Last weekend’s horrific massacre in Aurora, Colo. has reopened questions about gun control in America. With 12 people dead and 58 injured after a gunman fired assault weapons inside a movie theater, media are asking what legislation, if any, has been passed to protect the public.
The gun control debate has been around for years. In fact, 30-plus years ago, I wrote a research paper on it for my government class.
As the daughter of a farmer, I grew up with guns in the house. My father was never a hunter or gun enthusiast; he simply used the weapons to take care of dangerous or unwanted animals.
My brother, on the other hand, became interested in hunting as a teenager. He learned to use Dad’s guns to hunt with the neighbors.
So I grew up with an appreciation for guns’ usefulness. But I was also taught healthy respect for them and their power to take life. They were a tool used in necessity. And when I conducted research for my paper, I looked at both sides of the issue – from the dangers guns posed to people in communities struggling with violence to the needs of rural residents for hunting and protection.
But even 30 years ago, the number one force blocking any and all forms of gun control was the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Today, the NRA is the nation’s largest lobbying force. Most recently, they successfully blocked extending a ban on assault weapons, which most Americans, including NRA members, support.
NRA leadership, including NRA President Wayne LaPierre, successfully trots out two canards to block any gun control measures: that they will take away citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights and that “guns don’t kill people, people do.” Both arguments oversimplify a complex issue and completely ignore public safety.
They also divert attention from the organization’s business goals. For the NRA is nothing more than a business whose nominal mission is to represent and protect the interests of gun owners. But like many other large organizations, leadership manipulates the organization to empower and enrich themselves.
As Alan Berlow relates in the first of a three-part series on the NRA in Salon Magazine (http://www.salon.com/2012/07/24/nras_doomsaying_sham/), the NRA’s leadership is happy to sell products (including concealed carry hoodies and liability insurance for shooting someone) and to e-mail alerts to solicit donations to their political action committee. Yet research shows these same leaders, who draw six-figure or more salaries, don’t donate themselves. As Berlow writes:
“Former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman has suggested one reason NRA big shots are happy to sit on their wallets. In his book ‘Richochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist,’ Feldman calls the NRA a ‘cynical, mercenary political cult … obsessed with wielding power while relentlessly squeezing contributions from its members.’ According to Feldman, NRA leaders ‘weren’t interested in actually solving problems, only in fueling perpetual crisis and controversy’ because ‘that was how they made their money.’”
Meanwhile, the NRA blocks compromise on gun laws that could protect the public.
As Edith Honan notes in a Reuters article recent polling by Republican pollster Frank Luntz shows gun owners, including NRA members, favor some ownership restrictions.
“Seventy-four percent of the current and former NRA members and 87 percent of the other gun owners supported criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun, according to the poll.” The results showed support for other checks as well.
In the wake of the Aurora massacre, we need to get beyond black-and-white arguments about guns and explore compromises. I think actor Jason Alexander said it best in an essay last weekend: “We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone... but this is not the time for reasonable people, on both sides of this issue, to be silent. We owe it to the people whose lives were ended and ruined yesterday to insist on a real discussion and hopefully on some real action.”
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Trying to understand health care act opposition
Last week as we waited for the Supreme Court of the United States to hand down its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, a Reuters/Ipsos poll on the health care reform law was released. It showed, yet again, that while a majority of Americans oppose the law, most favor the individual elements. Does that make any sense?
It is instead a knee-jerk reaction based on ignorance and fear of change. But I have to ask, is our current system really workin’ for you?
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) like to rant about government run health care, death panels and denied care.
But after my husband and I went through physicals and an injury during the last 10 months, it seems we already have that with insurance.
Because ACA is not government-run health care; it’s a band-aid designed to make private insurance more affordable and to sustain it for a few more years. Nothing more.
In fact, when polled on individual elements of ACA, people liked the following provisions:
— Allowing children to stay on their parents’ policy until age 26;
— Banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions;
— Requiring corporations to cover employees.
And whether they know it or not, as a result of ACA many retirees on Medicare are already enjoying free preventative coverage and will receive rebate checks for their drug expenses.
What Americans claim they don’t like is the individual mandate – largely because they’ve heard a lot of bunk about how it impinges on their freedom.
Do you rail about your auto insurance, which most if not all states require to own a car? You may split hairs about auto coverage being a state’s right, but that’s all you’re doing – splitting hairs.
The reality is through our private health insurance system, your company may deny you coverage or limit your treatment options. The insurance company may limit which doctors you can see. The insurance company may delay treatment for underwriting. And yet that’s what we say we’re afraid of with government health care?
Instead of parroting media messaging manufactured by health insurance corporations via think tanks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, think about how many forms, co-pays and deductibles it takes to go through a simple physical under the current system. Is it really workin’ for you?
And why is it that during the debate before ACA passed, we heard people crying “Keep your hands off my Medicare”? Medicare is a government-run universal single payer insurance plan, and most people on it like it.
Maybe instead of automatically repeating what we hear on television and radio, we should look at reality and start asking some questions. Like, “Why should health care be governed by the profit motive?”
If we want something better – like a health care system instead of a profit-driven payment system, we have to educate ourselves and speak up.
Too many of us sit at the kitchen table and complain without actually doing anything.
It’s not enough to vote. You have to know what you are voting for. And the six o’clock news is not going to give you the information you need.
Start with the Reuters/Ipsos poll results: www.reuters.com
Then visit the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform site to learn about ACA’s provisions: healthreform.kff.org
And finally, the government offers easy-to-use resources and information: www.healthcare.gov
Learn what the law actually does. Then use not only your vote, but your voice.
It is instead a knee-jerk reaction based on ignorance and fear of change. But I have to ask, is our current system really workin’ for you?
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) like to rant about government run health care, death panels and denied care.
But after my husband and I went through physicals and an injury during the last 10 months, it seems we already have that with insurance.
Because ACA is not government-run health care; it’s a band-aid designed to make private insurance more affordable and to sustain it for a few more years. Nothing more.
In fact, when polled on individual elements of ACA, people liked the following provisions:
— Allowing children to stay on their parents’ policy until age 26;
— Banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions;
— Requiring corporations to cover employees.
And whether they know it or not, as a result of ACA many retirees on Medicare are already enjoying free preventative coverage and will receive rebate checks for their drug expenses.
What Americans claim they don’t like is the individual mandate – largely because they’ve heard a lot of bunk about how it impinges on their freedom.
Do you rail about your auto insurance, which most if not all states require to own a car? You may split hairs about auto coverage being a state’s right, but that’s all you’re doing – splitting hairs.
The reality is through our private health insurance system, your company may deny you coverage or limit your treatment options. The insurance company may limit which doctors you can see. The insurance company may delay treatment for underwriting. And yet that’s what we say we’re afraid of with government health care?
Instead of parroting media messaging manufactured by health insurance corporations via think tanks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, think about how many forms, co-pays and deductibles it takes to go through a simple physical under the current system. Is it really workin’ for you?
And why is it that during the debate before ACA passed, we heard people crying “Keep your hands off my Medicare”? Medicare is a government-run universal single payer insurance plan, and most people on it like it.
Maybe instead of automatically repeating what we hear on television and radio, we should look at reality and start asking some questions. Like, “Why should health care be governed by the profit motive?”
If we want something better – like a health care system instead of a profit-driven payment system, we have to educate ourselves and speak up.
Too many of us sit at the kitchen table and complain without actually doing anything.
It’s not enough to vote. You have to know what you are voting for. And the six o’clock news is not going to give you the information you need.
Start with the Reuters/Ipsos poll results: www.reuters.com
Then visit the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform site to learn about ACA’s provisions: healthreform.kff.org
And finally, the government offers easy-to-use resources and information: www.healthcare.gov
Learn what the law actually does. Then use not only your vote, but your voice.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
What do we get with corporate-backed politicians?
Recently, I’ve had an old Tennessee Ernie Ford song rattlin’ round in my head:
You load 16 tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
I think that pretty well describes working America – a country I often feel like the masters of the universe in Washington D.C. (and our state capital) have forgotten.
And then I live through periods like this first week in June and I have to wonder, “Do working Americans recognize themselves in Ford’s song?”
Of course I am referring to Wisconsin’s recall election, in which voters retained a governor who made it his mission to break state public employees’ unions.
Never mind these unions had already conceded to pay a larger share of benefit costs and to limit pay increases. Walker’s goal was not to ease Wisconsin taxpayers’ burden, but to do away with collective bargaining and worker protections for public employees, and thus for all workers.
Walker’s efforts were bankrolled by a handful of multi-billionaire business owners, led by the Koch brothers.
And they outspent Democrats by a ratio of 7-1 to retain Walker.
Their funds allowed saturation advertising and publicity designed to question the democratic nature of a recall election petitioned for by hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters.
Yet by the time the election rolled around, voters suddenly felt recalls should only be held in the case of criminal wrongdoing.
John Nichols outlines events in “Framed: How Redefining Direct Democracy as Anti-Democratic Won Wisconsin.” http://www.thenation.com/blog/168335/framed-how-redefining-direct-democracy-anti-democratic-won-wisconsin?rel=emailNation#
I’ve never been a big believer in advertising, but I’m disappointed to say it worked this time. Walker’s corporate funders managed to manipulate voters into keeping their man in office.
Why? Because big business profits when workers can’t organize. It is no coincidence that since President Reagan broken the air traffic controllers’ union, workers’ wages in this country have stagnated.
And it’s ironic for those Wisconsin voters who cast their vote for the principle that recalls be held only for criminal wrongdoing. They may get it yet because investigations of Walker continue.
But what capped a strange confluence of events was the death of Ray Bradbury the same week. Bradbury was the author of Fahrenheit 451. This prophetic science fiction novel tells the story of a future in which firemen no longer put out fires. Instead, they start them – to burn books.
In this futuristic America, people sit enthralled to their interactive television screens, now three full living room walls.
Meanwhile, the government sends firemen to destroy books and historic documents that would encourage free thinking.
But, one day the book’s main character opens a book perched on the pile for the next bonfire. And it changes his life.
He begins to read and discovers radical texts like the Bible and our founding documents, and he finally questions what he is doing.
He sees his wife mesmerized in front of her TV screen and walks away from his old life.
I keep wondering when we will. Americans must wake up to the fact that government is our responsibility.
Until then, the company store owned by the Koch brothers and their colleagues will continue to buy our government and own our souls.
As they did in Wisconsin and are already doing in the general election, they are flooding the airwaves with ads and appearances by paid representatives for their candidates (chiefly Republican) who will blindly push through policies to benefit them.
So unplug the TV and radio. And before it’s too late, start reading and asking questions. It’s our job, and if we don’t do it, that sixteen tons will never get any lighter.
You load 16 tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
I think that pretty well describes working America – a country I often feel like the masters of the universe in Washington D.C. (and our state capital) have forgotten.
And then I live through periods like this first week in June and I have to wonder, “Do working Americans recognize themselves in Ford’s song?”
Of course I am referring to Wisconsin’s recall election, in which voters retained a governor who made it his mission to break state public employees’ unions.
Never mind these unions had already conceded to pay a larger share of benefit costs and to limit pay increases. Walker’s goal was not to ease Wisconsin taxpayers’ burden, but to do away with collective bargaining and worker protections for public employees, and thus for all workers.
Walker’s efforts were bankrolled by a handful of multi-billionaire business owners, led by the Koch brothers.
And they outspent Democrats by a ratio of 7-1 to retain Walker.
Their funds allowed saturation advertising and publicity designed to question the democratic nature of a recall election petitioned for by hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters.
Yet by the time the election rolled around, voters suddenly felt recalls should only be held in the case of criminal wrongdoing.
John Nichols outlines events in “Framed: How Redefining Direct Democracy as Anti-Democratic Won Wisconsin.” http://www.thenation.com/blog/168335/framed-how-redefining-direct-democracy-anti-democratic-won-wisconsin?rel=emailNation#
I’ve never been a big believer in advertising, but I’m disappointed to say it worked this time. Walker’s corporate funders managed to manipulate voters into keeping their man in office.
Why? Because big business profits when workers can’t organize. It is no coincidence that since President Reagan broken the air traffic controllers’ union, workers’ wages in this country have stagnated.
And it’s ironic for those Wisconsin voters who cast their vote for the principle that recalls be held only for criminal wrongdoing. They may get it yet because investigations of Walker continue.
But what capped a strange confluence of events was the death of Ray Bradbury the same week. Bradbury was the author of Fahrenheit 451. This prophetic science fiction novel tells the story of a future in which firemen no longer put out fires. Instead, they start them – to burn books.
In this futuristic America, people sit enthralled to their interactive television screens, now three full living room walls.
Meanwhile, the government sends firemen to destroy books and historic documents that would encourage free thinking.
But, one day the book’s main character opens a book perched on the pile for the next bonfire. And it changes his life.
He begins to read and discovers radical texts like the Bible and our founding documents, and he finally questions what he is doing.
He sees his wife mesmerized in front of her TV screen and walks away from his old life.
I keep wondering when we will. Americans must wake up to the fact that government is our responsibility.
Until then, the company store owned by the Koch brothers and their colleagues will continue to buy our government and own our souls.
As they did in Wisconsin and are already doing in the general election, they are flooding the airwaves with ads and appearances by paid representatives for their candidates (chiefly Republican) who will blindly push through policies to benefit them.
So unplug the TV and radio. And before it’s too late, start reading and asking questions. It’s our job, and if we don’t do it, that sixteen tons will never get any lighter.
Friday, June 8, 2012
What matters more: Objectivity or transparency?
I write a lot about the media because I have some insight from my public relations experience.
And as an artist I’ve studied perception. So I’ll tell you what I recently told a group of pastors during a workshop on social advocacy: it is not “objectivity” that’s important. Honesty and transparency are.
Objectivity is an impossibility. Why? Because everyone has a perspective. And no matter how carefully you work, it affects what you produce.
Consider a still life set up in a drawing studio. Students come in and take their places around the still life. Yet with one still life, 20 students produce 20 different drawings – all true from their perspective, although not equally well done or accurate.
So with news and information, transparency or honesty about an outlet’s perspective is what’s important. Unfortunately, most broadcast media try to lay claim to the ideals of “objectivity” and “balance.”
Additionally, in an age when most media are profit-driven and owned by corporate conglomerates, newsrooms have cut researchers and reporters. So the remaining overworked staff often uses pre-packaged stories, photos and news videos delivered to them via the newswires and public relations people like me. And because they all use the same sources, you get the same stories from the same perspective repeated on all the channels.
It’s an echo chamber.
In this environment, advertisers also play an unhealthy role in determining program content. Owners don’t want to deliver content critical of the advertiser. Take for instance, Sunday morning news programs. First let’s look at ownership.
FOX News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, an international conglomerate that also includes The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others. (FYI, News Corporation is under investigation for illegal news-gathering tactics and bribery in Great Britain.)
NBC is owned by General Electric, hence all the energy company commercials during Meet the Press.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
CBS formerly owned by Viacom, is now owned by CBS Corporation.
And with regard to providing balance or a variety of viewpoints, a recent study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986) examined the content of ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press and FOX News Sunday. To quote study author Peter Hart, “Evaluating the guest lists for the eight months from June 2011 through February 2012, FAIR found a distinct conservative skew in both one-on-one interview segments and roundtable discussions.”
Other findings from the study included:
“In the eight-month study period, partisan-affiliated one-on-one interviews were 70 percent Republican—166 guests to Democrats’ 70.”
Guests were overwhelmingly male and homogenously white.
In roundtable discussions, Republicans and/or conservatives made 282 appearances to 164 by Democrats and progressives.
“Middle-of-the-road Beltway journalists made 201 appearances in roundtables, which serves to buttress the argument that corporate media’s idea of a debate is conservative ideologues matched by centrist-oriented journalists.”
Only 29 percent of roundtable guests were women, and only 15 percent were minorities. Read about the study here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514 So if these are your major news sources, you’re only getting one perspective. Consider yourself lucky this local paper you’re reading works to provide a variety.
And as an artist I’ve studied perception. So I’ll tell you what I recently told a group of pastors during a workshop on social advocacy: it is not “objectivity” that’s important. Honesty and transparency are.
Objectivity is an impossibility. Why? Because everyone has a perspective. And no matter how carefully you work, it affects what you produce.
Consider a still life set up in a drawing studio. Students come in and take their places around the still life. Yet with one still life, 20 students produce 20 different drawings – all true from their perspective, although not equally well done or accurate.
So with news and information, transparency or honesty about an outlet’s perspective is what’s important. Unfortunately, most broadcast media try to lay claim to the ideals of “objectivity” and “balance.”
Additionally, in an age when most media are profit-driven and owned by corporate conglomerates, newsrooms have cut researchers and reporters. So the remaining overworked staff often uses pre-packaged stories, photos and news videos delivered to them via the newswires and public relations people like me. And because they all use the same sources, you get the same stories from the same perspective repeated on all the channels.
It’s an echo chamber.
In this environment, advertisers also play an unhealthy role in determining program content. Owners don’t want to deliver content critical of the advertiser. Take for instance, Sunday morning news programs. First let’s look at ownership.
FOX News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, an international conglomerate that also includes The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others. (FYI, News Corporation is under investigation for illegal news-gathering tactics and bribery in Great Britain.)
NBC is owned by General Electric, hence all the energy company commercials during Meet the Press.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
CBS formerly owned by Viacom, is now owned by CBS Corporation.
And with regard to providing balance or a variety of viewpoints, a recent study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986) examined the content of ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press and FOX News Sunday. To quote study author Peter Hart, “Evaluating the guest lists for the eight months from June 2011 through February 2012, FAIR found a distinct conservative skew in both one-on-one interview segments and roundtable discussions.”
Other findings from the study included:
“In the eight-month study period, partisan-affiliated one-on-one interviews were 70 percent Republican—166 guests to Democrats’ 70.”
Guests were overwhelmingly male and homogenously white.
In roundtable discussions, Republicans and/or conservatives made 282 appearances to 164 by Democrats and progressives.
“Middle-of-the-road Beltway journalists made 201 appearances in roundtables, which serves to buttress the argument that corporate media’s idea of a debate is conservative ideologues matched by centrist-oriented journalists.”
Only 29 percent of roundtable guests were women, and only 15 percent were minorities. Read about the study here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514 So if these are your major news sources, you’re only getting one perspective. Consider yourself lucky this local paper you’re reading works to provide a variety.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Is your news really news?
Do you assume your news sources present unbiased facts and information? Do you trustfully consume this news without ever questioning where it came from and who decided what to include and what to leave out?
If so, you’re probably being manipulated.
According to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986: “But mainstream media are increasingly cozy with the economic and political powers they should be watchdogging. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints that have access to mass media. With U.S. media outlets overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, independent journalism is compromised.”
But I don’t just take FAIR’s word for it. I’m speaking from my experience as a public relations practitioner. I help shape news by sending out news releases and contacting media to use them as news stories. And at the end of April I saw the poster-child for how the public relations industry shapes broadcast news.
One of my favorite Omaha news programs ran a story complete with video footage and interviews of a UNL coed who’d been robbed. She and friends had been enjoying a few beers, Pabst Blue Ribbon to be specific, when they were threatened by a thief with what they thought was a knife. After swiping the beer, he ran off only to be apprehended later. The news coverage continued with a PBR representative swooping in to save the day by delivering a new supply of their product to the student – all on camera. The PR person in me says, “Kudos to this PR guy for taking advantage of the situation and leveraging it into a free commercial.”
But the news consumer in me was screaming at the TV – “You call that news? Where is the coverage of the Unicameral, Omaha City Council or, God forbid, our Congress? Where is the editorial judgment?”
This two-minute story summed up for me the current state of our mainstream media. Instead of reporting from our centers of government and researching legislation affecting our common life, they pulled the easy-to-cover press release from the fax machine or e-mail. If you’re going to drive to Lincoln to do a story, why not cover the Unicameral?
It’s been so long since we’ve seen relevant, transparent reporting, based on research, facts and interviews, from our mainstream sources, most of us don’t recognize it anymore. We simply regurgitate whatever is presented, no questions asked. How can people vote responsibly when they don’t know who their representatives are and what legislation they passed?
And I’m serious. When people ask me which party controls each house of Congress, as happened recently, I get worried. I wonder how many people know their state level representatives. Without real information, voters will continue to make choices via fact-free campaign advertising and stump speeches – emotional reactions that will likely do nothing to actually help their situation.
So demand better. Tell media to report on relevant issues like government policies; ask for interviews, research and facts, including sources. And probably not for the last time, I’m telling you – quit reading and forwarding those chain e-mails. My PR colleagues have been creating those for clients, too.
If so, you’re probably being manipulated.
According to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986: “But mainstream media are increasingly cozy with the economic and political powers they should be watchdogging. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints that have access to mass media. With U.S. media outlets overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, independent journalism is compromised.”
But I don’t just take FAIR’s word for it. I’m speaking from my experience as a public relations practitioner. I help shape news by sending out news releases and contacting media to use them as news stories. And at the end of April I saw the poster-child for how the public relations industry shapes broadcast news.
One of my favorite Omaha news programs ran a story complete with video footage and interviews of a UNL coed who’d been robbed. She and friends had been enjoying a few beers, Pabst Blue Ribbon to be specific, when they were threatened by a thief with what they thought was a knife. After swiping the beer, he ran off only to be apprehended later. The news coverage continued with a PBR representative swooping in to save the day by delivering a new supply of their product to the student – all on camera. The PR person in me says, “Kudos to this PR guy for taking advantage of the situation and leveraging it into a free commercial.”
But the news consumer in me was screaming at the TV – “You call that news? Where is the coverage of the Unicameral, Omaha City Council or, God forbid, our Congress? Where is the editorial judgment?”
This two-minute story summed up for me the current state of our mainstream media. Instead of reporting from our centers of government and researching legislation affecting our common life, they pulled the easy-to-cover press release from the fax machine or e-mail. If you’re going to drive to Lincoln to do a story, why not cover the Unicameral?
It’s been so long since we’ve seen relevant, transparent reporting, based on research, facts and interviews, from our mainstream sources, most of us don’t recognize it anymore. We simply regurgitate whatever is presented, no questions asked. How can people vote responsibly when they don’t know who their representatives are and what legislation they passed?
And I’m serious. When people ask me which party controls each house of Congress, as happened recently, I get worried. I wonder how many people know their state level representatives. Without real information, voters will continue to make choices via fact-free campaign advertising and stump speeches – emotional reactions that will likely do nothing to actually help their situation.
So demand better. Tell media to report on relevant issues like government policies; ask for interviews, research and facts, including sources. And probably not for the last time, I’m telling you – quit reading and forwarding those chain e-mails. My PR colleagues have been creating those for clients, too.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
What about that deficit?
I’ve heard a lot about the deficit and our national debt the last five years. And I’m tired of people trotting out the canard about how irresponsible we’d be if we “ran our household budget like the government budget.” Even President Obama has made this terrible comparison. It’s apples to oranges, to use another cliché.
First and foremost, do we get to print money and set interest rates? I think not. Yet our government can do these things to respond to economic conditions.
Second, how many of us can make it through life without acquiring debt to pay for an education, automobile or house? I congratulate you if you have the resources to simply write a check. But for most of us, this type of debt is reasonable and manageable if we are employed and sensible with our dollars.
But government debt is a completely different beast because government controls monetary policy and government spending is actually independent of government debt. Counterintuitive, isn’t it?
Next, look at history. Deficits simply reflect current economic activity. Because our economy is depressed, our deficit is larger. When economic activity increases, we’ll see the deficit drop.
How to increase economic activity? Well, employing people would help, but we’ve not seen our “job creators” pony up money to expand and hire. Instead, they’re hoarding their money or investing elsewhere.
History shows that in situations like the present, government spending to support people via employment and social programs helps get the economy going. Of course in the 30s, direct employment programs were also effective. And for all you folks who believe World War II, and not FDR’s social programs, ended the Depression, I’d note the war created government spending -- just on the war effort.
Right now Europe is tumbling into a double-dip recession because in their single-minded focus on debt, they have cut spending to the bone. Austerity rules, and it’s creating instability, not growth.
America, particularly our Congress, needs to take note. To keep our economy moving, government is the only entity large enough to take appropriate action.
And as Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes, stabilizing our economy involves other factors, most notably rising health care costs. “In the long run, the single largest contribution to deficit reduction will need to come from slowing the rate of growth of health care costs throughout the U.S. health care system, in the public and private sectors alike. A slower rate of health care cost growth will produce substantial budgetary savings in areas ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to the tax exclusion for employer-based health coverage,” he writes.
So the whole thing is complicated and simple sound-bite solutions like a balanced budget amendment or cutting social programs or cutting taxes won’t work.
Develop a better understanding of government debt and the deficit by reading -- instead of listening to TV talking heads.
Start with “Deficit Dogma Debunked” by Marshall Auerback at: http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/deficit_dogma_debunked/. Then dig deeper with Greenstein’s article, “A Framework for Deficit Reduction: Principles and Cautions” at: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3435.
First and foremost, do we get to print money and set interest rates? I think not. Yet our government can do these things to respond to economic conditions.
Second, how many of us can make it through life without acquiring debt to pay for an education, automobile or house? I congratulate you if you have the resources to simply write a check. But for most of us, this type of debt is reasonable and manageable if we are employed and sensible with our dollars.
But government debt is a completely different beast because government controls monetary policy and government spending is actually independent of government debt. Counterintuitive, isn’t it?
Next, look at history. Deficits simply reflect current economic activity. Because our economy is depressed, our deficit is larger. When economic activity increases, we’ll see the deficit drop.
How to increase economic activity? Well, employing people would help, but we’ve not seen our “job creators” pony up money to expand and hire. Instead, they’re hoarding their money or investing elsewhere.
History shows that in situations like the present, government spending to support people via employment and social programs helps get the economy going. Of course in the 30s, direct employment programs were also effective. And for all you folks who believe World War II, and not FDR’s social programs, ended the Depression, I’d note the war created government spending -- just on the war effort.
Right now Europe is tumbling into a double-dip recession because in their single-minded focus on debt, they have cut spending to the bone. Austerity rules, and it’s creating instability, not growth.
America, particularly our Congress, needs to take note. To keep our economy moving, government is the only entity large enough to take appropriate action.
And as Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes, stabilizing our economy involves other factors, most notably rising health care costs. “In the long run, the single largest contribution to deficit reduction will need to come from slowing the rate of growth of health care costs throughout the U.S. health care system, in the public and private sectors alike. A slower rate of health care cost growth will produce substantial budgetary savings in areas ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to the tax exclusion for employer-based health coverage,” he writes.
So the whole thing is complicated and simple sound-bite solutions like a balanced budget amendment or cutting social programs or cutting taxes won’t work.
Develop a better understanding of government debt and the deficit by reading -- instead of listening to TV talking heads.
Start with “Deficit Dogma Debunked” by Marshall Auerback at: http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/deficit_dogma_debunked/. Then dig deeper with Greenstein’s article, “A Framework for Deficit Reduction: Principles and Cautions” at: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3435.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
What's changed since 2008?
As a 2008 volunteer, I get mailings from Obama for America.
Last week, the mailing envelope was a 12x18-inch poster headlined: CHANGE IS.
Beneath that was a black and white portrait of President Obama. And under the photo was a list of eleven accomplishments. They included:
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Saving the U.S. auto industry
Credit card reform
Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Affordable Care Act
Student loan reform
Wall Street reform
Middle-class tax cuts
Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Raising fuel efficiency standards
Ending the war in Iraq
Since I track the president’s record, I’d add the destruction of Al-Quaida and its leader Osama Bin Laden.
Overall, the list just hits the highlights.
How many items were you aware of? How many of these items have made a difference in your life? I’d venture a guess that most of us have seen benefits from almost all of them, whether we’ll admit it or not.
Unfortunately, our mainstream corporate media has failed to cover the actual policies this administration has championed – mainly because they do not overwhelmingly benefit corporate media owners’ interests. Citizen ignorance is their friend.
Why? If you do not understand the Affordable Care Act, maybe you won’t support it – even though it allows your college graduate to stay on your insurance plan while he or she searches for a job.
If you’re ignorant, you won’t support it even though now your insurer can’t cut you off when you hit a certain dollar amount spent to cover your pre-existing condition. Ignorance will allow you to oppose it despite the fact your premiums would have increased more drastically had ACA not been passed.
The fact is that with a higher number of U.S. citizens insured, many of them healthy young people, ACA is already bending the cost curve down. But even with ACA, we’re barely making a dent in rising healthcare costs. We could more effectively control costs and care for people with either a single payer system (like Medicare) or socialized medicine (like the Veteran’s Administration), both of which could be expanded.
Yet, as journalist Chris Hedges points out in a recent column on healthcare, “. . . as long as corporations determine policy, as long as they can use their money to determine who gets elected and what legislation gets passed, we remain hostages.”
Plenty of people I’ve met are also unaware President Obama cut middle class taxes during the worst of the recession. Media didn’t report it that way; instead they reported he wants to “raise taxes,” even though he only wants to raise tax rates on wealthy individuals and large multinational corporations. He’s also decreased the deficit and cut more government spending than his predecessor.
This president has a long list of accomplishments, but listening to media reports you’d think we have seen no change. Where is this “liberal media bias” I hear about?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again -- the first step to deciding who to vote for is to do your homework. Quit voting on emotion, turn off the TV and radio, and read. And know who pays for your sources. Otherwise you’re just a cog in the corporate machine, and nothing will change.
Because change is not just up to the president; it comes down to us.
Last week, the mailing envelope was a 12x18-inch poster headlined: CHANGE IS.
Beneath that was a black and white portrait of President Obama. And under the photo was a list of eleven accomplishments. They included:
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Saving the U.S. auto industry
Credit card reform
Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Affordable Care Act
Student loan reform
Wall Street reform
Middle-class tax cuts
Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Raising fuel efficiency standards
Ending the war in Iraq
Since I track the president’s record, I’d add the destruction of Al-Quaida and its leader Osama Bin Laden.
Overall, the list just hits the highlights.
How many items were you aware of? How many of these items have made a difference in your life? I’d venture a guess that most of us have seen benefits from almost all of them, whether we’ll admit it or not.
Unfortunately, our mainstream corporate media has failed to cover the actual policies this administration has championed – mainly because they do not overwhelmingly benefit corporate media owners’ interests. Citizen ignorance is their friend.
Why? If you do not understand the Affordable Care Act, maybe you won’t support it – even though it allows your college graduate to stay on your insurance plan while he or she searches for a job.
If you’re ignorant, you won’t support it even though now your insurer can’t cut you off when you hit a certain dollar amount spent to cover your pre-existing condition. Ignorance will allow you to oppose it despite the fact your premiums would have increased more drastically had ACA not been passed.
The fact is that with a higher number of U.S. citizens insured, many of them healthy young people, ACA is already bending the cost curve down. But even with ACA, we’re barely making a dent in rising healthcare costs. We could more effectively control costs and care for people with either a single payer system (like Medicare) or socialized medicine (like the Veteran’s Administration), both of which could be expanded.
Yet, as journalist Chris Hedges points out in a recent column on healthcare, “. . . as long as corporations determine policy, as long as they can use their money to determine who gets elected and what legislation gets passed, we remain hostages.”
Plenty of people I’ve met are also unaware President Obama cut middle class taxes during the worst of the recession. Media didn’t report it that way; instead they reported he wants to “raise taxes,” even though he only wants to raise tax rates on wealthy individuals and large multinational corporations. He’s also decreased the deficit and cut more government spending than his predecessor.
This president has a long list of accomplishments, but listening to media reports you’d think we have seen no change. Where is this “liberal media bias” I hear about?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again -- the first step to deciding who to vote for is to do your homework. Quit voting on emotion, turn off the TV and radio, and read. And know who pays for your sources. Otherwise you’re just a cog in the corporate machine, and nothing will change.
Because change is not just up to the president; it comes down to us.
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