Today on our LA public radio the discussion was about the Ryan Tax Plan and in particular his urgency to provide vouchers for future recipients of Medicare. There was a Republican Congress person from California who spoke about this being America, then by all means the free market should be the decider in the cost of health care and permitting Americans to purchase vouchers for their medicare needs is as red, white and blue as anyone could get. This Congressperson insisted that the market would be fair in deciding the cost of services and government only gets in the way of achieving that goal.
Then I had to wonder why, why if the free market is the salvation for prices and cost of services, why my health insurance premiums are on the rise and have been on the rise for the past 6 years? Then I had to wonder why if left to their own free market devices, why health carriers can only see the cost of services rise, their profits increase, and their coverage either more difficult to access or so costly to access that a select few are the only ones lucky enough to own them. Then I had to wonder why anyone would even consider the same free marketeers, the ones who currently control the costs and services within the health insurance world, could be trusted to be the people whose products we would spend our voucher dollars on if the Ryan Plan is passed. I had to wonder, if the free market is so free why is it so costly for most of us to participate within the market and always so free to raise the cost of services?
Today MSNBC announced that Sarah Palin is about to start a road trip across the country in an anticipated run for the Presidency. Her One Nation tour will “celebrate the meaning of our nation’s blueprints, our Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, which are the threads that weave our past into the fabric necessary for the survival of American, exceptionalism, so say her aides.
I have to wonder why someone so divisive, so belligerent, so selfish, so self serving is so embraced by so many Republican primary voters? I have to wonder why any American would consider a future President, a person who has drawn a line in the sand as to who should be treated equal and who should only be treated separate but equal. Why they would rally around a person who has decided some should be left out of receiving the rights the Constitution put in place because of their color of skin, religion, gender or sexual orientation. And why the Republican public would even consider endorsing a person who refused to answer to the press, acknowledge any mistakes in her life, and blames everyone else for any mis-step in her life.
Then I have to wonder why we as Americans don't place higher standards of honesty, integrity, and common sense in those we want to elect President in this great nation of ours?
Since the self described 'massacre' by Democrats of the Republican win in the 2010 election when a majority of Americans decided that only the Republicans could replenish jobs, and cut the deficit, there has been little effort to create jobs and stop the deficit, and more effort to cut government services, increase government intervention into the private lives of Americans, an assault on the working class, and an all out war on women's rights. The Republicans told us forget the past 8 years of their majority role, as those 8 years of two un-budgeted wars, sustained tax cuts for the rich, less regulations for the oil, financial, and insurance industries were just a blip on the economic road map for America. And if we trust the Republicans over the socialist Democrats things would get better.
I wonder why all the states who bought the Republican plan of forgetting the past and ended up electing a majority of state legislators from the Republican/Bagger party are the same states with high deficits, less jobs but more anti abortion anti choice/anti union/and more government intervention in their every day lives? I wonder why the deficit somehow will be made less by cutting entitlement programs asking the poor to middle class to deny themselves a better life, but never once insisting that the wealthy 2% also pitch in to do their fair share? I wonder why mass transit, light rail, infrastructure projects are deemed socialism, and why bigger classrooms, underpaid teachers promoted as Americana?
Then I have to wonder if any of us will recover from this so called massacre or the bleeding and division, the we vs they mentality, the do as I say not as I do slogans or the double standards we voted into office this past election? And I wonder if we will permit ourselves to be duped yet again?
Sometimes I just wonder why.
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