After reading Mr. Payne's editorial, I couldn't help but laugh, in disgust.
First, I'd like to point out that the national deficit is over a trillion dollars, because this year, the U.S. has finally begun to include the tab for the two wars we are currently engaged in, that most of this nation, including conservatives, have forgotten about. The deficit would still be soaring even if John McCain were president, thanks to the generous tax cuts given to the wealthiest for the past eight years, courtesy of what ""conservative"" president?George W. Bush. It was former President Bush after all, who created the single largest bureaucracy in this nation's history-the Department of Homeland Security. Does this sound like a principled conservative to you, Mr. Payne?
Speaking of Bush, I know Mr. Payne is tired of all the blame-game rhetoric, but I, and most Americans, will continue to ""blame"" one of the worst, most incompetent, presidents ever for putting this nation in the dire straits it faces today. It took Bush only eight years to ""fuck"" this nation, and it's certainly going to take more than the 14 months that we've been under new management, to ""un-fuck"" us out of fiscal crisis.
When Mr Payne says, ""It is the idea that power lies with the people, not the government,"" he is forgetting that this is supposed to be a democracy, where the people are the government, where not only the ""people"" can be elected, but the""people"" can hold those elected accountable. Try holding accountable a person responsible for denying health insurance coverage to too many Americans, like the CEO of Aetna, Ron Williams, whose 2008 Compensation was $24,300,112.
Another quote from Mr. Payne, ""the idea that prosperity comes through the free market, not through the government agency,"" is a fantasy. When someone becomes prosperous, is it because they do it all by themselves? Do these prosperous individuals pave their own roads, lay their own sewer and communication lines, purify their own drinking water, purchase their own fire trucks(and firefighters), create their own schools to educate and teach job skills to all the employees that they hire? Can their employees do all the same, while earning far less to achieve prosperity? I bet not. Without the ""government agency,"" only the super-wealthy elite could obtain the means necessary to increase their wealth.
When the Great Depression was in full stride in the 1930's, brought on by many of the same fiscal values conservatives hold dear still today, it was public works projects like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority that created jobs and stimulated the economy, not the Rockefeller's or Hearst's of the day, but the federal government. It is because of the recklessness of the free markets, with the help of a Republican lead congress repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, by enacting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which eliminated the GSA restrictions against affiliations between commercial and investment banks, that we have such widespread bank failures and home foreclosures today. This is contrary to the belief held by conservatives that these loans were all given to folks living beyond their means, when it was really the de regulation of the banking system. It was the banks after all, that lent that money.
Mr Payne mentions, ""health-care coverage for all Americans without the federal government is creating another bureaucracy,"" and he's right. We don't even need to create another bureaucracy, we have one that works efficiently already, it's called Medicaid. We should expand Medicaid to all Americans, it can be done a lot cheaper than the current legislative debacle, and it's not some new costly insurance give away either, it's just expanding a program that already exists, and works quite well. But that doesn't make anyone wealthy now, does it?
Nowhere in Mr. Payne's article does it mention actual solutions to our current problems, but he does cite ""think tank"" groups like American Solutions, who, on their web site, post a visual of the unemployment picture in this country from December 2008, and who was president in December of '08 again? Groups like these only wish to advance an agenda to make those on their board of directors more wealthy than they already are.
I've seen some of these so-called ""solutions"" conservatives dream up, like the idea of semi-privitization of Social Security. Why not just remove the $100,000 income cap on social security taxes currently in place, that would make Social Security fiscally solvent for the next 50 years. Another genius idea by conservatives is just doing away with Medicaid and Medicare. What conservatives were warning ""tea-partyers"" of last summer is exactly what they plan to do if given the power to do so. Is this a forward thinking solution, Mr. Payne?
Conservatives, like Mr. Payne, have never been concerned about the good of society, but rather the good of what's theirs. For conservatives, it's not the society of ""we,"" but, rather the society of ""me"".
Jeremy Beloungy
Memorial Union Kitchen
Secretary, AFSCME Local 171
