Trump Tweets Cover for a Host of Sins

I don’t for one moment believe that Trump’s Twitter rants are calculated measures designed to cause the public’s eye to watch one hand while his other hand he attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with executive orders, but they do have that effect. His controversial and often insulting lies eat up news cycles to such a degree that both his actions and those of Congress seem to be ignored all too often.

The heartless remarks Trump made while on a phone call with the widow of one of the four United States soldiers killed in Niger have succeeded in stopping most major media sources from asking; what are U.S. troops doing in Niger? Even Congress doesn’t know according to elected officials from both parties.

Among the other damage Trump’s tweets and outrageous behavior have masked are the failure of the Republican controlled Congress to renew funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which along with their proposed budget which makes severe cuts to Medicaid would leave millions of Texas children without any form of health insurance. This means that tens of thousands of Texas children won’t get the health care they need to do well in school which will penalize them in their future earnings.

Secretary of Education Betsy De Vos is rolling back guidance to colleges and universities regarding handling sexual assault allegations which were created to protect young women who far too frequently suffer more punishment than the perpetrators.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price was run out of the administration for using tax payer funds to pay for charter flights to various speaking engagements. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin got a slap on the wrist for doing the same thing to the tune of over $800,000.

Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke is working to eliminate some national monuments and shrink others. He advocates giving big mining and fossil fuel companies access to the lands rather then the public. He has also spent thousands of dollars of public money on charter flights that he could have made on regularly scheduled airlines for a few hundred dollars. Now there’s word that friends and campaign contributors of Zinke have been awarded a $300 million dollar contract to rebuild the power grid in Puerto Rico even though the their company consists of only two people and the company has no experience with such a large scale project.

Our former governor and now Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, has also carelessly used $56,000 in taxpayer money to pay for charter flights that could have been made on scheduled airlines for far less. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has done the same and like Perry and Zinke is under investigation by the inspector generals of their respective agencies.

The members of the Trump administration have exhibited the same callousness and disregard for the public as Trump has and there is no end in sight to the greed, corruption and abuse of the American people. I hope that in the future the news media will spend less time with shocking headlines over Trump’s latest tweet and more on holding him and his appointees accountable to the people they pledged to serve.

Published in the Seguin Gazette October 27, 2017

Saving Our Democracy

Early this month a group of America’s top political scientists gathered at Yale University to answer to discuss whether or not American democracy in decline and should we be worried? The near unanimous conclusion was: American democracy is eroding on multiple fronts — socially, culturally, and economically.

Breakdowns in social cohesion, the rise of tribalism, the erosion of democratic norms such as a commitment to rule of law, and a loss of faith in the electoral and economic systems as clear signs of democratic erosion are the symptoms these students of politics offered as support for their conclusions.

While none of the scholars claim we’re near collapse they did say we need to work hard to solve America’s many problems soon. America’s institutions are where democracy has proven most resilient according to the researchers. For now, our system of checks and balances is working: the courts are checking the executive branch, the press remains free, and Congress is generally fulfilling its role as an equal branch.

According to Nancy Bermeo, a politics professor at Princeton and Harvard, democracies don’t merely collapse, as that “implies a process devoid of will.” Democracies die because of deliberate decisions made by human beings.

Most often, the people in power become disconnected from their fellow citizens, seeing themselves as a class unto themselves. They develop promote and pass policies that benefit themselves and their benefactors to the detriment of the rest of society. Over time the citizenry becomes angry and divided tearing society apart.

In the past when this has occurred in the United States we’ve managed to elect leaders who pulled us back from the brink using what you might call class compromise. Teddy Roosevelt became known for trust busting, breaking up monopolies that enriched the few at the cost of the many. His nephew Franklin Delano Roosevelt later was considered a traitor to his class as the wealthy patrician instituted policies and rules that cut into the profits of his wealthy peers in order to recover from the economic collapse caused by financial speculation.

Democracy takes a lot of work much like a marriage; both parties must make an effort to be fair and faithful. I’m not talking about the government or the political parties; I’m referring to the electorate, the citizens. When things were going reasonably well many in this country felt comfortable disengaging from our government forgot the importance of participation and engagement. Today the United States is among the industrialized nations with the lowest average voter turnout. In 2016 Texas was 46th lowest turnout in the nation at 55%. Some parts of Seguin were in the 30% range.

Civic engagement is critical to maintaining our democracy and it starts with little things like knowing who your city councilmember is and how to contact them. We should all remember that local and state government are actually more influential to most people’s daily lives than the president or congress because they make the rules we live by every day.

Political theorists refer to the “social compact,” an implicit agreement among members of society to participate in a system that benefits everyone. Such an agreement only succeeds when we the people demand that our leaders act in our interests and not those of the wealthy donor class.

We must hold our elected officials accountable for their actions; sometimes it just takes phone calls from enough constituents to get their attention. In other cases it’s at the ballot box. Neither of those things will happen with a disengaged electorate which doesn’t even bother to stay informed about what their elected officials are doing.

Comparing Democrat and Republican Tax and Budget Proposals

Congressional Republicans have released some of the details of their proposed rewrite of the federal tax code, and the Texas Association of Realtors responded with a study showing the vast majority of homeowners in this state would pay more taxes if the current proposals are passed into law. The realtors’ study also shows the Republican plan would cost Texas more than 22,000 jobs and $3.4 billion in economic activity, mostly due to the distribution of tax breaks being weighted to the top 5%.

Republicans are also promoting a budget that cuts Medicaid by $110 billion a year. Remember that a substantial fraction of Medicaid covers costs for about two thirds of nursing home residents. That means many of us could end up with our aging and ill parents and in-laws living with us. Are you ready for that?

In addition to those cuts the Republican proposal calls for $47 billion a year in Medicare cuts and raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67. While the proposal doesn’t say exactly how those cuts will manifest themselves they are guaranteed to come out of the pockets of retirees who depend on it for their healthcare. As to raising the eligibility age well that just means higher private insurance costs and industry profits as those of use reaching that again see our premiums rising rate of illness with age. Employer based insurance coverage will also cost more small companies with older employees.

These proposals haven’t gone unchallenged, Democrats in Congress have offered “The People’s Budget”. Where Republicans would cut the healthcare for seniors and reduce the number of people eligible for Medicare/Medicaid Democrats would expand Medicare by offering the Public Option which would allow every American to buy their insurance from Medicare if they can’t find a better deal on the private insurance market.

The Democrats proposed budget permits the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate cheaper drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. This will significantly lower the price of prescription drugs for seniors and save Medicare $429 billion. The People’s Budget also combats monopolies held by drug companies and the use of patent settlements to block generic drug competition for a growing number of branded drugs. The People’s Budget ensures Americans have access to affordable prescription drugs.

The Democrats proposal would eliminate the preference for investment income over labor income which allows a hedge fund manager to earn the same amount as salaried employee and yet allow them to pay a lower tax rate. Currently, the tax code gives preferential treatment to income from investments, long-term capital gains, and qualified dividends. The People's Budget ensures the rich pay their fair share by creating new tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires. It preserves existing marginal tax rates for middle-class families while restoring Clinton-era tax rates on annual incomes above $250,000. For annual incomes above $1 million, it would adopt new progressive tax rates topping out at 49% for $1 billion and over.

While the Republican budget cuts billions from public education spending The People's Budget provides universal access to quality pre-k programs, which will expand social mobility by helping low-income and at-risk students read and write at the same rates as their peers. It would also provide $41 billion a year to eliminate undergraduate tuition and fees at public colleges and universities.

Even with the cuts proposed by congressional Republicans their budget would increase the deficit $200 billion each year because they also increase tax breaks for big corporations and the 400 or so wealthiest families in the nation. This is the era of Borrow and Spend Republicans.

John Kuempel Touts Distractions From Real Issues

Recently our state representative John Kuempel mailed out a flyer touting he presumably considers accomplishments from the recently completed 2017 legislative session. In this piece of tax payer funded propaganda Kuempel expounds on the value of SB 263 which substantially lowers the cost of handgun license as assisting lower income folks in their quest to take advantage of their Second Amendment rights. I won’t argue the meaning of the Second Amendment or its value in a modern society. Instead I would ask if reducing the fee by over $100 leaves other tax payers subsidizing the cost of administering the licensing program? If it doesn’t, then why were we being gouged by the state in the first place?

On “Election Integrity” Kuempel claims that the smattering of marginal issues addressed in several house ethics related bills is somehow meaningful reform. In reality one of the bills he touts, SB 5 which is another attempt by the legislature to pass a voter ID bill was immediately challenged in court where U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found it was passed with discriminatory intent and is therefore invalid. The legislature made no attempt to deal with redistricting even though both the state House map and the Congressional district maps have both been found to have been drawn with discriminatory intent. There was a bill filed which would have taken the entire redistricting process out of the hands of the state legislature and put in the hands of every day people but Republicans couldn’t even be bothered to give it a hearing.

Public Education has been considered a top priority of the state since it was enshrined in the state constitution in 1845. Once again Kuempel and his Republican colleagues gave it short shrift. Admittedly they did right by shoring up the retired teachers’ health care plan known as TRS Care but the pittance the provided for educating our precious children barely covers the increase in enrollment across the state. Once again many districts across the state will fund their public schools on the back of property taxes. The problem is that no all districts have the same average taxable real estate values so kids in low taxable value districts don’t get the best teachers or facilities.

Kuempel’s pro-birth stance belies the fact that the legislature placed an undue burden on women whose pregnancies fail by forcing them to pay for burial or cremation services instead of disposing of the remains the same way as an amputated foot or arm. The same bill no forces women to purchase separate coverage for abortions that were once covered by their regular health plans. Regardless of how you feel about abortions most Americans understand that there are some medical circumstances involving either the health of the mother or the viability of the fetus where the only safe thing to do is to abort and now those mothers who haven’t recognized the need for a separate policy will be forced to pay for the procedure out of pocket.

All the purported advances in Kuempel’s missive simply distract from his failure to actually do something to improve the lives of his constituents or in some cases made them worse off. Texan’s whose homes suffered damage in the recent hurricane and haven’t filed a claim with their insurer yet lose some of their rights to compensation due to legislation he voted for. Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world and no substantive action was taken to address it. I don’t think John Kuempel has much to be proud of, do you?

Published in the Seguin Gazette, September 29, 2017