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Issues Important to
Rappahannock Residents
Opinions written by Rappahannock County Citizens
What Should We Have a Government For? by Nol Putnam
Trusting this Administration by Marcia Kirkpatrick
The Moral Symbol of Attorney General by Jim Blubaugh
I'm Proud to be a Democrat by Julie Emery
Health Care for Every American by Linda Dietel
House of Misrepresentatives By Floyd Stilley
Intelligence By Nol Putnam
A Comment by Nol Putnam
What Should We Have a Government For?
February 3, 2005
I would be interested, pray tell, what the Right believes we should have a government for? We know what it does in foreign affairs, with our money; we know how it sells its programs of doubtful quality here at home, with our money; we know how it supports pet projects of the Congress all over the country, with our money; etc., etc.
What is the roll of OUR government? What do We the People want?
And if we don't wish to give the government 'our money,' what pray tell would happen to us? I shudder....
It seems the Right wishes only to pretend that government is the enemy, actually it seems to be those who in an earlier time were called "the meaner sort"; that any cost can be postponed to our children and grandchildren; and that any tax cut for anyone earning big bucks is great, less than that and it's a handout, something to be niggardly about. The Right seems to embrace selective government - the military, oh, and torture, is wonderful; reduction of Clean Air standards is fine; OSHA exists in name only - what repetitive action syndrome?; more Hummers and SUV's are fine (after all that's free choice); cutting back Medicare benefits for children is fine; strip mining is fine; cut back on HUD, heck, let's halve all domestic spending so that we can continue to have huge tax cuts for the wealthy. God, the list is so tiresome. The Right just doesn't know how three quarters of our society and most of the world is forced to live. And this, of course, reverts to the original question: What should we have a government for?
Perhaps just as architects should be condemned to live in the buildings they design, so too should Congressmen and Senators be forced to live on minimum wage; or work in a factory; or a mine; or plow the roads at 2 AM. They should suffer the consequences of their actions.
Where are the moral values, where are the family values? Apparently they are only applicable for some of the population. Where is the Right? Out to lunch and in control. I'm not sure we can survive four years of invited audiences for the President and pretend mandates, ideological demands, neo-cons, feel good wars and lies to boot.
A Comment by Marcia Kirkpatrick
Trusting this Administration
January 7, 2005
It is not possible to divorce consideration of a program proposed by this administration from the record of this administration. We have been lied to or misled on topics ranging from the Iraq war to schools, from drugs to the cost of tax breaks.
Policies have been given names that are the direct opposite of their intent. Overall the clear direction of the administration has been to gut safety nets of any kind for persons of modest or less than modest means while the corporate pork barrel gets bigger and bigger. See for example, the foreign profit tax break discussed in the January 14 issue of the New York Times.
Why this great wish to fix Social Security instead of, for example, the deficit? Or the FBI computer system, supposedly key to our counter-terrorism efforts? Or the crisis in health care? Why not collect all these unpaid taxes on foreign profits and invest them for future social security costs?
Daniel Moynihan or no Daniel Moynihan, there are plenty of well informed economists and legislators who do not think social security is in a crisis meriting the expenditure of TRILLIONS of dollars in order to implement a new program that will have huge administrative expenses and may not work.
I don't feel comfortable with assurances from partisans that it is going to be great, "trust me". I do not want something this important touched by an Administration that has shown in every way possible that it cannot be trusted and does not have my interests at heart.
A Comment by Jim Blubaugh
The Moral Symbol of Attorney General
January 7, 2005
Living in our beautiful County, we are often sheltered from the craziness of national politics. But the decision by President Bush to appoint Mr. Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General deserves the attention of moral people. Mr. Gonzales is a capable person, probably a good person. But as White House Counsel, he oversaw legal wording that enabled the U.S. to disregard the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to prisoner abuses and torture in Iraq. These abuses were a scandal, an embarrassment to the United States, and a slap at what America stands for.
The position of Attorney General is more than managerial – it is symbolic. The person in that position is the protector of our laws and is supposed to represent our highest standards for integrity and morals. He is the chief protector of our human rights. But what the world now sees is the President appointing a man who condoned torture and who believes that the U.S. does not have to follow the rules of the Geneva Convention. We should take note of what this says about us as a country and a people. This should not be the nominee of an Administration that portrays itself as moral. At the very least, now that he is appointed, I hope Mr. Gonzalez will clarify to the world that torture is not allowed in our society. Democracies, free people, and moral citizens do not do such things.
A Statement by Julie Emery
I'm Proud to be a Democrat
November 3, 2004
It is November 3rd and I am proud to be a Democrat with a capital “D”.
I am too pro-life, the Republicans don’t want me.
Yes, I am pro-life in the traditional sense. I believe that abortion kills a child. However, I also know that there is a clear link between poverty and abortion and that economic programs that continue to favor the rich at the expense of the poor will surely increase the number of abortions performed each year. I know that not giving younger Americans access to and knowledge about birth control puts them in situations where many of them will have abortions that they will regret for the rest of their lives.
I am pro-life for the prisoner on death row. All life is sacred and to kill the worst among us degrades the best in all of us.
I am pro-life for Iraqi civilians who did not ask for us to invade their country and who are caught between our troops and foreign terrorists who didn’t exist in their country before we invaded.
I am pro-life; a full, rich, educated, empowered life for all of our children, including the ones currently living in the kind of poverty that makes their lives appear hopeless.
I am pro-life for the endangered species in this country and around the world that are threatened by this administration’s immoral environmental policies.
I am pro-life for those whose beliefs and customs and lifestyles differ from my own. They too, deserve a life free from bigotry and harassment, a life with the constitutional protections guaranteed to all of our citizens.
It is November 3rd, 2004 and I am proud to be Democrat with a capital “D” and proud to continue to fight for the moral values that are central to who I am and what I believe this country is about.
A Letter to Linda Dietel
Affordable Health Care for Every American
July 14, 2004
I wanted to share this with others. Health care is such an important issue, and must be available and affordable for every American. This letter was sent to me by the DNC on behalf of John Kerry. Linda Dietel
Dear Linda Dietel,
Something very special is happening out here. Yesterday we stopped in Milwaukee and Beloit, Wi., and Davenport and Dubuque, Ia. So much hope has been pinned on this campaign -- we can feel that in the incredible size of the crowds and in the energy and excitement at each campaign stop. Thousands are even lining the sides of the road, waiting hours just to watch our caravan drive by. Nothing like this has ever happened during a presidential campaign as early as August.
We have come to listen -- but also to deliver our plan for a stronger America. All this week, I have been writing you about that plan, and today I would like to talk about health care.
During the New Hampshire primary, I met a woman named Mary Ann Knowles. Despite undergoing chemotherapy, she struggled to keep going to work every single day -- just to hang on to her health insurance. Mary Ann's story stuck with me not only because I got to know her, but because we keep hearing similar stories all across the country. Sadly, it represents the predicament so many Americans are living with: unreliable access to health care and skyrocketing costs. Nothing has been done to address this problem, and now, nearly 44 million Americans are living without health insurance.
Health care should not be a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected. We are the wealthiest nation on earth. There is simply no excuse for hard-working Americans having to worry about whether they will be able to afford the treatment they need when they are sick.
John Edwards and I have proposed a practical plan to immediately provide health care to every child, get health care and prescription drug costs under control, and ensure doctors -- not insurance company bureaucrats -- make health care decisions.
Here are the major features of our plan:
• Up to $1,000 of health care premium relief. Our plan will provide relief for employers who offer their employees health coverage by helping out with high-cost health cases -- saving families up to $1,000 per year.
• Tax credits to make health insurance more affordable. Our plan will provide tax credits to make health insurance more affordable for people between jobs, Americans ages 55-64, and small businesses.
• Health care for every child. Our plan will pick up the full cost of more than 20 million children enrolled in Medicaid. In exchange, states will expand eligibility for children's health coverage and low-income adults and enroll every child.
• More affordable prescription drugs. Our plan will cut the cost of prescription drugs by requiring the government to negotiate better prices and by allowing Americans to re-import discounted drugs from Canada.
• Control skyrocketing costs. Our plan will reduce health care costs by cutting administrative costs, waste, fraud, and abuse; enhancing disease management efforts; and reforming malpractice insurance.
• A real Patients' Bill of Rights. The Bush administration sent its lawyers to the Supreme Court to stand with the HMOs and against patients. John Edwards and I support a real Patients' Bill of Rights to ensure that patients have the right to see the specialists they need without interference from bureaucrats.
Please take the time to read our entire health care plan by visiting:
http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/
This plan will only happen with your support. On Friday, after I accepted the nomination, I called for 5 million voices to speak to the 55 million voters we're going to need to win.
Nearly everyone in America is feeling the sting of runaway health care costs. But it's up to us to let them know that America can do better. Read our full plan online, and help spread the word right up to Election Day.
Sincerely,
John Kerry
PS: Join us on our tour across the country by going here:
http://blog.johnkerry.com/
An Article By Floyd Stilley
House of MisRepresentatives
July 14, 2004
It’s not always easy to tell the difference between what is real, and what we would like to be real. You hear your neighbors rail against high taxes and Washington says tax cuts are necessary to encourage the wealthy to invest in business to produce jobs. Back when John Kennedy was President the government collected up to 91 cents of income tax on the last dollar you earned. Today that top rate is down to 35 cents per dollar. My recollection of the sixties is that jobs were to be had and many folks could afford (on one income) to buy houses, send their kids to college, pay their medical expenses and save for retirement. Today, four in five workers pay more in payroll taxes, social security and Medicare, than in income taxes.
President Bush says he cut taxes to spur the economy, and while all of us would like to believe this, in fact we are paying the difference, or more, in other ways. The very small amount that the average taxpayer is saving in Federal taxes is being eaten up by large increases in state and local taxes, or by higher tuitions, or by no pay increases in salary. And unfortunately, not all of us are sharing the same burden. Those among us who are wealthiest will reap the windfall. The Bush tax cuts to 1% of US income earners redirected billions of dollars in revenue that could have eliminated virtually all of the budget shortfalls in the states. Between 2002 and 2004, a full $197 billion in new tax breaks went to the top 1% of American taxpayers. This is money that has disappeared into the pockets of the very wealthy, making it unavailable to solve ongoing budget crises at the state and local levels.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculates that one-fifth of households in the middle of the income spectrum will receive an average tax cut of $647. The top one percent of households will receive tax cuts averaging almost $35,000 — or 54 times as much as that received on average by those in the middle of the income spectrum. Households with incomes above $1 million will receive tax cuts averaging about $123,600.
We have also been misled regarding the necessity to repeal the Federal Estate Tax, claiming that this "Death Tax" caused you to be taxed twice, when you are alive and after you are dead. Sounds plausible, except that stocks, bonds, and property owned by multi-millionaires are not taxed when they are alive, unless they sell those assets (and then they are taxed on a lower capital gains rate). So when you die, being taxed on all those appreciated assets that you own is the first and only time you were taxed. We were told that it was necessary to repeal this "unfair" tax on estates because it caused individuals to lose the family farm when the parents passed on. Sounds plausible, except that in 2001 the New York Times reported that the pro-repeal American Farm Bureau Foundation could not cite a single case of a family farm lost due to the estate tax.
Efforts to repeal the Virginia Estate Tax fell apart recently when pro-repeal forces refused to raise income taxes on the richest Virginians to compensate for the revenue that would be lost to repeal.
It is easy to mislead us, because as Americans we want to do what is right, and we want to believe that our leaders do the same. But, sadly, they do not. Just as this Administration has misled us on weapons in Iraq (after the fall of Saddam Hussein, our government had 1,100 highly trained and expensive specialists on the ground in Iraq for a year looking for WMD with no success), it has misled us on who benefits and who loses due to the tax cut.
It has intentionally withheld information on a range of domestic and international issues. The President has misled us on energy conservation, on his commitment to education, on reform of the stock markets, on damage done to the environment, on maintaining our infrastructure. These issues will be covered in future postings. It’s time to look at the Bush Presidency for what it really is doing – capitalizing on our fears, running up a massive national debt, and fixing practically nothing.
It’s time to address the issue straightforwardly. We urge you to consider voting Democratic at the next election.
An Article By Nol Putnam
Intelligence
April 01, 2004
The question of the President's intelligence would seem to be generally irrelevant. Far more scary to me is that he and his advisors are both ideologues and arrogant. Ideologues in that despite all the comments to the contrary (i.e. "compassionate." "inclusive," etc.), this administration is fixated on one idea - the enshrinement of financial, business and conservative Christian elite into all levels of the regulatory, economic and financial boards that are supposed to look out for the interests of the citizenry. Under Bush tax policies, a new generational elite has been established, dynasties of wealth no longer subject to even the most minimal estate taxes, and sold to a gullible public under the guise of the poor shopkeeper, rancher, SMALL business owner. Scientific boards are filled with right wing ideologues and damn the science. Stem cell research is stymied under the President's "enlightened" plan. Regulatory boards are staffed with people wanting only to get rid of "onerous" regulations. One might read the history of Enron here, to see how Mr. Lay used his power, money and coziness with Mr. Bush, to get people appointed to boards that then smoothed the way for Enron to rape the system. Then there are the system of interlocking directorates of companies - you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours - no longer is it important for a company to be successful for the CEO to receive ever increasing compensation.
Arrogant because they believe that there is only their way. Politics has become war and they will take no prisoners. Dialogue has been lost; blind ideology is triumphant.
The list goes on. And on.
And we continue to be distracted by sound bites, by Nascar races, by super trials like Kobe Bryant, half-time shows, and repeated lies.
Democracy takes work and investigation. We are failed by those whom we traditionally depended upon. TV News is a joke. (According to one survey Fox News had the facts wrong over 50% of the time.) Newspapers are better but often the news is buried in the fourth paragraph, under the fold, and next to the ad for some racy new car. I, along with Carl, try to read the op-ed pages of several newspapers daily. But my stomach turns with the nauseous writings of a Novak, who has the temerity to put a person in harms way, and then goes blithely on his way claiming journalistic privilege and writing garbage - shame!
It is fun to laugh at Mr. Bush's syntax; it will not be such fun to pay (in the myriad of ways we will be asked to pay) for his policies. |
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