First of all, if you don’t vote on Tues., Nov. 2nd, you are part of the problem. We are, after all, a democracy, and power derives from a mandate that is given by the voters of the country. If every voter does not exercise the right to cast a ballot, a fundamental right on which our country is based is endangered. Voter apathy also makes it easier for the unscrupulous to take power and to keep it. So, do your part and vote.
That said, is there anything that can be done to increase voter turnout on Election Day? How about this? We make sure that all voters are enfranchised.
Take primary elections, for instance. Primary elections are held for one purpose; to allow the Democrats and Republicans to set their slate of candidates for the General Election. To vote in the primary in Kentucky, though, you must be registered as a member of one of these two parties.
So who pays the tab for the primaries? Kentucky’s taxpayers, that’s who. Even those voters registered as Independent contribute, even though they aren’t invited to the party.
What did our Forebears think of this? Does the phrase “Taxation without Representation” ring a bell? When the colonists were expected to pay taxes to the Crown, but denied the right to vote, they revolted, and a new country was born.
This country was going to be one where the rights of everyone were respected. It took some time but we are closer to that ideal today than perhaps we’ve ever been. But when a situation exists where the citizens of our state are expected to declare allegiance to a political party in order to vote-and neither Democrats nor Republicans are mentioned in either the state or federal Constitutions-then we have lost our way, big time!
When primary elections are closed, the number of voters the candidate needs to reach is limited, usually to what is referred as the party’s base. For the Republicans, those voters tend to be conservative; for the Democrats, liberal. That means that the views of the candidate must match the viewpoints of the party’s base.
And that means gridlock, in Frankfort and in Washington. In Frankfort, how many times over the last ten years or so has the State Assembly failed to pass a budget because the Republican-led Senate could not agree with the Democrat-led House? More times than you might imagine, much like the quagmire in D. C., where the “loyal opposition” has made it plain that ensuring Obama is a one-term President is more important than in working with the majority party to formulate any policies that will benefit the country as a whole.
In addition to allowing early voting, I would like to see laws enacted in Kentucky that strip away the two major party’s right to require voters to declare allegiance to either of them. No voter should have to disclose any more than their name, rank, and serial number. Let the voter declare to the precinct officials what party’s primary they wish to vote in. Then let the candidates deliver their message to all voters in the primary. The result should be candidates who more closely mirror, not their party’s extremes, but the average Kentuckian, a win-win situation for everyone.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Believe it or not!
It’s common knowledge by this point that the public is fed up with that collection of do-nothings known as Congress. Perhaps the most repeated line in any race for Member of Congress in any state is the one about “my opponent (being) a career politician”, spoken in much the same tone used when mentioning ax-murderers.
Well, Congress has always been an easy mark. Generation after generation have used it as the punch line in their jokes. One quip goes “We have the best lawmakers money can buy!” And while Will Rogers is given credit, there might have been any number of people who said that, or felt that way, before he gave voice to this sentiment.
There is reason to be concerned about money in this year’s elections, by the way. Take the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission wherein it was ruled that corporations have the same rights as individuals. This means that entities registered as corporations cannot be blocked from spending money on political ads, because to do so would be a violation of their right to free expression. Hence the explosion of ads not paid for by any particular candidate, but rather by a group either for or against that candidate.
All that notwithstanding, Congress has not been idle this session. This has been the most productive since the 89th Congress that met in 1965-66 and passed LBJ’s Great Society programs.
“What?!?” you ask, mouth agape. “What has this collection of clowns done?” First up is that much maligned stimulus bill. That would be the one introduced by President Obama, not his immediate predecessor. What was in it that is helpful? How about tax cuts? Yes, tax cuts, some of the largest in history. We’re talking tax credits for college tuition, home buying, energy conservation, and for renewable energy, to name but a few areas addressed in this bill.
But that ain’t all. Remember the stimulus bill that was made necessary by the sweeping de-regulation that took place during the presidency of George W., the one that made his stimulus bill necessary? This Congress passed new regulatory legislation that aims to keep that from ever happening again.
And then there is that much-maligned healthcare overhaul that its critics have dubbed Obamacare. You know, the one individual senatorial candidates vow to “repeal”, as in “I will repeal Obamacare”? Wait a minute, you’re running for Senator, not Superman. Heck, if one Senator could do what some candidates pledge to do, they’d fly (Up, up and away!) to D. C. when they got elected.
One big problem the would-be lawmakers say they have is the requirement that everyone must buy health insurance. This is what has led at least 20 state Attorneys General to file suit against the feds. According to one, if the feds can force you to buy health insurance, they can force you to buy pretty much anything, not unlike most politicians think you will do whenever they make campaign promises.
Well, if the feds can’t make you buy health insurance, then let’s relieve them of the responsibility of paying the bills for those people who won’t buy it when they don’t need it, and can’t buy it when they do. After all, that’s only fair isn’t it?
Well, Congress has always been an easy mark. Generation after generation have used it as the punch line in their jokes. One quip goes “We have the best lawmakers money can buy!” And while Will Rogers is given credit, there might have been any number of people who said that, or felt that way, before he gave voice to this sentiment.
There is reason to be concerned about money in this year’s elections, by the way. Take the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission wherein it was ruled that corporations have the same rights as individuals. This means that entities registered as corporations cannot be blocked from spending money on political ads, because to do so would be a violation of their right to free expression. Hence the explosion of ads not paid for by any particular candidate, but rather by a group either for or against that candidate.
All that notwithstanding, Congress has not been idle this session. This has been the most productive since the 89th Congress that met in 1965-66 and passed LBJ’s Great Society programs.
“What?!?” you ask, mouth agape. “What has this collection of clowns done?” First up is that much maligned stimulus bill. That would be the one introduced by President Obama, not his immediate predecessor. What was in it that is helpful? How about tax cuts? Yes, tax cuts, some of the largest in history. We’re talking tax credits for college tuition, home buying, energy conservation, and for renewable energy, to name but a few areas addressed in this bill.
But that ain’t all. Remember the stimulus bill that was made necessary by the sweeping de-regulation that took place during the presidency of George W., the one that made his stimulus bill necessary? This Congress passed new regulatory legislation that aims to keep that from ever happening again.
And then there is that much-maligned healthcare overhaul that its critics have dubbed Obamacare. You know, the one individual senatorial candidates vow to “repeal”, as in “I will repeal Obamacare”? Wait a minute, you’re running for Senator, not Superman. Heck, if one Senator could do what some candidates pledge to do, they’d fly (Up, up and away!) to D. C. when they got elected.
One big problem the would-be lawmakers say they have is the requirement that everyone must buy health insurance. This is what has led at least 20 state Attorneys General to file suit against the feds. According to one, if the feds can force you to buy health insurance, they can force you to buy pretty much anything, not unlike most politicians think you will do whenever they make campaign promises.
Well, if the feds can’t make you buy health insurance, then let’s relieve them of the responsibility of paying the bills for those people who won’t buy it when they don’t need it, and can’t buy it when they do. After all, that’s only fair isn’t it?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Another perspective on Columbus Day
Familiarity breeds contempt. Aesop
I am writing this column on Oct. 12, the day known as Columbus Day. Once upon a time, this would have been the actual date of this holiday, but then someone decided that minor holidays are better if they fall on a Monday, thus giving us a three-day weekend. So we now have two versions of a lot of these holidays, the actual date on which whatever it is we are celebrating took place, and the day on which we choose to celebrate this event.
By the way, minor holidays are the ones that offer a lucky few a day off, in this instance, bankers and federal workers. The rest of us are still expected to show up at the salt mines.
So, as Bugs Bunny might ask “What’s all the hubbub, Bub?” On Columbus Day-and by using my handy dandy calculator, I find that this was 518 years ago-an Italian sailing under the auspices of the Spanish crown “discovered” America.
I can just see it now: Columbus and his men, uncertain as to where they were and not knowing what might happen to them, suddenly see land, and Chris declares “Look! I have discovered a new land!” And one of his men, not seeing what his Captain saw, asks “Where?” “Right there” says Chris, “where all those people are standing. That’s the land I have discovered.”
BTW, indigenous people don’t seem to be as taken with the man the Spanish called Cristobal Colon as those descended from Europeans are. One reason might be that since that day in 1492, they have been misidentified.
A college Professor and member of one of the bands of the original inhabitants of this land was asked on the Phil Donahue show how he preferred to be identified, as an Indian or a Native American. He replied that he didn’t care. One term, he said, was coined by a sociologist in the ‘60’s, and the other came from a lost white man who thought he was in India.
That was the least of Cristobal’s sins, though. For instance, it was Cristobal and the Spanish who unleashed a holocaust on the Caribbean natives known as the Arawak. Cristobal had told the crown, after all, of the great riches to be found in the land that he had discovered, and he was in a lather to prove his claims.
On his second voyage to the island inhabited by them, Cristobal and his men demanded that the Arawak bring them gold; more than existed on their islands. When the Arawak could not meet the unreasonable demand, a slaughter began. These people were shot, hanged or burned to death. Although they tried to resist this invasion, they were greatly outclassed by the Spanish who had, among other weapons, muskets.
When Cristobal first found them, there were 250,000 of the Arawak. The Spanish killed them by the tens of thousands, and within a remarkably short time, the Arawak were gone. There are none of this people left on Earth today.
Naturally, this is not celebrated on this holiday.
Not that the Spanish got by unmolested. Seems that some of his men, when committing the crime of rape, came away with the disease we know today as syphilis. Well, as the old saying goes: "The wheel of justice grinds slow, but it grinds exceeding fine."
I am writing this column on Oct. 12, the day known as Columbus Day. Once upon a time, this would have been the actual date of this holiday, but then someone decided that minor holidays are better if they fall on a Monday, thus giving us a three-day weekend. So we now have two versions of a lot of these holidays, the actual date on which whatever it is we are celebrating took place, and the day on which we choose to celebrate this event.
By the way, minor holidays are the ones that offer a lucky few a day off, in this instance, bankers and federal workers. The rest of us are still expected to show up at the salt mines.
So, as Bugs Bunny might ask “What’s all the hubbub, Bub?” On Columbus Day-and by using my handy dandy calculator, I find that this was 518 years ago-an Italian sailing under the auspices of the Spanish crown “discovered” America.
I can just see it now: Columbus and his men, uncertain as to where they were and not knowing what might happen to them, suddenly see land, and Chris declares “Look! I have discovered a new land!” And one of his men, not seeing what his Captain saw, asks “Where?” “Right there” says Chris, “where all those people are standing. That’s the land I have discovered.”
BTW, indigenous people don’t seem to be as taken with the man the Spanish called Cristobal Colon as those descended from Europeans are. One reason might be that since that day in 1492, they have been misidentified.
A college Professor and member of one of the bands of the original inhabitants of this land was asked on the Phil Donahue show how he preferred to be identified, as an Indian or a Native American. He replied that he didn’t care. One term, he said, was coined by a sociologist in the ‘60’s, and the other came from a lost white man who thought he was in India.
That was the least of Cristobal’s sins, though. For instance, it was Cristobal and the Spanish who unleashed a holocaust on the Caribbean natives known as the Arawak. Cristobal had told the crown, after all, of the great riches to be found in the land that he had discovered, and he was in a lather to prove his claims.
On his second voyage to the island inhabited by them, Cristobal and his men demanded that the Arawak bring them gold; more than existed on their islands. When the Arawak could not meet the unreasonable demand, a slaughter began. These people were shot, hanged or burned to death. Although they tried to resist this invasion, they were greatly outclassed by the Spanish who had, among other weapons, muskets.
When Cristobal first found them, there were 250,000 of the Arawak. The Spanish killed them by the tens of thousands, and within a remarkably short time, the Arawak were gone. There are none of this people left on Earth today.
Naturally, this is not celebrated on this holiday.
Not that the Spanish got by unmolested. Seems that some of his men, when committing the crime of rape, came away with the disease we know today as syphilis. Well, as the old saying goes: "The wheel of justice grinds slow, but it grinds exceeding fine."
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
You may be Mitch-taken
You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
U. S. Senator Mitch McConnell likes to keep the people of the Commonwealth informed by occasionally penning missives to the editors of local papers published throughout the Bluegrass state, such as the one printed in the Oct. 1st edition of the Appalachian News-Express. Funny thing is if I didn’t know he was merely keeping us informed, I’d swear this was meant to better the Republicans’ chances in the upcoming election.
Take the whole to-do over what to do about federal taxes. McConnell, et al, would like to see the Bush era tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy made permanent under the assumption that this is the way to decrease the unemployment rate. That flies in the face of reality, though, because after these tax cuts were enacted, unemployment rates inexplicably went from 4.2% in 2001 to 9.2% today.
McConnell tries to give the impression that if the Bush era tax cuts aren’t extended, everyone will pay higher taxes. He does this by averaging the tax bills out among all tax payers, while overlooking the tax breaks planned for the bottom 98% of tax payers. In fact, by concentrating on tax breaks for the lower tiers of wage earners, the Democrats have the tax burden for this group at its lowest level since 1957.
One other curious prediction by McConnell is that if the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy are allowed to lapse, Kentucky wage earners will see over the next ten years a drop of $3000 per year in disposable income. He doesn’t mention that income for the bottom 98% of wage earners has been in decline since the tax bill was passed in 2001.
McConnell also takes aim at the law the Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP) has dubbed Obamacare. McConnell forecasts higher costs and decreased choice. Never mind that since McConnell led the charge against the last attempt to pass healthcare reform in 1994, its costs went up astronomically and the number of Americans without health insurance sky-rocketed.
Additionally, McConnell overlooks the estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that healthcare reform will result in a reduction in the federal deficit by 1.3 trillion through 2029. This is odd in light of the fact that reducing the deficit seems to be a pet project of the GOTP, even if extending the tax breaks for the rich would add around a quarter of a trillion dollars to the federal deficit.
By the way, McConnell, et al, have set a precedent that will in all likelihood preclude the repeal of Obamacare even if the GOP gets complete control of the Congress. It only takes one senator to keep a bill from ever being voted on, and even if no one senator does that, it now officially takes 60 senators to get a bill passed, thanks to the lock-step manner in which the GOP usually votes.
What the GOTP and Senator McConnell are penning their hopes on is the voters will either forget or forgive their role in creating the mess the country is in and reward them by putting them in charge once more. Risky, in my opinion, since they seem intent on business as usual if this happens
U. S. Senator Mitch McConnell likes to keep the people of the Commonwealth informed by occasionally penning missives to the editors of local papers published throughout the Bluegrass state, such as the one printed in the Oct. 1st edition of the Appalachian News-Express. Funny thing is if I didn’t know he was merely keeping us informed, I’d swear this was meant to better the Republicans’ chances in the upcoming election.
Take the whole to-do over what to do about federal taxes. McConnell, et al, would like to see the Bush era tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy made permanent under the assumption that this is the way to decrease the unemployment rate. That flies in the face of reality, though, because after these tax cuts were enacted, unemployment rates inexplicably went from 4.2% in 2001 to 9.2% today.
McConnell tries to give the impression that if the Bush era tax cuts aren’t extended, everyone will pay higher taxes. He does this by averaging the tax bills out among all tax payers, while overlooking the tax breaks planned for the bottom 98% of tax payers. In fact, by concentrating on tax breaks for the lower tiers of wage earners, the Democrats have the tax burden for this group at its lowest level since 1957.
One other curious prediction by McConnell is that if the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy are allowed to lapse, Kentucky wage earners will see over the next ten years a drop of $3000 per year in disposable income. He doesn’t mention that income for the bottom 98% of wage earners has been in decline since the tax bill was passed in 2001.
McConnell also takes aim at the law the Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP) has dubbed Obamacare. McConnell forecasts higher costs and decreased choice. Never mind that since McConnell led the charge against the last attempt to pass healthcare reform in 1994, its costs went up astronomically and the number of Americans without health insurance sky-rocketed.
Additionally, McConnell overlooks the estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that healthcare reform will result in a reduction in the federal deficit by 1.3 trillion through 2029. This is odd in light of the fact that reducing the deficit seems to be a pet project of the GOTP, even if extending the tax breaks for the rich would add around a quarter of a trillion dollars to the federal deficit.
By the way, McConnell, et al, have set a precedent that will in all likelihood preclude the repeal of Obamacare even if the GOP gets complete control of the Congress. It only takes one senator to keep a bill from ever being voted on, and even if no one senator does that, it now officially takes 60 senators to get a bill passed, thanks to the lock-step manner in which the GOP usually votes.
What the GOTP and Senator McConnell are penning their hopes on is the voters will either forget or forgive their role in creating the mess the country is in and reward them by putting them in charge once more. Risky, in my opinion, since they seem intent on business as usual if this happens
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
