OBOF TYMHM & MORE Vol 15 - No 17

OPINIONS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

YEAR THREE

YEAR FOUR

YEAR FIVE

 

OBOF YEAR FIVE INDEX
OBOF TYMHM	Jan. 07, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1	Jan. 19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2	Feb.  03, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 3	Feb.  23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 4	Mar.  02, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 5	Mar.  06, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 6	Mar.  13, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 7	Mar.   23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8	Mar.  28,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9	Apr.  13,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 10	May  02,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 11	May  09,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 12	May  19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 13	May  26, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 14	May  29, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 15	July   28, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 16	Sept.  15, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 17	Sept.  20,  2015

 

Agenda

 

1.  Greetings

from

 Floyd

 

2.  Senator Bernie Sanders

at

Liberty University

 

3.  Senator Bernie Sanders

for

President.

&

Beginning of False Attacks

 

4.  NO

Senator Bernie Sanders

as President

Will Not Bankrupt

Our Country With $18 Trillion

Spending

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings

from

 Floyd

 

Well folks, I am doing better this week.  I'm getting this to you on Saturday.  Not quite as good as Friday, but better than on Sunday and Monday.  Well, to look at the clock, I guess it is Sunday now.  It's 2:00 am.  Well it is still an improvement.

 

Folks, I have something in this posting that I feel very strong about.  Now, you may get tired of me talking so much up to now and here and in the future, about Bernie Sanders for President, but I want to tell you that I think this 2016 election is going to turn out to be one of the most important ones in our history.

 

I don't think any of you can read, at least, this first article about him, and not feel his sincerity and honesty.  I have followed this man's career for many years and I am totally convinced that he is one of a very, very small group in Congress that is honest and tells it like it is.  I am also convinced that he is the man we need at the head of our Government.  However, even if we get him in there, he must have a Democratic Congress. 

 

So, if you are a true red blooded American and you believe in the principles that this country was founded on, do all you possible can to elect Bernie and a Democratic Congress.  Bernie will not take any money from PACs or Billionaires or Millionaires.  I promise that starting next week I'll bring you other news that is also very important to all of us.  Thanks for reading and thanks for anything you can do for Bernie.

 

~~~

Senator Bernie Sanders

at

Liberty University

Dear Floyd,

Earlier this week I spoke at Liberty University.  For those of you who do not know, Liberty University is a deeply religious institution.  It is a school which tries to understand the meaning of morality and the words of the Bible, within the context of a very complicated modern world.  It was founded by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, and the vast majority of people at Liberty strongly disagree with me, and perhaps you, about abortion, marriage equality, and other issues.

You might be asking yourself, "Why on earth would Bernie Sanders go there?"  It is a fair question within the context of our modern politics.

I spoke at Liberty University because I believe that it is important for those with different views in our country to engage in civil discourse – not just to shout at each other or make fun of each other.

It is very easy for those in politics to talk to those who agree with us – and I do that every day.  It is harder, but not less important, to try and communicate with those who do not agree with us and see where, if possible, we can find common ground.  In other, words, to reach out of our zone of comfort.

So, I went outside of my zone of comfort.  Read what I have to say about the ideas of morality and justice as they relate to income inequality and other critical issues facing our nation.

 The message I gave at Liberty University is that the moral choice is to fight income inequality, and that the just thing to do is to work to make our society, more fair.  Below are some of my remarks to Liberty from the video above, (I can't transfer the video link) but I think it is important to share them with you here as well so that you can share with others how I approach these issues.

I am far, far from a perfect human being, but I am motivated by a vision which exists in all of the great religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and others – and which is so beautifully and clearly stated in Matthew 7:12.  “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the prophets.”  The Golden Rule "Do to others what you would have them do to you."  Not very complicated.

I told the crowd at Liberty University that I understand that issues such as abortion and gay marriage are very important to them, and that we disagree on those issues.  I get that.  But there are other issues out there that are of enormous consequence to our country and the world and that maybe, just maybe, we don’t disagree on them. And maybe, just maybe, we can work together in trying to resolve them.

Amos 5:24, “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Justice.  Treating others the way we would like to be treated. Treating all people with dignity and respect.

It would, I think, be hard for anyone in that room where I spoke to make the case that the United States today is a “just” society or anything resembling a just society.

In America today there is massive injustice in terms of income and wealth inequality.  Injustice is rampant. We live in the wealthiest country in the history of the world but most Americans don’t know that because almost all of that wealth and income is going to the top one percent.  We are living at a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension – huge yachts, jet planes, tens of billions of dollars, more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.  But at the same time, millions of people are struggling to feed their families or put a roof over their heads or find the money to go to a doctor.

When we talk about morality and when we talk about justice, we have to understand that there is no justice when the top one-tenth of one percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.  There is no justice when all over this country people are working long hours for abysmally low wages, $7.25 an hour or $8 an hour, while 58 percent of all new income being created today goes to the top one percent.

There is no justice when, in recent years, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires while, at the same time, the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.  How can we talk about morality when we turn our backs on the children of this country?  Twenty percent of the children in this country live in poverty and that includes 40 percent of African American children.  There is no justice when, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, children in our country go to bed hungry.

There is no justice when the 15 wealthiest people in this country saw their wealth increase by $170 billion dollars in the last two years.  That is more wealth, acquired in a two-year period, than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans.  And while the very rich become much richer, millions of families have no savings at all and struggle every week just to stay alive economically, and the elderly and disabled wonder how they stay warm in the winter.  That is not justice.  That is a rigged economy designed by the wealthiest people in this country to benefit the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of everyone else.

There is no justice when thousands of people in America die each year because they don’t have health insurance and don’t get to a doctor when they should, or when elderly people are forced to choose between food or medicine because our citizens pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.  That is not justice.  That is not morality.  That is simply an indication that we are the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for all as a right.

There is no justice when low-income and working-class mothers are forced to separate from their babies one or two weeks after birth and go back to work because we are the only major country on earth that does not have a paid family and medical leave policy. That is not justice.  That is an attack on family values that everyone should be appalled at.

There is no justice in our country when youth unemployment exists at tragic levels – with 51 percent of African American high school kids unemployed or underemployed.  No.  We apparently do not have the funds to provide jobs or educational opportunities for our young people but we sure do have the money to throw them into jails.  Today, the United States has more people in jail than any other country on earth, and many are serving time in inhumane conditions.  That is not justice.  That is the destruction of human life.

I am not a theologian or an expert on the Bible or a Catholic. I am just a U.S. senator from the small state of Vermont.  But I agree with Pope Francis when he says: "The current financial crisis… originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person!  We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."

He also states: "There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone.  Money has to serve, not to rule."

In his view, and I agree with him, we are living in a nation and in a world which worships the acquisition of money and great wealth, but which turns its back on those in need.  And that must end.  We need to move toward an economy which works for all, and not just the few.

Throughout human history there has been endless discussion and debate about the meaning of justice and the meaning of morality.  I hope that by getting out of my comfort zone and speaking with the students at Liberty University that I can be a part of a dialogue with people who might not agree with us. I hope that some of them conclude that if we strive toward morality and toward justice, that it is imperative that we have the courage to stand with the poor and working people of our country.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

~~~

 

Senator Bernie Sanders

for

President.

&

Beginning of False Attacks

 

I don’t have a Super PAC, Floyd.  I am not going to travel around the country begging millionaires and billionaires for money.  That’s just not going to happen.

But the success of our campaign certainly has the billionaires' attention.

Yesterday, one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent Super PACs attacked our campaign pretty viciously. They suggested I’d be friendly with Middle East terrorist organizations, and even tried to link me to a dead communist dictator.

It was the kind of onslaught I expected to see from the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson, and it’s the second time a billionaire Super PAC has tried to stop the momentum of the political revolution we’re building together.

They’ll keep trying … unless we make them pay a price for their attacks.

Make the Super PACs pay for attacking us by making a $20 contribution to our campaign today.  Let’s send a powerful message that we have had ENOUGH of the billionaire class buying elections.

If we stand together to fight back against these ugly attacks, we can ensure this election is about who has the best ideas, and not who has the biggest donors.

They should not underestimate us.

Bernie Sanders

~~~

NO

Senator Bernie Sanders

as President

Will Not Bankrupt

Our Country With $18 Trillon

Spending

 

By Paul Waldman

 September 15

 

The big policy headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal, which delivers this alarming message:

 

Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’ Proposals: $18 Trillion

Holy cow!

 

He must be advocating for some crazy stuff that will bankrupt America!  But is that really an accurate picture of what Sanders is proposing?  And is this the kind of number we should be frightened of?

 

The answer isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them.  In some ways it’s by spreading out a cost currently borne by a limited number of people to all taxpayers. His plan for free public college would do this: right now, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d all pay for it in the same way we all pay for parks or the military or food safety.

 

But the bulk of what Sanders wants to do is in the first category:  to have us pay through taxes for things we’re already paying for in other ways.  Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea.  But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.

 

And there’s another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders’ ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion.  Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.

 

But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading.  At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care.  This is money that you and I and everyone else, spends.  

 

We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system.  We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.

 

So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort.  And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years.  Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending?  No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government.  If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000.  You’d be in the same place you are now.

 

By the logic of the scary $18 trillion number, you could take a candidate who has proposed nothing on health care, and say, “So-and-so proposes spending $42 trillion on health care!”  It would be accurate, but not particularly informative.

 

There’s something else to keep in mind: every single-payer system in the world, and there are many of them of varying flavors, is cheaper than the American health care system,  every single one.  So, whatever you might say about Sanders’ advocacy for a single-payer system, you can’t say it represents some kind of profligate, free-spending idea that would cost us all terrible amounts of money.

 

Since Sanders hasn’t released a health care plan yet, we can’t make any assessment of the true cost of his plan, because there is no plan.  Maybe what he wants to do would cost more than $15 trillion, or maybe it would cost less.  But given the experience of the rest of the world, there’s a strong likelihood that over the long run, a single-payer plan would save America money.  Again, you may think single-payer is a bad idea for any number of reasons, but “It’ll be too expensive!” is probably the least valid objection you could make.

 

There are some proposals that involve spending new money that we never would have spent otherwise, like starting a war that ends up costing $2 trillion.  But in every case, whether we’re doing something new or doing something we’re already doing but in a new way, the question isn’t what the price tag is, the question is whether we think what we’d get for that money makes spending it worthwhile.

 

For instance, Sanders wants to spend $1 trillion over 10 years on infrastructure.  That’s a lot of money, but it’s significantly less than experts say we need to repair all of our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and so on.  And infrastructure spending creates immediate jobs and has economic benefits that persist over time, which we’d also have to take into account in deciding whether it’s a good idea.  But just saying, “$1 trillion is a lot of money!” doesn’t tell you whether or not we should do it.

 

The conservatives who are acting appalled at the number the Journal came up with are also the same people who never seem to care what a tax cut costs, because they think cutting taxes is a moral and practical good, in the same way that liberals think providing people with health coverage is a moral and practical good.  For instance, Jeb Bush recently proposed a tax cut plan whose 10-year cost could be as high as $3.4 trillion.  That’s a lot of money that the government wouldn’t be able to spend on the things it’s doing right now, although the campaign argues that we’d get much of that money back in increased revenues because of the spectacular growth the tax cuts would create.  

 

If you remember the claims that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would create stunning growth and prosperity for all, you might be just a bit skeptical of the Jeb campaign’s similar assertions.  But in any case, we can’t evaluate the value of Jeb’s plan just by saying that $3.4 trillion is a big number.  If you knew that the average family in the middle of the income distribution would get less than $1,000 from Jeb’s plan, while the average family in the top one percent would get a tax cut of over $80,000, then you’d have a better sense of whether it’s a good or bad idea.

 

As a general matter, when you see a headline with an unimaginably large number, chances are it’s going to confuse you more than it will enlighten you.  The question when it comes to government should always be not what we’re spending, but what we’re getting for what we spend.

 

Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't (doesn't) rise, I'll talk with you again next Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd