"Clearly, it’s time elected officials in Florida started looking out for the people they are supposed to be representing."
Wrote Florida's Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson in a Tampa Tribune editorial Thursday last. But they do, in fact. They're supposed to be representing the mega-polluters like the Fanjul family and the Republican thieves and pirates who would like to run the state like some Central American fiefdom: the people who elected him. Florida Governor Rick 'Medicare fraud' Scott doesn't want any of that Federal tax money to come home where it could create jobs and make Insurance more affordable because a failing state is a Republican state and failure through sabotage, after all is the game. All the poorest and sickest states are doing it, after all.
And so Scott, being an expert in defrauding the government out of your tax contributions, is ready to sign a bill; legislation that, as Nelson writes:
"will remove the authority of Florida’s insurance regulator to approve, modify or reject rate hikes by health insurance companies for the next two years — effectively deregulating health insurers and allowing them to raise prices and gouge consumers at will. And, it conveniently allows officials and insurance companies to blame any rate hikes on the Affordable Care Act."
Well of course. That blackguard Scott has already turned down $1 million in federal funding
"that would have helped the state cover the cost of overseeing insurance rates under the new health care law," and " has not even applied for another $5 million in federal funding that is available to help states control their insurance markets"
Earlier in May the rogue state of Florida state refused to expand Medicaid to some 1.2 million poor and disabled Floridians who would have received health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act and thus tossed away over 50 billion bucks in Federal funds allocated to pay for it. That's right, he doesn't want a tax refund for us, a refund of our own money, because Big Sugar who made billions on 'reclaimed' land the taxpayer gave them and who thrive on Federal price supports wants the Obama administration to fail, wants the economy to fail, wants you and me to fail -- assuming we're not rich, of course or our name isn't Fanjul.
Look, I don't want to argue the niceties of the definition, but sabotaging Florida and the entire
US if they can get away with it is treason and of course the massive, pitchforks in the streets opposition that one might expect to wholesale rape and pillage isn't happening. Sure, we're all in arms, pun intended, about crime waves that don't exist and other pet Liberal shibboleths the Visigoths use to distract us but you and I are going to get old and sick, and choosing between bankruptcy, homelessness, starvation and that operation you need will sure as hell be our future if we let them get away with this scofflaw enterprise, this cold rebellion, this silent Civil War.
But we won't even write a letter. We're too busy blaming the long standing health care crisis on Obamacare too busy yelling Benghazi and IRS scandal. We're too damned stupid, too damned ignorant and misinformed and too riddled with hate and superstition and bigotry and racism and our own pet issues and like those women who deserve it because they don't wear burkhas, getting screwed.
7 comments:
I understand your frustration. I see it a little differently (although no more optimistically, I'm afraid). I don't worry too much about the Fox News crowd. There is 30% of the population who won't be happy until they get American Fascism. Then there is the great swath of Americans who really don't care. They are just trying to live their lives. Eventually they will revolt. This is something I don't understand about the rich in this country. It makes more sense to spread a few crumbs around to the quickly dwindling middle class than to risk motivating these people. Think of it as insurance.
My biggest problem is the liberal base. We have come to accept so little. Yes, the environment continues to be savaged. Income inequality gets worse after the financial crisis (it got substantially better after the 1929 crash). But not to worry, we overturned Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Look, I understand that social issues like this are important, but they don't make up for the fact that on economic issues the Democratic Party is effectively the Republican Party circa 1970. In fact, I'd take Nixon's policies on welfare and taxation any day over Obama's.
Maybe my anger comes from a lot of smug triumphalism that I've noticed on MSNBC over the last few years. And I see it in a lot of the more established liberalish blogs. But, as a typical liberal myself, I'm only happy when I'm unhappy.
I think Fox is a declining phenomenon and the relentless pessimism is proving wrong often enough that some are catching on to the game, but I have to agree about the triumphalism -- it's a fatal mistake. The culture is changing but let's not be too sure it's all about us and our pet issues.
I'm not such a typical liberal and of late I've begun to see us ( and I'm still using the word 'us' for the time being) as almost as unwilling to examine the data as they are when it comes to dearly held beliefs. I get trashed a lot for suggesting that we abandon things that have shown themselves never, ever to work.
I understand that. When talking to liberals I often find myself saying, "Not so fast!" My main thing is economics and on that front, we are generally right. On the other hand, I really didn't like all the liberal mania over raising taxes during the fiscal cliff. The economy is still doing bad and now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone. Of course, the hypocrisy of the Republicans on the issue is astounding. Obama was being consistent, even if wrong. (Not that I'm necessarily against raising taxes on the rich, especially to pay for more economically useful government services.)
What I find frustrating is that on social issues, where there really is more room for valid debate, we get less debate. For example, I might be open to less rights on abortion if it came along with huge increases in sex education and access to birth control. Unfortunately, it seems to be that the anti-abortion rights forces are also for abstinence-only sex ed and at best difficult access to birth control. With forces like that on the right, you have to be on the left.
But what are you thinking about? And why is this blog called "Human Voices" and not "Fogg Horn"?
Exactly right
Florida, at least as an entity that can pass its own laws, has to die. All the states have to go, or we will never have democracy in the US.
The Fanjuls and the Kochs and their kind use divided sovereignty in what ought to be one country to divide and conquer government itself. The US Congress may be an inherently flawed institution (I'm looking at you, Senate), and it may have fallen to a truly sorry state, but at least the Fanjuls and the Kochs don't find it quite so easy to purchase as the legislatures of FL and WI, etc.
We have divided sovereignty because the 13 independent states weren't going to agree to come under the Union unless it wasn't really a union, unless the terms of "union" reserved them all sorts of rights to disunity. That independence has long since atrophied in practice, and we all think of ourselves as citizens of the US, not FL, or VA, or WI, or even TX. But the legal formality of divided sovereignty has been allowed to persist because the Fanjuls find it convenient to be able to divide and conquer in whatever areas of public policy we haven't fully unified under one government.
" With forces like that on the right, you have to be on the left."
Exactly. If the Right were quiet for a while, I could start in on the Left.
GT,
It's funny but we seem to be Americans before Floridians mostly when there's some kind of war going on and so we usually manage to arrange one, either real or metaphorical.
I do think there are many justifications for a degree of state autonomy. Alaska and Rhode Island are pretty different places and one's placement on the food chain is more dependent of firearms in the former, needless to say, but where the balance point is will always be in contest.
Switzerland's Cantons differ far more than our states but somehow they seem to have some ability to act in concert -- but then they're Swiss and we're not.
Like hell a sluggish or failing economy isn't a time to raise taxes. What it isn't a time for is a parasitic ruling class profiteering on the pain they caused.
Timid pseudo liberals who quail on this point are doing at least as much damage as are the rest who only agitate on corporate-approved issues.
Tax 'em, and see a return of prosperity--a government that can muster the will to raise taxes on the wealthy can do almost anything.
Why don't we do what our competitors do and scuttle the income tax and go to the Value Added Tax. Yes, it's regressive, but that could be taken care of by giving a rebate to everyone equivalent to what those at the poverty level would pay in taxes.
Our competitors not only exempt their exports from the VAT but can also charge an amount equivalent to the VAT on imports. Since the average VAT is 20 percent, it's remarkable that we can compete. No wonder their corporate tax rates are low.
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