Fact-esque

Not a News Flash! Tax Policy Favors the Rich and the Incorporated

I've been on this tax policy thing for a long time and I probably don't have much of anything new to say about it but I thought it was worth noting some confirmation and a report where all the info is in the same place. CFAF's Eric Lotke links to a new report that proves what we've been saying for years: the current tax system is horribly skewed to the top. (Via Norwegianity) The conclusion is stark: we pay all the bills, the rich get all the benefits.

Obama Discovers Republican Post-Partisanship Is the Same As Republican Pre-Partisanship: "Our Way or the Highway"; Stimulus Package Passes Anyway

President Obama went out of his way to court the Congressional GOP, even going to meet with them rather than making them come to him, to negotiate a compromise to get Republican votes for his stimulus package. Here's what they were concerned about:

Republicans interviewed after the meeting said, Mr. Obama told them he would listen to proposals to expand on provisions cutting taxes for small businesses and would be open to corporate tax cuts as well if Republicans cooperated to close tax loopholes for big business.

They offered, as usual, nothing in return. All they wanted to know was how much Obama would give. He offered to trade the family planning money that Dingbat John Boehner found so excessive for some minor tax breaks for small businesses. Boehner wasn't interested and offered nothing except the threat that House Pubs wouldn't vote for the bill unless $300B in state aid was cut, of all things. (Are they trying to make enemies out of everybody, even their own state GOP officials?)

SCHIP Merry-Go-Round

Here's an analysis of the SCHIP battle that's coming next week.  Tradeoffs abound, but what else is new?   This part is funny though:

 House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wrote in a letter to Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that Republicans want the program to require coverage of children below 200% of the federal poverty level before increasing to higher income levels. The letter said, "Republicans are committed to reauthorizing SCHIP in a manner that puts poor children first, which is the original intent of the program." They also want the legislation to require stricter citizenship documentation (CQ Today, 1/9).

What it should say is that Republicans are committed to reauthorizing SCHIP is a manner that makes covering more poor children impossible and prevents currently eligible children from accessing care by scapegoating immigrant children for a problem the doesn't exist.

Call your Congressperson today and tell him/her that you want the SCHIP reauthorized and expanded and that the GOP can pound salt. 

 

Three Quarters of a Million PLUS

Hooray!  We've reached another milestone in the annals of Compassionate Conservatism.    According to the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute  almost 2,000 children become uninsured every day in this country.  This number includes all children that are eligible for Medicaid,  SCHIP and those dropped from private insurance.  Those numbers are reflected in the counter at the top of this post and in the sidebar and show that while President Bush continues to change his reasons for refusing to help ten million children have access to health care, there are more and more children and families out there suffering the anxiety and lack of care that comes from being uninsured. 

But let's not heap all our scorn on the heads of the cruel President and his minions in Congress.  We can save some for the Democrats who can't keep their caucus together long enough to pass a bill that expands an overwhelminly popular program that lets sick kids see a doctor and their parents sleep a little bit easier at night.  Compassionate Conservatism is a bi-partisan racket. 

Stories like this don't make me hopeful for the coming health care reform war. 

The Public Wants What the Public Gets

Via Atrios I see that Matt Yglesias is trying to make lemonade:

Why not tie this bailout to something like the second stimulus package of enhanced food stamps, extended unemployment insurance, and enhanced aid to state governments straining under the yoke of Medicaid payments?

It’d be absurd for the government to be moving hundreds of billions of dollars around amidst an economic crisis while doing nothing for, say, janitors who get laid off from Lehman Brothers. The problems to worry about here are in the “real” economy. Propping up the financial sector can help accomplish that, but we also need to prop up normal people trying to pay the bills and weather the storm.

Yeah.  I love Matt for trying.  I wish I had thought to suggest it first with a straight face and I'm ashamed that I didn't.  But, in my defense, that idea won't happen in a million billion years, which is probably why my brain killed the thought before it could escape my idealistic subconscious.   This is what will happen:

All those hundreds of billions will be moved to protect and defend the ruling class.  When it comes time to pass an economic recovery package (this is that time, by the way but it's being used up with the bailout) and the appropriation bills that fund the sort of programs that Matt is talking about, we will be lectured by the GOP and their miserable Blue Dog minions about fiscal responsibility as if we are frackin' idiot children who can't balance our own checkbooks much less a great big federal budget.  They will shake their heads and wish that we could afford everything, really they do, but hard choices have to be made. 

People like me will beg people to take action - send an email - call your Congressperson - march in the street - show up at campaign events in great numbers and badger those sons of bitches on this point until they give in.   I'll be bitterly disappointed because not enough people will do what it takes and this radical reallocation of resources will continue unabated and those janitors that Matt talks about and their kids - and you and your kids - will continue to be casualties of a class war that just opened up another front.

On the bright side, there is no bright side but I did find a funny comment from that Yglesias post, so, you know, that's something:

It’s like Wall Street is playing D&D and the Dungeon Master is named Reality.

Financial Wizards: I cast my greed spell. It should do + 1 billion damage.

Reality: There is a strange force at work called rational asset pricing. Your spell has the reverse effect! Minus 1 billion damage! How many hit points do you have again?

Financial Wizards: Ummmm…not a billion.

Reality: That’s alright. I’ll just give you additional hit points that I steal from the future of your children.

Financial Wizards: Cool! Can I try that spell again?

Reality: Of course but you’ll have to wait a few turns. The amount of future you can steal is finite but it renews itself every generation.

Making Life Easy for the GOP

Here we go again.

The Democrats, who have apparently made a fetish of this, are once again letting the GOP off the hook as they cave in to a threatened Bush veto rather than force the Pubs to explain why they're against health care for sick kids.

Congressional Democrats have scrapped plans for another vote on expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, thus sparing Republicans from a politically difficult vote just weeks before elections this fall.

Before the summer recess, Democrats had vowed repeatedly to force another vote on the popular program. But Democrats say they have shifted course, after concluding that President Bush would not sign their legislation and that they could not override his likely veto.

So what? Right before an election, is success the point? Or is it important for the GOP to be seen insisting that letting sick kids die is an acceptable way to cut taxes? And once again we get the standard black-is-white spin we're used to from Republicans, only this time it's coming from House-Speaker-in-waiting Rahm Emanuel.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said: “We are not going to change any votes on the children’s health insurance bill. We still don’t have enough to override a veto. Those who opposed this bill can face the voters and explain why they believe 10 million kids should not get health coverage.”

No, Rahm, that's what you just prevented. But never mind. The important thing is not to embarrass the Republicans in an election year. No, no, can't have that. The corporate press and right-wing punditry that is all we have left wouldn't like it.

And so I'm supposed to vote for the Democrats...why, again? Because things will be different? Um, how, exactly??

It Looks Like They're Going to Get Their Wish

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children�s Healthcare

Another Great Milestone in the Annals of Compassionate Conservatism

The above counter almost says it all.  It leaves out the part about how the Dems, when faced with a fight against a BushCo veto and strong support from his Congressional minions, punted this issue until March 2009.  They didn't want to appear weak in the War on the Poor during an election year.  I'm pretty sure they're on the wrong side of that one but what do I know?   Anyway, in honor of half a million children being denied health care in the richest country in the world, here's some Colbert.

Counter background: According to the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute almost  2,000 children become uninsured every day in this country.  This number includes all children that are eligible for Medicaid, SCHIP and those dropped from private insurance. 

File This Under Quel Surprise

From the Alliance for Retired Americans weekly newsletter:

Administration Threatens to Veto Medicare Bill That Does Not Protect Insurers
According to the Associated Press, the Bush administration is threatening to veto any legislation that protects doctors' Medicare payments at the expense of private insurers.  Beginning on July 1, reimbursement rates for doctors will drop 10.6% when they treat older and disabled patients participating in Medicare.  To keep that from happening, lawmakers are looking at finding at least $9 billion in savings from other Medicare programs over the next five years.  Medicare Advantage private insurers are at the top of the list for Democrats and some Republicans to cut, since they receive generous government subsidies to serve their 9.5 million beneficiaries.  The veto threat came in a May 22 letter to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) that was circulated Thursday on Capitol Hill.  Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is overseeing the crafting of Medicare legislation on the Senate side.  His spokeswoman noted that while the senator was aware of the administration's concerns, the government pays about 13% more for patients in Medicare Advantage than for comparable patients in traditional Medicare.  “The Bush Administration is putting the interests of private insurers before those of seniors,” said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance.  “Medicare beneficiaries need the doctor payment issue to be resolved quickly, and veto threats that protect corporate interests don’t move the ball forward.”

I've covered the Medicare Advantage scam here many times.  Suffice to say, it's a racket that exists to pour tax dollars into the pockets of insurance companies.   The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities has a ton of information about them here.  The Senate's refusal to consider ending those overpayments to fund SCHIP is what helped to sink the needed expansion of that program.  As of now, 468,466 kids have lost health care since that debacle.  But screw'em.  The insurance companies need that money to keep our health care system the very most bestest in the whole world.  We should thank them.   

It's no surprise that BushCo is fighting tooth and nail to preserve the system that hands out free money to the insurance industry but I thought you ought to know.

Call your Senator.  What the hell, right?

GAO Slaps Bush for SCHIP Vetoes

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has a long history of genuine independence from the reigning powers in Washington regardless of party. They have been in the past fearless protectors of taxpayers and undaunted by presidents who thought they ought to shut up. While that reputation has suffered somewhat during the Bush Administration, their legal dept has finally weighed in on a controversial issue and slapped The Emperor down in no uncertain terms.

The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

The ruling strengthens the hand of at least 22 states, including New York and New Jersey, that already provide such coverage or want to do so. And it significantly reduces the chance that the new policy can be put into effect before President Bush leaves office in nine months.

Better late than never, I suppose. At least they've stopped Bush's anti-children health policy from screwing up any more lives for the time being, and it's unlikely the new Democratic president would dare follow in his footsteps, BD's or no BD's.

We haven't had any good news around kids' health for quite a while. This isn't much but it's something to be happy about, and that's been rare. (That Bush finally got some comeuppance is a bennie, I grant you.) Unfortunately, Bush's Boy on the Scene says he plans to ignore the GAO's finding.

In a formal legal opinion Friday, the accountability office said the new policy “amounts to a marked departure” from a longstanding, settled interpretation of federal law. It is therefore a rule and, under a 1996 law, must be submitted to Congress for review before it can take effect, the opinion said.

But Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “G.A.O.’s opinion does not change our conclusion that the Aug. 17 letter is still in effect.”

The letter told states what steps they needed to take to be sure the children’s health program would not displace or “crowd out” private coverage under group health plans. The White House cited the policy as a justification for rejecting a proposal by New York State to cover 70,000 additional youngsters.

Typical.