Author Archives: Solivita Democrat

What Republicans are really saying when they attack Obamacare

When you hear Republicans attack Obamacare it’s hard not to wonder what they’re mad about. They said its costs would rise, insurers would flee, premiums would go up and the number of people without insurance would stay the same. None of that happened. So what’s the problem?

You can get a serious hint from a recording of the Republican nut bird Senate candidate Joni Ernst, who just got elected to the U.S. Senate from Iowa. Radio Iowa recorded Ms Ernst talking to voters before the election. Here’s the quote:

“We’re looking at Obamacare right now. Once we start with those benefits in January how are we going to get people off of those. It’s exponentially harder to remove people once they’ve already been on those programs … we rely on the government for absolutely everything. And in the years since I was a small girl until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families but so much of what the churches and private organizations used to do. They used to have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we’re at a point where the government will just give away anything.”

It’s hard to know where to start with this quote provided by New York Magazine. First, well, if she thinks food pantries are gone she should visit any of the number of them in our area, including the one run by St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Kissimmee which is supported by so many Solivita people. The same goes for places that supply clothing for those who need them.

But wait a minute, medical care isn’t a pair of pants or a can of beans. Medical care is a basic human need that can’t be provided by a team of volunteers with no skills. And yes, there are free clinics and organizations such as Doctors Without Borders who provide free care. But they can’t begin to meet the need.

So where does that leave conservatives like Ms Ernst? How does a poor person who needs regular medication get it? In fact, how does a poor person find out he/she needs regular medication if they can’t afford to see a doctor?

It seems her answer is “If God wanted you to be healthy he would have seen to it that you were born with wealthy parents.” Of course, she would have given the same response to how does a poor kid get a good education.

The writer for New York Magazine summed up his response:

“That’s the fundamental belief that motivates most, if not all, the conservative opposition. Health care should be a privilege rather than a right. If you can’t afford health insurance on your own, that is not the government’s problem.”

So the answer is that they oppose Obamacare because they don’t want to see poor people getting the same medical care as the more affluent. Because then what’s the use of having money?

Koch Brothers Exposed is a hard-hitting investigation of the 1% at its very worst. This full-length documentary film on Charles and David Koch—two of the world’s richest and most powerful men—is the latest from acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, Rethink Afghanistan). The billionaire brothers bankroll a vast network of organizations that work to undermine the interests of the 99%. They are key players behind the Tea Party movement; the assault on health reform, workers’ rights, the Environmental Protection Agency; Wall Street Financial Reform; and climate change deniers, to name just a few. This film uncovers the Kochs’ corruption—and points the way to how Americans can reclaim their democracy.

Watch the Koch Brothers Exposed movie

1. Koch Industries, which the brothers own, is one of the top ten polluters in the United States — which perhaps explains why the Kochs have given $60 million to climate denial groups between 1997 and 2010.

2. The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than$300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone.

3. From 1998-2008, Koch-controlled foundations gave more than $196 million to organizations that favor polices that would financially enrich the two brothers. In addition, Koch Industries spent $50 million on lobbying and some $8 million in PAC contributions.

4. The Koch fortune has its origins in engineering contracts with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

5. The Kochs are suing to take over the Cato Institute, which has accused the Kochs of attempting to destroy the group’s identity as an independent, libertarian think-tank and align it more closely with a partisan agenda.

6. According to the Charles Koch Foundation, if you earn $34,000, that puts you in the wealthiest 1 percent. They came to this conclusion by comparing Americans to Ethiopians’ income.

7. Since 2000, the Kochs have collected almost $100 million in government contracts, mostly from the Department of Defense.

8. Koch Industries has an annual production capacity of 2.2 billion pounds of the carcinogen formaldehyde. The company has worked to keep it from being classified as a carcinogen even though David Koch is a prostate cancer survivor.

9. The Koch Brothers have amassed a combined fortune of roughly $50 billion.

10. The Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs accused Koch Oil of scheming to steal $31 million of crude oil from Native Americans. Although the company claimed it was accidental, a former executive in this operation said Charles Koch had known about it and had responded to the overages by saying, “I want my fair share, and that’s all of it.”

Oh No! What do we do now? 

OK. So, that’s what the FL Republican Legislature would say.  😆

Click here to see the latest revelation about ObamaCare.

(Excerpt from WalletHub 2014 Report by John S Kiernan)

States with Democratic Governors or Legislatures have fewer uninsured workers than red states. Low-wage service employees are less able to see a doctor in red states.

A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) provides the best estimate to date of the proportion of private health plan enrollees under Obamacare who previously lacked health insurance and therefore would be gaining coverage under the new law. Based on their nationally representative survey of adults who purchase their own insurance, KFF finds that 57% of private plan enrollees were previously uninsured.

Combining this new data point with information on the number of new Medicaid recipients and private plan enrollees under Obamacare, WalletHub analysts are now able to offer an initial projection of uninsured rates post-Obamacare for 43 states and the District of Columbia.

As more Floridians become aware of how important this election year is, the FDP Leadership Blue Gala set new records for attendance and fundraising. The featured speaker, President Bill Clinton, got the crowd fired up and ready to go!

(Reprint of July/August Edition of Politico by Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer)

This is, in other words, an economic approach that can unite left and right. Perhaps that’s one reason the right is beginning, inexorably, to wake up to this reality as well. Even Republicans as diverse as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum recently came out in favor of raising the minimum wage, in defiance of the Republicans in Congress.

One thing we can agree on—I’m sure of this—is that the change isn’t going to start in Washington. Thinking is stale, arguments even more so. On both sides.
But the way I see it, that’s all right. Most major social movements have seen their earliest victories at the state and municipal levels. The fight over the eight-hour workday, which ended in Washington, D.C., in 1938, began in places like Illinois and Massachusetts in the late 1800s. The movement for social security began in California in the 1930s. Even the Affordable Health Care Act—Obamacare—would have been hard to imagine without Mitt Romney’s model in Massachusetts to lead the way.

Sadly, no Republicans and few Democrats get this. President Obama doesn’t seem to either, though his heart is in the right place. In his State of the Union speech this year, he mentioned the need for a higher minimum wage but failed to make the case that less inequality and a renewed middle class would promote faster economic growth. Instead, the arguments we hear from most Democrats are the same old social-justice claims. The only reason to help workers is because we feel sorry for them. These fairness arguments feed right into every stereotype of Obama and the Democrats as bleeding hearts. Republicans say growth. Democrats say fairness—and lose every time.

But just because the two parties in Washington haven’t figured it out yet doesn’t mean we rich folks can just keep going. The conversation is already changing, even if the billionaires aren’t onto it. I know what you think: You think that Occupy Wall Street and all the other capitalism-is-the-problem protesters disappeared without a trace. But that’s not true. Of course, it’s hard to get people to sleep in a park in the cause of social justice. But the protests we had in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis really did help to change the debate in this country from death panels and debt ceilings to inequality.

It’s just that so many of you plutocrats didn’t get the message.

Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.

The oldest and most important conflict in human societies is the battle over the concentration of wealth and power. The folks like us at the top have always told those at the bottom that our respective positions are righteous and good for all. Historically, we called that divine right. Today we have trickle-down economics.
What nonsense this is. Am I really such a superior person? Do I belong at the center of the moral as well as economic universe? Do you?

My family, the Hanauers, started in Germany selling feathers and pillows. They got chased out of Germany by Hitler and ended up in Seattle owning another pillow company. Three generations later, I benefited from that. Then I got as lucky as a person could possibly get in the Internet age by having a buddy in Seattle named Bezos. I look at the average Joe on the street, and I say, “There but for the grace of Jeff go I.” Even the best of us, in the worst of circumstances, are barefoot, standing by a dirt road, selling fruit. We should never forget that, or forget that the United States of America and its middle class made us, rather than the other way around.

Or we could sit back, do nothing, enjoy our yachts. And wait for the pitchforks.

Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.

Shown from left: Harold Miller, John and Michelle Green, Michael and Ilene Malpero, Ellis Moose

The SDC “Blue Balls Bowlers” cleaned up in Lakeland on Sunday, June 8. Michael

Malpero rolled the high game for men and new board member, Michelle Green took top

honors for women.

American middle class is no longer the richest in the world

(Excerpt from NYT on May 14, 2014 by Nicholas Kristoff)

It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “the American dream.”

• The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class. Yet today the American dream has derailed, partly because of growing inequality.
• Or maybe the American dream has just swapped citizenship, for now it is more likely to be found in Canada or Europe — and a central issue in this year’s political campaigns should be how to repatriate it.
• A report last month in The Times by David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy noted that the American middle class is no longer the richest in the world, with Canada apparently pulling ahead in median after-tax income.
• In fact, the discrepancy is arguably even greater. Canadians receive essentially free health care, while Americans pay for part of their health care costs with after-tax dollars.
• Meanwhile, the American worker toils, on average, 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and an astonishing 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
• Canadians and Europeans also live longer, on average, than Americans do. Their children are less likely to die than ours. American women are twice as likely to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth as Canadian women.
• And, while our universities are still the best in the world, children in other industrialized countries, on average, get a better education than ours.
• Most sobering of all: A recent O.E.C.D. report found that for people aged 16 to 24, Americans ranked last among rich countries in numeracy and technological proficiency.
• Economic mobility is tricky to measure, but several studies show that a child born in the bottom 20 percent economically is less likely to rise to the top in America than in Europe. A Danish child is twice as likely to rise as an American child.
• “America has become the advanced country not only with the highest level of inequality, but one of those with the least equality of opportunity,” according to Nobel-winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz.
• Consider that the American economy has, over all, grown more quickly than France’s. But so much of the growth has gone to the top 1 percent that the bottom 99 percent of French people have done better than the bottom 99 percent of Americans.
• The top six hedge fund managers and traders averaged more than $2 billion each in earnings last year, partly because of the egregious “carried interest” tax break.
• President Obama has been unable to get financing for universal prekindergarten; this year’s proposed federal budget for pre-K for all, so important to our nation’s future, would be a bit more than a single month’s earnings for those six tycoons.

Proposed Solutions

• We could stop subsidizing private jets and too-big-to-fail banks, and direct those funds to early education programs that help break the cycle of poverty.
• We can invest less in prisons and more in schools.
• We can impose a financial transactions tax and use the proceeds to broaden jobs programs like the earned-income tax credit and career academies.
• And, as Alan S. Blinder of Princeton University has outlined, we can give companies tax credits for creating new jobs.

It’s time to bring the American dream home from exile.

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