Another bullshit spam E-mail!

     Another spam chain e-mail day!  This one from someone who is apparently far too ignorant to understand what a budget is (and isn't) , far too  lazy to check facts, and far too Far Right to care. 
The e-mail has a picture of Congressman  Paul Ryan, handsome dude that he is, at the top and then proceeds, and I'll cut this, where appropriate, for brevity: Note the highlighted and multi-asterisked  line items are perennial Far Right targets. 


"PAUL RYAN'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS"

A List of Republican Budget Cuts
Notice S.S. and the military are NOT on this list.

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.
Read to the end.
* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.  **** (why should kids learn their letter?)
* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings. ****
* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings. **** (Yeah, who needs Art?)
* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.  **** (see above!)
* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon , eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U..S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings. ****
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.
*Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings..
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings. ****
* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.
* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings. ****
* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.  ****
* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.
* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings..
* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.
*Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.
* U.S.Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings..
* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.
*Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.
* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years. 
*Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings. WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?(added by sender)
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.
*Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. WHAT??? (added by sender)
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.
*Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings. WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL (added by sender)
* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual savings.
*Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.  ****
* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings..****
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
*TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years

My question is, what is all this doing in the budget in the first place?!
Maybe this is why the Democrats are attacking Paul Ryan.
Please Send to everyone you know.." And thus it ends.

     While it seems  obvious that some of these items might be passé, There are others, all, mind you, alleged  by implication to be favorites of Democrats which the frugal Republicans wish to rightfully, of course, do away with. The truth here, as it always is in dealing with Far Right loonies, is far from simple and closer to partisan.

      Where to start? Ok let's take the first lie first: This isn't a budget, it accounts for no expenditures, simply describes cuts) was actually introduced as The Spending Reduction act of 2011. It was introduced by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, not Paul Ryan! It stayed in committee in the Republican controlled House, where Democrats couldn't have prevented a vote if they wished to, so obviously this vote was prevented from moving by the House majority, Republicans as we recall.  As to the particulars, you're right, some of this stuff deserves an asskicking for whomever proposed it, but many have been there for ages and ages. and neither party has had any desire to get rid of them.

    The  very first bill to kill the Congressional death gratuity was introduced by a TN Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper; again,  it ain't Ryan (or even Republican) material! 

     As for the unpaid taxes of federal employees, that would be about 0.8% of the total unpaid taxes.($114 billion) Why not have everyone pay their taxes?  Retired military owe over a billion!, active duty and reservists owe about $336 million. The proposal is to fire any federal employees who are delinquent. What an easy way to get a discharge, huh? Again, this is not  a "Republican" idea, it has White House support on the principle involved. Again, the vast majority of unpaid tax is owed by non federal people. 

     As for the "Mohair and wool subsidy", Eisenhower signed it into law in 1954, been there ever since, again, a Republican initiative, not Democrat. 

     The "Alaska native....trading...Massachusetts" line item was signed into law by GW Bush in 2001. 

     Of course "Obamacare (the Affordable care Act) costs are there, they hate it because, as most Republican Governors now admit - it works! 

      OK, I'm tired of looking stuff up, which is what the originator of this previously discredited chain e-mail should have done. There is a bunch of stuff here that should go out the window, and I believe federal employees as well as the other 99.02 % of tax delinquents should be pressured to pay their taxes. I also believe Congress members probably don't need a years' salary as death benefit, although the members apparently actually got the money, unlike Walmart, who secretly insured employees, named themselves beneficiaries, and kept the death benefit themselves! 

     Many public area employers provide a death benefit for little or, no premium. Although a year's salary seems high for dying in the saddle, US corporations routinely award far more to CEOs who fail miserably. One quick example:  Mattell's CEO received $50 million in severance pay in 2000  after being employed for only two years during which time Mattel's stock price fell by 50 percent, wiping out $2.5 billion in shareholder value.  His payout for miserable failure was about equal to 287 Congressional death gratuities. I'm just sayin'! 

Bottom line: 1:  It ain't Ryan's "budget (or Bill or whatever) In fact Ryan wasn't even among the bill's 32 co-sponsors!  
 2: there is no massive "Democratic opposition" to many of these proposals  
3: It has been kept tabled in committee by the Republican majority in the US House, via a committee chaired by a Republican.
 4: The proposal to end the Congressional death gratuity was introduced by a Democrat .   

So why send this at all? It has to do with appearing to be fiscally responsible and blaming one's shortcomings on others. In all honesty, Ryan has nothing to do with this scurrilous chain e-mail other than his picture being  attached to it. It is simply another Far Right attempt to smear moderates of  both parties by implying that if Ryan supports  these line items , some of which are, no doubt, wasteful, then "wasteful" Democrats all oppose him. The inverse is true in many cases, however, as in the Congressional death gratuity issue, where it is a Democrat who has actually proposed ending it.  It also lumps into the equation several organizations  (PBS, NEA, NEH) which the Far Righters hate because they encourage people to learn and think for themselves. 

Another example is the proposal to end the Davis-Bacon ACT.  I am dead certain that no one receiving this e-mail could identify the law in question, in fact, I would be willing to bet  that less than 1 in 10,000 Americans could do so.  Naturally, proposing to overturn  a law no one can describe is easy. Actually it's a cheap shot. The law in question was sponsored by two Republicans and signed into law by A Republican president, Herbert Hoover. Simply put, it required that contractors working on federally funded projects (over a specified total cost) have to pay their workers a wage equivalent to the prevailing local wage. This was an attempt to discourage contractors from importing  (at the time) black or immigrant workers at low pay, rather than hiring locally and stimulating local economies.  While the act has been controversial, the controversy had usually centered not on the intent of the law, but the quality of its enforcement. In an era of real concern about non-documented immigrants undercutting home grown worker's rights,  many Republicans should adore this act, as it would avoid the use of cheaper immigrant labor, and insure a fairer marketplace of labor - oh wait, maybe they really don't want that (or their corporate masters don't).
      
     One more time, this proposal has been stalled for over two years by House Republicans, not Democrats as it implies! It also isn't a Paul Ryan proposal.
  
Facts can be embarrassing,   can't they?

Who is Rick Scott Running Against, and From?

        Just heard for the billionth time the Rick Scott campaign spot in which he appears to be running not against Charlie Crist, but against Barack Obama. The spot uses the phrase "Obama's federal takeover of education." Hearing that, disregard everything else because it is a lie. Common Core (which is what the ad is referring to) is not a federal government initiative. The reality is that Common Core came out of years of discussion between private, nonprofit groups and state education departments.

        The goal was to better prepare students for college and careers and to ensure that students in different states learn the same academic concepts. On a personal note,  over  20 years of teaching, I have seen some of the frustrations placed on students whose family move has placed them in another state's core curriculum framework to their own great disadvantage. In fact, Florida has implemented something very like Common Core across state school districts for just that reason, for student benefit and continuity.  

         The Council of Chief State School Officers -- a national organization of public officials who head state education departments -- discussed developing common standards during its annual policy forum in 2007, a year before Barack Obama won the presidency. In 2009, that council and the National Governors Association agreed to create Common Core. They developed the standards with the help of teachers, parents and experts. Although Common Core is voluntary, the Federal government has had a role in encouraging states to adopt the standards. Why? Because preparing students consistently and with rigor is a good idea, that's why, dumb ass! States earned a small number of extra points (40 of a possible 500) in the competition for grants from Race to the Top, Obama’s signature program that provided added money for education, if they adopted standards to prepare students for college and work.

       So...who could possibly object to this? It turns out that there are numerous  state efforts to refuse to use (which of course any state can do, it isn't mandated!) Common Core. Is it because they teach math? No. How about English? No. It turns out that as one might suspect, those old bugaboos  separation of church and state and political point of view are to blame. Here is a quote from a California "Stop Common Core" website:  "In case you’re wondering, nowhere in the “Rights and Responsibilities” teachers’ guide is there any mention of the founding of America, our God-given rights enshrined in the Constitution or the protection of individual rights through limited government."

       Holy Cow, Mike, who could object to that? Let's start with "God given rights."  If "God"  gives rights, why are women being sold as ISIS whores in Syria today? Unless you live alone in a cave on some island you have those rights accorded you by whatever government you live under, not God. The phrase "God given rights"  Is small consolation to someone living under an oppressive government.   Second, this is a third grade book being criticized, and it isn't a true history book at that, nor is it meant to be.  The founding of America is covered in depth in high school level US History classes, and again in US Government. Last, the construct of the Constitution is difficult enough to teach and thoroughly convey to high school juniors,  I know because I taught it. I can just see the family at the dining table asking little 8 year old Timmy "Hey, son, how about that  separation of powers, huh?".

        Now for the icing on the cake: Don't like the way this text is put together? Don't use it! Now wasn't that simple? in fact there are no standard texts associated with Common Core, and school districts nationwide will continue to do as they have traditionally done  in selecting textbooks . Unfortunately, not all will be as smart as Orange County, Florida, where teacher committees review and recommend text adoption. In some districts, local school boards, almost never consisting of  anyone who really knows education, will select texts. Unfortunately, these districts' students will suffer as they leave school believing that "Creationism" is science, and similar agenda driven drivel.  

        Put in perspective, the total Federal interface with common core is an 8% edge in "Race To the Top" money for states adopting these educator prepared and Nat'l Governor's Association approved standards! Compare that methodology with the Bush II  "No Child Left Behind" catastrophe which actually was constructed so as to withhold money from those schools which needed it most!  States don't have to adopt Common Core, but they are better positioned to secure the federal money if they do. Period. One wonders how many Republican governors are now attempting to distance themselves from their own well thought out prudent and actions in this area for purely political reasons.   

Even More Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Yeah, yeah, I know this is another Health care rant, but this does a great job of showing just how willing to blatantly lie Far Right politicians are when it comes to attempting to discredit the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/oct/09/pat-roberts/pat-roberts-obamacare-killed-insurance-20000-kansa/

The facts are sooo different! In fact, while nationwide in states expanding medicare under the ACA, uninsured and charity hospital admissions are DOWN 30%!!!, in states like Florida, which returned federal medicaid grant money (thanks Rick [Skeletor] Scott) that figure is largely unchanged and the state's percentage of uninsured is, as well. 

Compounding the bullshit storm from the Far Right, family health care insurance costs nationwide have  risen a modest 3% (one of the lowest increases in years) and this stat is from the insurance industry, not the Government! The facts (remember facts, as in the truth?) are that the Affordable care Act is working well in those states which implemented it, and working Americans who couldn't afford medical insurance are now becoming insured, shifting some responsibility to the insured, vice the state or Feds.

 Stand by for the next shit storm if even one person has difficulty with the website during the next open enrollment period. How soon we forget the botched rollout of Bush's baby - Medicare part D, a much more limited program (although it cost $500 billion) passed only after Republicans bullied their own House members ( and they were the majority!!) and then by the thinnest of margins. The litany of complaints from those attempting to enroll are mirrors of the complaints about healthcare.gov, which, of course is a much  more far reaching and broad based program.

 This is a quote from the Bush Secretary of health and Human services, Michael Leavitt,  regarding the rollout of that program (Part D) "Normally, a system this complex can take up to three years to create. We built it in nine months, which left little time for testing. When the system started running, glitches caused delays. In the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2006, an HHS colleague visited a few pharmacies to see how Part D was working.

“How many Part D prescriptions have you been able to fill?” my colleague asked a busy pharmacist in Front Royal, Va.

The pharmacist answered, “None.”

 For those screaming about Healthcare.gov's 

early problems, it isn't the first time we've 

seen such problems, rather it's an 

opportunity to blame the President for problems which might well have been avoided if the Congress had devoted more time to passing legislation than to obstruction and delays which, in turn, delayed the start of web site construction.  For those actually capable of critical thinking,  a healthy dose of perspective is helpful. I will attempt to use facts, vice rhetoric in explaining some points.

 1) Cost of the ACA:  Only estimates are available, so I will use the CBO numbers which are definitely not biased either direction. Of a current US GDP of $16.8 Trillion, the highest number I can find of gross annual ACA cost is forecast for 2023, at 1.36 trillion. Ignoring probable GDP growth, that is about 8.1% of GDP. Actual percentage would, of course, be lower because of GDP growth, remember. Contrasting this expenditure, which has the Far Rightists screaming, the UK will spend just over 29% of  GDP on health care for their citizens. I guess the health of their people is more important to them, huh?         

2) The ACA is causing people to lose their health care. Of course, in some cases this has happened, as plans which provided too little coverage were deemed inadequate, but what passes unnoticed here is that pre-ACA about 17% of Americans lost their non-group plans annually for a variety of reasons, so the 18.6% who reported losing plans post ACA are about 1.6% more of those insured, the implication being that only about 1.6% of insureds lost their plan due to it's (their plan's) inadequacy per ACA guidelines. the ACA, of course taketh away, but also giveth, as the vast majority of those were able to find comparable or better ACA compliant plans at or very near the same cost as the inferior one they dropped, a fact never mentioned by the talking heads of the Far Right.

As we all know (or those of us who are awake and listening, know, Steve Forbes is a libertarian, and hardly a fan of the Obama administration, but here is the headline of a very recent article from his magazine:   "The Real Numbers On 'The Obamacare Effect' Are In-Now Let The Crow Eating Begin"

Read the truth (remember, derived from facts?) here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/03/10/the-real-numbers-on-the-obamacare-effect-are-in-now-let-the-crow-eating-begin/     

3) Talking heads (and other body parts) of the Far Right have hammered the issue of loss of insurance without stop, with Limbaugh as the liar in chief.Tragically, many believe their falsehoods, either due to tunnel vision or sheer imbecility. Reality reveals the truth to be the opposite. Millions more are insured under the ACA than before, and a large number of those were the most vulnerable among us, the 20 somethings who, recent grads or new to the workforce simply couldn't afford to get sick.A close second group is the self employed who make two much for Medicaid, and too little for decent health care (pre ACA) and I know several of both groups, including a PhD candidate who, as a substitute teacher had no health care coverage while pursuing a doctorate. In a nation where the brightest and best can't afford regular checkups, something is seriously amiss.

Summarizing very briefly: The ACA works, Far Rightists who deny it are Liars.  

Libertarian - Freeloader? A Rose by any Other Name

        Have you ever noticed that you seem to see either of two types of Libertarians?  Type 1 is the nose picking , gun totin' inbred who wants to be left absolutely alone to do whatever he wishes whenever he wishes. This type presents as a sort of mentally defective sociopath - true to type with regard to his or her  total lack of concern for anyone but themselves or those in their immediate sphere of  interest, while mentally incapable of carrying the whole thing off in the manner of, say, a Donald Trump. An example of type one would be a Cliven Bundy. A subset of this is the functioning sociopath who, attempts to stay below the radar for other reasons than mental  insufficiency -  say, a concern for keeping their sexual abuse of adolescents as far from scrutiny as possible. This of course is the Warren Jefts model.   

        The type A Libertarian is frequently of a lower income level, consistent with the general lack of  concern for others coupled with a lack of community (large C, implying isolation and general distrust of any other authority or empathy for any but his own.)

        Much harder to spot, because of their natural intelligence and social camouflage skills is the type B Libertarian. While they speak in codes, such as "reduced government spending," or "freedom of choice", the message below the flak is similar. Type "B"s would have us believe that anything the government ever has done or will do is probably unnecessary and would be better done by private agencies. Some extremists of this type try to become "Sovereign Citizens", claiming independence from such things as taxes or  licensure, while using infrastructure set in place by the government they profess to hate. These,  like the Cliven  Bundys,  never seem to be much smarter than a fifth grader and exhibit marginal social skills. They only exist in America because any other government would  liquidate them.

        The more difficult Type B looks just like the run of the mill patriotic citizen, has social skills and is even harder to spot because, while they bitch and moan about  "government excesses", "patriotism", and "liberty"  (all code, sort of like a Masonic handshake),  they all seem to be very well off financially. In a sort of negative feedback  scenario, the more financially secure these folks are, the louder they squeal. Many of these folks also tout their own "Christian values", while exhibiting a staggering lack of concern for any but themselves and their immediate cadre in a most unchristian fashion.

        The type B is hard to spot, but can sometimes be detected by use of softer and more subtle code words like "them", or "those people"       when referring to persons of another ethnic or religious point of view. While the type B may never actually use the word "nigger" or "faggott" publically, they can say "them" and make it sound like either.  Type Bs and type As do have one great commonality, generally, a love of guns, which may be the only concept they care for other than themselves.  If one looks backward in our nation's history for examples of these types, there are two groups who seem to be precursors. The first were those in the old west who, before the advent of local law, ruled fiefdoms by the gun. The other would be Southern business men of the post-reconstruction era of the 1880s and 90s, who ruled communities with no regard for law or fairness, while convincing poor whites that poor(er) blacks were the enemy . Like I said - sociopaths.   

        There does seem to be an emerging type C, however, who, disgusted by Congressional  malfeasance are tired of funding  those who, Sociopaths  but definitely not Libertarian, seem to glory in stalling and obstructing efforts of persons of both liberal and conservative points of view to achieve some rapprochement in government. Examples of their ire (or rapt adoration) include  Sen. Ted Cruz , Rush Limbaugh, James Carvill, and their ilk.

        In summary, it seems to me (this is an opinion piece, not a research paper) that what Libertarians really want is all the perks (infrastructure, military protection, worldwide economic clout) without paying  a fair share. And yes, that  means calling bullshit on all flat tax scams, which far from being fair, are regressive with regard to lower earners. Data shows that  the gap between wage earners and their employers has continued to widen  in the last 40 years, which reflects the very concept which causes Libertarians (like the Walton heirs) to genuflect. Life in the state of Libertarian nature  for the lower levels of society would be "nasty, brutish and short."    (my apologies to Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan")