any concessions of their own, instead demanding that the president yield totally to their way of thinking. Then as now, Republicans convinced themselves that they had the clout to force the president to yield. With healthcare, Republicans calculated spectacularly wrong. They pursued an all or nothing strategy and got -- nothing. They neither shaped the bill nor did they stop it. Will they make the same mistake again on the debt ceiling?

Mark Salter:

John McCain's speechwriter and book collaborator said that Obama occupies the high ground in the debt ceiling debate:

Obama has, or at least appears to have, put on the table a proposal that seems practical, reasonable and bold -- and which made Republicans appear truculent and small. He has, as the saying goes, done well by doing good. Now it's the Republicans' turn to do the same.

Ross Douthat: And finally, the New York Times' other conservative columnist flat-out called the Republicans unreasonable:

Obama has been playing the reasonability card so successfully because his opponents won’t (or can’t) play one of their own. It’s not that Republicans needed to tug their forelock and go along with whatever grand bargain the White House whipped up. But to win the endgame, they needed something they were willing to concede, something they could tout in public as an example of meeting the Democrats partway. Their inability to make even symbolic concessions has turned a winning hand into a losing one.


  • Jonathan Easley is an editorial fellow at Salon. Follow him on Twitter @joneasley. More: Jonathan Easley

Why the Affordable Care Act is a Death Panel


July 21, 2011 at 11:11:53

Confessions Of A Real Death Panel Member! Yes, Virginia, Death Panels Do Exist!

By Jillian Barclay (about the author)

Maleficent's First Job Was Sitting On A Death Panel!

Deny! Deny! Deny! No Care Unless It Is Cheap Care!

I sat on a REAL death panel, even though it was never called that. The death panel had a sanitized name. Managed care 'death panels' were and are still called 'utilization management review'; but, Virginia, don't be fooled! Utilization management departments are the REAL death panels. They are panels made up of bureaucrats, insurance company physicians, nurses and even some employees who have had no clinical training at all. They are where a request for care many times goes to be denied. Whenever your physician wants you to have a procedure considered out of the ordinary, an expensive medication, an inpatient hospital stay, a surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, an MRI, a CT scan, etc., the managed care 'death panel' reviews the proposed care, and then decides if it is 'appropriate' and will or will not be paid for by the insurance company.

Cost vs. outcome is the key phrase to remember. That, and the phrase, "Too bad, so sad!" That is the phrase used when care is denied, many times because it does not meet acceptable profit margins. There are medical guidelines that also come into play, but cost vs. outcome is usually the primary dictator of the denial of care.

There are numerous cases of death panel decisions that have made the news. Those negative decisions that hit the media are quickly reviewed and in most cases approved. No bad publicity goes unnoticed or ignored. Then, the decision to deny care usually turns into a prompt approval of care. The insurance company is given a pass by the media and consumers and is again able to fly under the radar, until the next highly publicized case comes along.

One of the most publicized denials of care came when Cigna's utilization management review (death panel) approved a liver transplant, then denied the liver transplant, and then approved it again, right before the patient died. The outrage was nation-wide, but nothing has changed, especially with for-profit medical insurance companies. Not-for profits are just as guilty.

The most widely publicized case: 17 year old Nataline Sarkisyan was a leukemia patient. According to her doctors at UCLA Medical Center, she required a liver transplant to survive. Nataline would definitely die without a new liver and Cigna originally authorized the surgery. When Nataline developed a lung infection, her liver transplant was denied with Cigna stating that the procedure was experimental. Her doctors and family appealed the denial and contacted the media. Nataline was in ICU for 10 days waiting, with her medical condition deteriorating while her insurance company pondered the evidence for the appeal. Finally, when a protest took place at the Cigna offices in Glendale, California, under the glare of television cameras, Cigna changed their mind again and approved the surgery. Reports state that Nataline's 10 day stay in ICU was too long. The delay caused her condition to deteriorate so badly that she died prior to getting the transplant.

Don't think that the Sarkisyan case is unique. In my experience, it is quite common.

The Tree Of Death LIVES At Health Insurance Companies!
Why So Much Controversy About The IPAB?

Yet again, and still, Republicans are trying to turn nothing into something! Rep. Fred Upton (R), Michigan, wrote an editorial that was run by Politico on July 13, 2011. In the editorial, Mr. Upton spins a great tale about the rationing of care that will cause harm to patients unless the IPAB and the Affordable Care Act are repealed. The full article is printed at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58851.html

The IPAB is short for the Independent Payment Advisory Board and it is NOT designed to ration care. According to the New England Journal of Medicine: "The effects of the IPAB's proposals, however, may not be to "ration health care," raise costs to beneficiaries, restrict benefits, or modify eligibility criteria. Proposals may not, before 2020, target the rates of particular providers --primarily hospitals and hospices -- that are already singledout by the ACA for extraordinary cuts. The board is not prohibited from cutting payments for physicians, but its powers may be limited if a permanent fix for the sustainable growth rate --the formula that determines increases or decreases in Medicare's physician payments -- is passed."

So, if you are interested in death panels, examine and investigate the REAL ones. They have a home at every single private insurance company, as well as at Medicare Advantage plans that are administered by private insurers such as Secure Horizons, Kaiser, etc.

Private insurer? Death panel in existence!

Mr. Upton, in the words of your esteemed colleague, Rep. Joe Wilson, "You Lie!"

Dems To Strip $500 BILLION From Medicare? No!

Mr. Upton and his GOP colleagues are again lying to the American people. Yes, Virginia, the Affordable Care Act does cut the payment of BONUSES paid to private insurance companies. The $500 BILLION is a BONUS paid in exchange for providing care to Medicare patients under Medicare Advantage, or Medicare Part C.

You see, Virginia, the government originally thought that they should make it more lucrative for private insurers to provide Advantage programs, so they offered the private insurance companies an incentive. Provide care and we will not only pay you for the care that you provide, we will pay you an extra $1100 or $1200 extra per patient, per year. It is only the BONUS that is stripped! That BONUS adds up to over $500 BILLION dollars.

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Oppose The GOP Plan To Kill Medicare!

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

I am an 'older' progressive; a holdover from the hippie generation. I have raised 3 children, am a proud grandmother, and an outspoken political junkie. I have worked in the healthcare field for 30 years, both for insurance companies and for the (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

e the REAL death panels. They are panels made up of bureaucrats, insurance company physicians, nurses and even some employees who have had no clinical training at all. They are where a request for care many times goes to be denied. Whenever your physician wants you to have a procedure considered out of the ordinary, an expensive medication, an inpatient hospital stay, a surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, an MRI, a CT scan, etc., the managed care 'death panel' reviews the proposed care, and then decides if it is 'appropriate' and will or will not be paid for by the insurance company.

Cost vs. outcome is the key phrase to remember. That, and the phrase, "Too bad, so sad!" That is the phrase used when care is denied, many times because it does not meet acceptable profit margins. There are medical guidelines that also come into play, but cost vs. outcome is usually the primary dictator of the denial of care.

There are numerous cases of death panel decisions that have made the news. Those negative decisions that hit the media are quickly reviewed and in most cases approved. No bad publicity goes unnoticed or ignored. Then, the decision to deny care usually turns into a prompt approval of care. The insurance company is given a pass by the media and consumers and is again able to fly under the radar, until the next highly publicized case comes along.

One of the most publicized denials of care came when Cigna's utilization management review (death panel) approved a liver transplant, then denied the liver transplant, and then approved it again, right before the patient died. The outrage was nation-wide, but nothing has changed, especially with for-profit medical insurance companies. Not-for profits are just as guilty.

The most widely publicized case: 17 year old Nataline Sarkisyan was a leukemia patient. According to her doctors at UCLA Medical Center, she required a liver transplant to survive. Nataline would definitely die without a new liver and Cigna originally authorized the surgery. When Nataline developed a lung infection, her liver transplant was denied with Cigna stating that the procedure was experimental. Her doctors and family appealed the denial and contacted the media. Nataline was in ICU for 10 days waiting, with her medical condition deteriorating while her insurance company pondered the evidence for the appeal. Finally, when a protest took place at the Cigna offices in Glendale, California, under the glare of television cameras, Cigna changed their mind again and approved the surgery. Reports state that Nataline's 10 day stay in ICU was too long. The delay caused her condition to deteriorate so badly that she died prior to getting the transplant.

Don't think that the Sarkisyan case is unique. In my experience, it is quite common.

The Tree Of Death LIVES At Health Insurance Companies!
Why So Much Controversy About The IPAB?

Yet again, and still, Republicans are trying to turn nothing into something! Rep. Fred Upton (R), Michigan, wrote an editorial that was run by Politico on July 13, 2011. In the editorial, Mr. Upton spins a great tale about the rationing of care that will cause harm to patients unless the IPAB and the Affordable Care Act are repealed. The full article is printed at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58851.html

The IPAB is short for the Independent Payment Advisory Board and it is NOT designed to ration care. According to the New England Journal of Medicine: "The effects of the IPAB's proposals, however, may not be to "ration health care," raise costs to beneficiaries, restrict benefits, or modify eligibility criteria. Proposals may not, before 2020, target the rates of particular providers --primarily hospitals and hospices -- that are already singledout by the ACA for extraordinary cuts. The board is not prohibited from cutting payments for physicians, but its powers may be limited if a permanent fix for the sustainable growth rate --the formula that determines increases or decreases in Medicare's physician payments -- is passed."

So, if you are interested in death panels, examine and investigate the REAL ones. They have a home at every single private insurance company, as well as at Medicare Advantage plans that are administered by private insurers such as Secure Horizons, Kaiser, etc. Private insurer? Death panel in existence!

Mr. Upton, in the words of your esteemed colleague, Rep. Joe Wilson, "You Lie!"

Dems To Strip $500 BILLION From Medicare? No!

Mr. Upton and his GOP colleagues are again lying to the American people. Yes, Virginia, the Affordable Care Act does cut the payment of BONUSES paid to private insurance companies. The $500 BILLION is a BONUS paid in exchange for providing care to Medicare patients under Medicare Advantage, or Medicare Part C.

You see, Virginia, the government originally thought that they should make it more lucrative for private insurers to provide Advantage programs, so they offered the private insurance companies an incentive. Provide care and we will not only pay you for the care that you provide, we will pay you an extra $1100 or $1200 extra per patient, per year. It is only the BONUS that is stripped! That BONUS adds up to over $500 BILLION dollars.

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Oppose The GOP Plan To Kill Medicare!

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

I am an 'older' progressive; a holdover from the hippie generation. I have raised 3 children, am a proud grandmother, and an outspoken political junkie. I have worked in the healthcare field for 30 years, both for insurance companies and for the (more...)

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