The problem out on the streets of America during these tumultuous political times is that far too much rhetoric is flying around without a basis in fact…

People of good conscience can have differing opinions; it is where we are supposed to have our political debates. The problem now is that any ideological constituency can get on the internet and find some moron that agrees with their desperate fantasy. They will be validated in their belief regardless of fact or the lack thereof…

So here we are. The government is shut down, 800,000 government employees have been sent home and pundits on all sides are screaming “listen to me, I have the meme that will make you feel just right about your stance.”

The problem is that this isn’t about ideology.

This isn’t about what you “believe”

This isn’t about what you can sell.

This isn’t about what you can spin.

This is about policy not politics.

This is about what you can prove, not what you can say.

This is about facts… And the fact is facts matter.

So where are we and how did we get here? First you have to realize that there are two separate issues at play and part of what makes the situation so confusing and contentious is that the issues have been blurred. First let’s take on the budget or more specifically in the current situation the continuing resolution:

The Continuing Resolution:

The government has been operating under a continuing resolution pretty much since Republicans regained a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. A continuing resolution is an agreement in the absence of a budget to continue funding the government, usually at current funding levels until the budget dispute can be resolved. A sad example of the practice:

Continuing resolution passed 9/29/2010 funding government from 10/1/2010  – 12/3/2010

Continuing resolution passed 12/2/2010 funding government until 12/18/2010

Continuing resolution passed 12/17/2010 funding government until 12/21/2010

Continuing resolution passed 12/21/2010 funding government until 3/4/2011

Continuing resolution passed 3/2/2011 funding government until 3/18/2011

Continuing resolution passed 3/16/2011 funding government until 4/8/2011

Continuing resolution passed 4/9/2011 funding government until 4/15/2011…

The grand bargain – This was the negotiation attempted during this flurry of continuing resolutions to try to establish a responsible long term plan for deficit reduction while acknowledging the fragile economy and the fact that many Americans are still vulnerable to the worst recession since the Great Depression. Ultimately the talks collapsed when Republicans refused to accept increasing revenues from the wealthiest Americans.

The debt ceiling, round one – In order to avoid a government default for the first time in American history The Budget Control Act of 2011 raised the debt ceiling by cutting spending more than the increase of the debt limit. It also specified automatic budget sequestration should the parties fail to agree to a budget. By letting the full faith and credit of the United States come so close to being breached Standard & Poor’s downgraded its credit rating of the U.S. from AAA to AA+ all major stock indices dropped more than 5 percent the next business day.

The fiscal cliff – The fiscal cliff refers to the confluence of forces it was thought would damage an already weak economy; the expiration of the Bush tax cuts which were to expire in 2010 but had been extended for two years and the effects of the sequester both slated for January 1 2013. The fiscal cliff crisis culminated in the American Taxpayer Relief Act where 98% of the Bush Tax Cuts became permanent, The ATM was “fixed”, and the sequestration was delayed two months (for additional negotiation time)

Sequestration – This is a mechanism that was designed to force congress to reach a compromise on the budget. As a condition of lifting the debt limit both sides agreed to draconian cuts if the sides failed to reach a later agreement, an agreement was not reached and the sequester cuts began in March of 2013. Though Republicans have publicly accused President Obama with creating and wanting the sequester, their budget position in the latest round of continuing resolution negotiations is sequester level spending.

In March of 2013 the Senate passed its first budget in three years, under “normal order” the House budget and Senate budget would be reconciled in a “conference committee”. Though the House had been pushing the Senate to pass a budget, the House has refused 18 requests over 6 months to empanel said conference committee, continuing the continuing resolutions.

A few facts about the current continuing resolution:

The CR passed by the Democratic Senate and not voted on by Republican House offers to keep the government open not at the levels in the Senate Budget but rather at the spending levels in the House budget.

The CR would only fund the government for approximately 6 weeks.

It is likely that if John Boehner brought the “clean CR” to the House floor for a vote, the measure would pass with a very large majority, ending this shutdown and returning 800,000 people to work.

This debate isn’t even close to as dangerous as the deadline we face in 13 days when the debt ceiling MUST be raised, and it really must be raised for the good of the country, it is not a joke and it certainly is not an opportunity for the irresponsible to threaten the responsible, that isn’t governance its extortion.

The real debate should be about the budget, both chambers of Congress have passed one, it is time to pass the CR, empanel a conference committee and return to the task of governance

Which bring us to the second issue, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

The Affordable Care Act:

I could write many posts about the ACA, fact is I have… Some basic facts;

The ACA is not a government takeover of healthcare, healthcare is as it was for 85% of Americans; the remaining 15% now can access affordable care through an exchange by a private, for profit, insurance company. Government runs the exchanges and sets rules; it is still a private market.

The ACA does not and never did contain “death panels” the provision in question which did not make it to the final law was to provide doctor reimbursement for “end of life” counseling for terminally ill patients.

Obamacare isn’t a “job killer” nor is it forcing employers to cut employees hours – The exchanges opened three days ago, coverage doesn’t start until January 2014, the employer mandate wouldn’t start until then and has been delayed for a year… Companies are doing what they are doing for their own fiscal reasons, they may blame Obamacare but it is just a disingenuous excuse to defend their choices. Someday facts may prove otherwise but today the wild rhetoric about how bad the ACA will be isn’t factually provable.

People that have had and continue to have healthcare insurance receive the following benefits through the ACA

Annual caps on your insurance are a thing of the past YOU ARE INSURED.

Lifetime caps on your insurance are a thing of the past YOU ARE INSURED. You don’t have to go and find a new job with benefits if your healthcare demands it.

The practice of rescission, an insurance company dropping your coverage when you get sick is no longer allowed.

Children out of their parent’s house and not yet in a career that includes benefits can remain on their parent’s healthcare plans.

Preventative care is required if you are going to sell a healthcare policy to an American.

Rebates to the insured if 80% of premiums aren’t spent on actual care.

Women cannot be charged more than men for the same insurance plan.

What is most true though is that the continuing resolution has nothing to do with the ACA. There is a system in this country for the passage of laws and a system for their repeal. The Republican Party didn’t win enough elections to repeal the law and therefore it will not be repealed. A government of, by and for the people shouldn’t be derailed by a minority just because they believe the falsehoods fed to them for years about a law that gives the uninsured hope and the insured a better product than they used to have.

We are a nation of laws. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is no mere bill, it is a law. The ACA was rigorously debated. The ACA was passed through both chambers of Congress. The ACA was signed into law by a President of the United States. The ACA was challenged and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. The time has come to turn to more pressing matters, immigration reform, the farm bill, the budget, economic stimulus, and economic certainty.

We have a two party system; it is supposed to be contentious. It is not supposed to be dysfunctional. Make your best argument but if you can’t achieve all you want find a place to agree in the middle for the good of the country. The pressure to do the will of the people has to come from the people, but if the people are allowed to be swayed by cheap talking points facts are lost and the people end up advocating policies that are contrary to their best interests.

People should be able to choose whatever fate they desire but the choice should be based on fact not some slick talking point specifically crafted to obfuscate those facts… to have it otherwise really isn’t a choice, and that is a fact.

Late update: House Democrats are working on filing a “discharge petition”, if they can get all 200 Democrats and 18 Republicans to sign it they can force a vote on a clean CR… Unfortunately the earliest this petition could force a vote would be Oct 14, not nearly soon enough for 800,000 furloughed workers and the greater economy that they impact. John Boehner has no such restrictions for access to the floor, he can call a vote at any time, a vote that would end this insanity, and that, is also a fact…

Respectfully,

 

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms has become THE quintessential right for a small but incredibly well organized group of Americans. The fact of the matter is that nobody can reasonably argue that a private citizen has the right to keep or bear a nuclear weapon. Working back from that premise it is reasonable that the Constitution allows the government to place restrictions on what arms may be kept and borne.

We the people need to have an honest conversation, without hyperbolic rhetoric about an effort to “take away your guns” specifically about the limits of the Second Amendment and the limits of what the American people should be required to bear…

Shall we continue to bear people keeping gun shops or working in gun shops without a criminal background check?

Shall we continue to bear private sales of guns or should those people that registered to own those guns keep them?

Shall we continue to bear people keeping their guns without keeping insurance to mitigate the damage those guns can perpetrate?

Shall we continue to bear people keeping their guns in an unsecured location where a child or intruder can get ahold of it?

Shall we continue to bear people getting around our laws by buying up to 40% of guns at a gun show?

Shall we continue to bear people keeping their silence if their gun is lost or stolen?

Shall we continue to bear people keeping clips that allow a shooter to fire more than 9 rounds without reloading?

Shall we continue to bear some people keeping assault weapons that can produce the kind of carnage that the communities of Aurora and Newtown suffered?

The right to keep and bear arms is NOT absolute, we have to define reasonable limits that protect the right and protect the innocent.

We can’t keep bearing this…

Note: artwork “Struggle by Morton D. Levin”

The events unfolding at American embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East refreshes the endless debate about religion, culture, tolerance, respect and ultimately what is “sacred”…

The idea that something is sacred is born in the concept of consecration, when something has been consecrated it literally becomes sacred, at least to those that hold it so. The concept that any symbol that represents something that was so consecrated would carry the same sacred weight would seem an aberration of consecration.

There is a disconnect in this world between what IS sacred and the symbols of things that are sacred. There is a further disconnect between those who hold something sacred and those that quite simply do not.

Is the American flag sacred? Is it more disrespectful to burn it or wear it on your ass as a bikini? Is “The Bible” sacred? What about “a Bible”? And the Qur’an? The Talmud? What if they were printed on toilet paper? Wouldn’t the exposure of the user to the word outweigh the resulting, um, smear shall we say?

Don’t make the symbol of something more valuable than the values that something symbolizes.

Outrage, faux or otherwise is a powerful weapon that when unleashed is rarely discriminating. Those who would purposefully leverage outrage for the advantage of their ideology or the vilification of another’s arm that weapon without regard for the aim, figuratively they are firing into a crowd and those they manipulate are the bullets.

“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” - Salman Rushdie

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – conversely, one man’s sacred is another man’s crude joke. Why should the man that considers a thing sacred care what the man who doesn’t thinks? Your faith speaks to you, another’s faith speaks to them. Their truth is “the truth” for them, your truth is “the truth” for you. The truth is that the religion isn’t offended, flags aren’t offended, long dead prophets and messiahs are not offended… The men who attach the moniker of “sacred” are offended, their sensibilities compromised which compromises their sense.

Don’t make the symbol of something more valuable than the values that something symbolizes.

 

Veracity…  accuracy, actuality, authenticity, candor, correctness, credibility, exactitude,  exactness, fact, fairness, fidelity, frankness, genuineness, gospel, honest-to-god truth, honesty, honor ,impartiality, integrity, like it is, openness, precision, probity, real McCoy, reality, rectitude, rightness, sincerity, straight stuff, trueness, truism, trustworthiness, truthfulness, uprightness, verisimilitude, verity

There has not been five minutes during the Republican National Convention so far that has honored any version of the word “veracity”. And the GOP has the audacity to claim to be the Party of values.

The ninth commandment demands – Thou Shalt Not Lie. I have no words.

 

Mr. Romney likes to think of himself as a “job creator” as someone that succeeds by making a success of those around him and to a certain extent he is not wrong. The caveat is that if you bother to look further than his immediate crony circle, the picture is completely different. The fact is that Mitt Romney made a career out of sucking the capital out of businesses and their employees to benefit a small group of investors, a successful endeavor? Certainly. A model for governance? Certainly not. So while he is parading on the stage at the convention beneath a banner proclaiming “We Built That”, look at his record, see what he has actually done and know this;

If you made money leveraging companies and their employees into bankruptcy “you bilked that”

Mr. Romney likes to say that he “saved” the Winter Olympics in 2002. I don’t doubt that Mr. Romney’s skills as a manager were very beneficial. I do doubt the honesty of a man that claims government needs to “get out of the way” and then solicits over 400 million dollars from that same government. Who saved the games, Mr. Romney? You or the American taxpayers?

If you “saved” the Olympics by tapping the Federal Government for 400 million dollars “you bilked that”

Mr. Romney likes to think of himself and people like him as the reason that America is successful. The Romney’s write very big tax checks to the Federal Government. The size of those checks may never be known since Mr. Romney refuses to do what our current president has, release twelve years of returns.  Mr. Romney has given us some clues. We know that in 2010 Mitt paid a little less than 14% federal income tax rate. We know that he is very aggressive in exploiting the tax code to pay as little as possible. We know that he considers anything less than aggressive exploitation of our tax code would “disqualify” him as a presidential candidate. Where does that leave the United States as a society? If the social safety net must be shredded to “save” it, shouldn’t a portion of the conversation focus on the tax code? Should we entrust the future of that safety net to one who already possesses enormous tax advantages. Especially when he wants to enact even more cuts for people who already so effectively dodge so much of their tax bill?

If you hide cash in the Cayman’s to avoid paying taxes to your country “you bilked that”

I respect the free market. I participate in the free market. I applaud the free market. But the free market is never going to provide national security. The free market is never going to protect the air and water. The free market is never going to ensure equal access to all Americans. The free market is never going to self-regulate.

The government has a role to play, a crucial role. A role that matters to our lives and the lives of future Americans. Mr. Romney seems to view the government as something worth controlling so that he may more effectively cheat it for monetary gain. A position of power where he can wrest even more from America than he already has. If Mr. Romney becomes president, someday he will look over whatever is left of this great nation and laugh under his breath “I bilked that”.