There has been considerable talk over the last two years from both sides of the aisle about the need for "Entitlement Reform." This is a talking point that is used to turn the tide of public opinion. "Entitlement Reform" brings about a mental image of someone who is not working by choice so that they can live off of the government because they are entitled to do so.
In reality, this has been used as a euphamism for cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits, which we don't actually need to do. The truth is that the United States Defense budget in 2011 was $741.2 BILLION dollars.( US Defense Budget) In comparison, we spent $606 Billion in Social Security benefits, which were more than paid for by the $701 Billion in Social Security payroll taxes collected from the public. An audit of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund can be accessed here: Social Security Administration Audit
One fun way that I started educating myself about the federal budget was by Ben Cohen's Oreo video. Ben was one of the founders of Ben & Jerry's. He breaks the budget down using oreo's to represent dollars, which I found to be entertaining and informative. You can watch his video here: http://www.truemajority.com/oreos/ Ben's movie was made during the last Bush administration (around 2006-2007 I think) and at that time the defense budget was $400 Billion per year. That means that during this period of extreme economic downturn when the federal government can't find money to do Anything! they have managed to scrounge up an additional $241 billion for military spending. Doesn't this make you angry? What kind of good could have been done with that $241 billion?
So, homework for you for tonight. Watch Ben Cohen's 3 minute video about government spending and start deciding how YOU think your government ought to be spending your money. After all, you work hard for it.
And tonight's Occupy Wall Street message: Part of the problem with the current federal budget is that it is so complex because it is divided into such a huge web of administrative divisions that it is impossible for you or I to really have any oversight or any say as to what our dollars are spent for. I for one am not okay with my government spending my money for the USDA to negotiate a contract with Domino's pizza for them to add more cheese to their pizzas for the benefit of dairy farmers. Ironically, at the exact same time that contract was being negotiated, another department within the USDA was formulating a recommendation that American's start eating less cheese. So, from OCCUPY - stop allowing corporate interests to influence how our tax dollars are being spent!
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
You disagree with Occupy Wall Street?
As the Occupy Wall Street movement gains momentum, I am increasingly dissappointed in the response I hear coming from its critics in the public. I find that most people are perfectly happy to be spoon fed their opinions by the corporate sponsored media rather than taking time away from Dancing with the Stars and The Biggest Loser to investigate and really form their own opinions. I have taken some time over the past couple of years to become sufficiently outraged, and I'm going to take some more time now to share my outrage with you and I hope that you will spread it and educate everyone else you know about the legitimate reasons that the 99% is justified in its outrage.
Our criminal justice system has been corrupted by private corporate interests. We have allowed our jails to be privatized. In the last decade crime rates have continually decreased while rates of incarceration have skyrocketed. In 2009 New Jersey Judge Mark A. Chiaverelli, Jr., and his colleague Michael T. Conahan plead guilty to accepting more than $2.6 million from the private company running the state's juvenile detention center. These judges sentenced juvenile offenders to exhorbitant sentences in the facility for extremely minor offenses. You can read more about this particular reason for outrage here: NY Times This particular type of corruption means that our government officials and representatives are more interested in creating a situation that leads to increased incarcerations, instead of helping to identify and remove the causes of crime.
Over the past 20 years, (EBT) has replaced paper checks for the delivery of public assistance benefits and food stamps. One reason that EBT systems have become so popular is that states have found that they can save millions of dollars by "outsourcing" the provision of these benefits to big financial firms. In fact, JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States.JP Morgan has contracted to provide food stamp debit cards in 26 states and the District of Columbia. JP Morgan is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans that go on food stamps, the more profits JP Morgan makes. In addition, JP Morgan also distributes unemployment benefits in 7 states and profits from each unemployment case they process. You can read more about this particular outrage at The Shriver Brief
Monsanto is the company that produces Round-Up. They also happen to have created a genetically modified type of soy bean that is resistent to their own weed killer. This would be fine, except that they also copyrighted the seed. Over the last several decades, Monsanto has agressively used the US legal system to sue small farmers when Monsanto's "inspectors" found its genetically modified plant growing in farms that had not purchased their seeds from Monsanto. Unfortunately, for these small time farmers, it is extremely common for seeds to blow in the wind from a neighbor's farm (who had purchased seed from Monsanto). It seems not to matter whether they find an acre of plants, or one single plant growing in a 20 acre field. They sue the farmer and use agressive legal tactics to starve out the farmer with large legal bills. All the while, Monsanto offers to have this "problem" go away by having the farmer contract to purchase their seed from Monsanto forever and ever amen. This has all been made perfectly legal through a complicated web of laws and legal decisions all bought and paid for with Monsanto's lobbying money. Food, Inc. is a fantastic documentary that tells the plight of farmers fighting against Monsanto and going out of business because of it.
The frozen food industry has recently invested significant lobbying resources to convince Congress that 2 tablespoons of tomato paste on a frozen pizza should be classified as a vegetable for purposes of the school lunch program. The same bill will continue to classify french fries as a vegetable, all because our government officials would rather receive the money from the industry than insure that rates of childhood obesity begin to decline. You can read more about this atrocity here: LA Times
(I am running out of time to list my grievances against the government. But, NOT TO WORRY! Just as soon as I finish my term paper this week, I'll be back with more!)
I am so disheartened by our country's apparent loss of compassion. If a person doesn't have a job, they must be a lazy drain on society. Tell that to the 26% of college graduates who are unemployed. These graduates aren't looking for a handout. They aren't looking for an excuse not to work. They didn't fight their way through 4-8 years of grueling school work so that they could sit around and draw welfare. Unfortunately, our tax policy has continued to encourage American companies to reduce the size of their workforce, reduce the amount of benefits they offer, and move profits and job overseas. And its all well and good to say that "there are jobs available, they just don't want them." Those jobs that you say are so readily available, most paying less than $9.00 an hour, will not begin to put a dent in the student debt wracked up by these graduates, nor will it provide for sufficient housing or health insurance. You can't have it both ways. You can't tell people to go take that crappy job and then also say that people with crappy jobs must just be lazy and not working hard enough so they don't deserve luxuries like health insurance and housing.
Why is it so unbelievable that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be a legitimate protest by people who are fed up with the systematic purchase of their government by corporate interests? Maybe it's so hard to believe because Good Morning America, Fox News, and CNN are telling you that the encampments are filthy, that they are costing cities thousands of dollars and are rampant with crime; when in fact these camps are well organized, completely sanitary and nearly completely free of crime.
It is not a legitimate argument to say that the protesters should "stop wasting the taxpayer's money." I am a taxpayer and I say that I would much rather see my government spend money on police presence as a result of domestic non-violent direct action, than to see trillions of dollars spent on seemingly endless foreign wars. We do not consider the tax money spent on women's sufferage protests, worker's rights protests, civil rights protests, anti-war protests during the Vietnam era, or anti-war protests during the 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars, to be a waste. These protests are not a waste either. We cheer the protests in the middle east as those countries cast off the shackles of oppressive governments, but chastize our own citizenry for exercising the same right. Is the hypocrisy not glaringly obvious?
I hope that my fellow citizens wake up to the atrocities being committed against us by our own government and the corporations that own it. I hope that we are able to collectively turn off the TV and begin to form our own opinions based on our own investigation of how our government functions. I am sincerely freightened by the prospects for our country if we do not.
Seriously, more outrage coming later...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." ~ U.S. Declaration of Independence
Our criminal justice system has been corrupted by private corporate interests. We have allowed our jails to be privatized. In the last decade crime rates have continually decreased while rates of incarceration have skyrocketed. In 2009 New Jersey Judge Mark A. Chiaverelli, Jr., and his colleague Michael T. Conahan plead guilty to accepting more than $2.6 million from the private company running the state's juvenile detention center. These judges sentenced juvenile offenders to exhorbitant sentences in the facility for extremely minor offenses. You can read more about this particular reason for outrage here: NY Times This particular type of corruption means that our government officials and representatives are more interested in creating a situation that leads to increased incarcerations, instead of helping to identify and remove the causes of crime.
Over the past 20 years, (EBT) has replaced paper checks for the delivery of public assistance benefits and food stamps. One reason that EBT systems have become so popular is that states have found that they can save millions of dollars by "outsourcing" the provision of these benefits to big financial firms. In fact, JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States.JP Morgan has contracted to provide food stamp debit cards in 26 states and the District of Columbia. JP Morgan is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans that go on food stamps, the more profits JP Morgan makes. In addition, JP Morgan also distributes unemployment benefits in 7 states and profits from each unemployment case they process. You can read more about this particular outrage at The Shriver Brief
Monsanto is the company that produces Round-Up. They also happen to have created a genetically modified type of soy bean that is resistent to their own weed killer. This would be fine, except that they also copyrighted the seed. Over the last several decades, Monsanto has agressively used the US legal system to sue small farmers when Monsanto's "inspectors" found its genetically modified plant growing in farms that had not purchased their seeds from Monsanto. Unfortunately, for these small time farmers, it is extremely common for seeds to blow in the wind from a neighbor's farm (who had purchased seed from Monsanto). It seems not to matter whether they find an acre of plants, or one single plant growing in a 20 acre field. They sue the farmer and use agressive legal tactics to starve out the farmer with large legal bills. All the while, Monsanto offers to have this "problem" go away by having the farmer contract to purchase their seed from Monsanto forever and ever amen. This has all been made perfectly legal through a complicated web of laws and legal decisions all bought and paid for with Monsanto's lobbying money. Food, Inc. is a fantastic documentary that tells the plight of farmers fighting against Monsanto and going out of business because of it.
The frozen food industry has recently invested significant lobbying resources to convince Congress that 2 tablespoons of tomato paste on a frozen pizza should be classified as a vegetable for purposes of the school lunch program. The same bill will continue to classify french fries as a vegetable, all because our government officials would rather receive the money from the industry than insure that rates of childhood obesity begin to decline. You can read more about this atrocity here: LA Times
(I am running out of time to list my grievances against the government. But, NOT TO WORRY! Just as soon as I finish my term paper this week, I'll be back with more!)
I am so disheartened by our country's apparent loss of compassion. If a person doesn't have a job, they must be a lazy drain on society. Tell that to the 26% of college graduates who are unemployed. These graduates aren't looking for a handout. They aren't looking for an excuse not to work. They didn't fight their way through 4-8 years of grueling school work so that they could sit around and draw welfare. Unfortunately, our tax policy has continued to encourage American companies to reduce the size of their workforce, reduce the amount of benefits they offer, and move profits and job overseas. And its all well and good to say that "there are jobs available, they just don't want them." Those jobs that you say are so readily available, most paying less than $9.00 an hour, will not begin to put a dent in the student debt wracked up by these graduates, nor will it provide for sufficient housing or health insurance. You can't have it both ways. You can't tell people to go take that crappy job and then also say that people with crappy jobs must just be lazy and not working hard enough so they don't deserve luxuries like health insurance and housing.
Why is it so unbelievable that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be a legitimate protest by people who are fed up with the systematic purchase of their government by corporate interests? Maybe it's so hard to believe because Good Morning America, Fox News, and CNN are telling you that the encampments are filthy, that they are costing cities thousands of dollars and are rampant with crime; when in fact these camps are well organized, completely sanitary and nearly completely free of crime.
It is not a legitimate argument to say that the protesters should "stop wasting the taxpayer's money." I am a taxpayer and I say that I would much rather see my government spend money on police presence as a result of domestic non-violent direct action, than to see trillions of dollars spent on seemingly endless foreign wars. We do not consider the tax money spent on women's sufferage protests, worker's rights protests, civil rights protests, anti-war protests during the Vietnam era, or anti-war protests during the 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars, to be a waste. These protests are not a waste either. We cheer the protests in the middle east as those countries cast off the shackles of oppressive governments, but chastize our own citizenry for exercising the same right. Is the hypocrisy not glaringly obvious?
I hope that my fellow citizens wake up to the atrocities being committed against us by our own government and the corporations that own it. I hope that we are able to collectively turn off the TV and begin to form our own opinions based on our own investigation of how our government functions. I am sincerely freightened by the prospects for our country if we do not.
Seriously, more outrage coming later...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." ~ U.S. Declaration of Independence
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Timing is everything
It took several years for me to say out loud "I am going to go to law school." And it still feels weird. I feel arrogant saying it to people. But it's true. I'm going to law school. Once I finally made up my mind and learned to say it out loud I decided that it would be best if I timed it so that I finished UNCA the same year that Dylan graduated from high school. That way he wouldn't have to change schools and I wouldn't be too pressured to finish in a hurry. I mean, my life at any given moment is like a busy metro station, with people going here and there and a different train departing for a different station every 15 minutes. I really didn't want to feel like I needed to finish school in a hurry.
Well last week my law professor looked at me in sheer exasperation and disbelief rolling his eyes and saying, "Oh no. Seriously? 2015? You need to shorten that up and get out of here." Um, oh, well...I mean, I hadn't really, I just...was gonna. Hmmm. Ok.
So, I changed my tack, just for hypothetical purposes, and re-evaluated my game plan and as it turns out I could probably be done at UNCA by Spring 2013, as in like 19 months from now. WHAT?! It sounds crazy right? It is crazy. But what if I did it?
Well, if I did it the kids would have to change schools. Tayler and Dylan would both have to start a new high school for their junior year, and Daniel would be starting a new middle school. I had to change schools three times before I was in the fifth grade. It was hard. And I always envied my friends who could share stories about our classmates from their kindergarten year. I wanted my kids to have that. I didn't want them to have to change schools. But yesterday at lunch with a local attorney, one of the most brilliant people I know, he pointed out to me that maybe it wouldn't be so bad for the kids to get a chance to expand their worldview for a year or two before they head off to college. And, they're kids. They will adjust. And he's probably right. But try explaining that to a 14 year old who doesn't want to move!
So then I add a whole new layer of guilt to my school journey. As if it's not bad enough that I have to spend so much time away from them every single week going to class and doing homework, now I'm going to uproot them from everything they've ever known for three years so that I can go to college NOW because I'm not patient enough to wait another couple of years??? Well, Mr. Dillard points out, there are several very good arguments for getting on with it. One, I am paying the full fees for school every single year I attend and would actually save some money by shortening things up. And he also suggested that I consider the burnout factor. The longer I force myself to take night classes while working full time, the more likely I am to just fizzle out, or to have some major life event happen that prevents me from finishing. So, he says, "Get on with it."
So, just for kicks today I took a practice LSAT. With no preparation and with a head cold, I managed a 159, which would qualify me for scholarship money at several of the law schools I'm looking at. And I have to admit that that got me kind of excited. What if I prepared for it, practiced some and managed a 170? What if I really am ready to get this show on the road? Will the kids adjust? Will they hate me forever for screwing up their high school years? Should I just wait for their sake and stick to my original plan? These decisions all just feel too big for me to make. I need a fairy godmother to swoop down, wave her magic wand, and make it all work out in a perfect timeline of events that will keep everyone happy and well adjusted. Can you make that happen please?
Well last week my law professor looked at me in sheer exasperation and disbelief rolling his eyes and saying, "Oh no. Seriously? 2015? You need to shorten that up and get out of here." Um, oh, well...I mean, I hadn't really, I just...was gonna. Hmmm. Ok.
So, I changed my tack, just for hypothetical purposes, and re-evaluated my game plan and as it turns out I could probably be done at UNCA by Spring 2013, as in like 19 months from now. WHAT?! It sounds crazy right? It is crazy. But what if I did it?
Well, if I did it the kids would have to change schools. Tayler and Dylan would both have to start a new high school for their junior year, and Daniel would be starting a new middle school. I had to change schools three times before I was in the fifth grade. It was hard. And I always envied my friends who could share stories about our classmates from their kindergarten year. I wanted my kids to have that. I didn't want them to have to change schools. But yesterday at lunch with a local attorney, one of the most brilliant people I know, he pointed out to me that maybe it wouldn't be so bad for the kids to get a chance to expand their worldview for a year or two before they head off to college. And, they're kids. They will adjust. And he's probably right. But try explaining that to a 14 year old who doesn't want to move!
So then I add a whole new layer of guilt to my school journey. As if it's not bad enough that I have to spend so much time away from them every single week going to class and doing homework, now I'm going to uproot them from everything they've ever known for three years so that I can go to college NOW because I'm not patient enough to wait another couple of years??? Well, Mr. Dillard points out, there are several very good arguments for getting on with it. One, I am paying the full fees for school every single year I attend and would actually save some money by shortening things up. And he also suggested that I consider the burnout factor. The longer I force myself to take night classes while working full time, the more likely I am to just fizzle out, or to have some major life event happen that prevents me from finishing. So, he says, "Get on with it."
So, just for kicks today I took a practice LSAT. With no preparation and with a head cold, I managed a 159, which would qualify me for scholarship money at several of the law schools I'm looking at. And I have to admit that that got me kind of excited. What if I prepared for it, practiced some and managed a 170? What if I really am ready to get this show on the road? Will the kids adjust? Will they hate me forever for screwing up their high school years? Should I just wait for their sake and stick to my original plan? These decisions all just feel too big for me to make. I need a fairy godmother to swoop down, wave her magic wand, and make it all work out in a perfect timeline of events that will keep everyone happy and well adjusted. Can you make that happen please?
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Universal Health Care, It's for the Birds, the Really Old Ones
Mr. Smith is a friendly man in his seventies with soft, dignified manners. He is a retired machinist and was a preacher in the southern baptist church for a time. He removes his hat and glances down at his feet as he walks into the office, placing the hat gently in his lap as he sits down. He is here to have a deed prepared. His request, spoken hesitantly, is to convey a small percentage interest in a rental property he owns to his daughter. This seems an odd request to me, especially when he specifically says only a 1 percent interest. After several probing questions, Mr. Smith is still having a hard time verbalizing what he is trying to accomplish through this peculiar transaction. As I ask about his wife, his situation became crystal clear, and heartbreakingly sad. Mr. Smith's wife has dimentia and, a stroke last year has made it difficult for her to walk. He has been caring for her full time at home for the last two years. But her condition has deteriorated and he is no longer strong enough to help lift her out of her recliner. After months of grappling with the decision, Mr. Smith has finally decided that the only way his wife can get adequate care is for her to go to a local nursing home.
After Mrs. Smith's move into the facility it quickly becames clear that Mr. Smith's decision to move his wife is not only going to break his heart, it's going to break him financially as well. The cost of her care (which will not be paid by Medicare or health insurance), is $6,500 per month.
Now, the Smiths aren't paupers. Mr. Smith has a respectable pension of $1,200 per month. Mrs. Smith is a retired school teacher with a much smaller, but still helpful, pension of $600 per month. And their combined Social Security payment is $1,200. A few years ago they used most of their savings to buy the run-down house next door, fixed it up a little and began to rent it out for the rock bottom price of $700 per month, utilities included. Their combined total monthly income is $3,700 a month, just under $45,000 per year. Fortunatley, they still have about $50,000 from their life savings. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the prototype for a middle-income, retired couple.
But one year of care for her will cost $78,000, even before paying the monthly $400 co-pays for her various prescriptions, let alone his. All of their savings will be gone in a year. And if Mr. Smith is able to sell the rental property in the present market, he will lose the monthly income from the rent and the entire purchase price will be gone in less than 2 years. At the very best, Mr. Smith can hope to provide adequate health care for his wife for less than 3 years before being forced to sell his home. They have decided to apply for Long Term Care Medicaid to try to avoid losing everything they have.
I can feel myself fighting back tears at the corners of my eyes when I ask Mr. Smith if he needs this deed drawn so that he can apply for Medicaid for his wife's care, and he hesitantly says yes, looking at the ground. When he looks up and meets my eyes he is looking for my reaction, he expects to see my disapproval.
And I am heartbroken. I am ashamed of my country for making this good, honorable man feel embarrased. I am ashamed of my country for ripping Mr. Smith's dignity away from him. He has never asked his country to do anything for him, and he is embarrased to be asking for a handout now, at 73 years old. I am ashamed that this has become the status-quo in the richest nation on earth.
Is this really what we intended? Did we intend to design a system that wretches every last penny away from middle-class families who have worked and saved their whole lives just like we told them to?
If Congress converts Medicaid to a block-grant funded program as Paul Ryan has recommended, states will be forced to decide which Medicaid programs will be cut to accommodate the drastic funding reductions. In 2004, 1/3 of all Medicaid spending in North Carolina was for long term care, and that amounted to a whopping $2.3 billion! It is impossible to think that this would not be one of the first areas of Medcaid spending to be cut, or at least to see its eligibility drastically reduced. And I suspect that just as happened with the stystematic dismanteling of our state mental health system, our streets will be flooded with the homeless, but this time they won't be crazy, they will be old, infirm and disabled.
Cutting entitlement spending sounds great when it is just a soundbyte that can be associated with the mental image of a welfare mother in tattered clothes with disheveled hair, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a baby wearing only a diaper propped on her hip. But when you have to actually think about the real lives that are affected by "entitlement reforms" and realize that some of those people might be your own parents or grandparents, it quickly loses it's appeal.
Balancing our national budget will not be done by eliminating entitlement spending. It must be done with a common sense approach that includes drastically reducing military spending; eliminating wasteful government spending (such as the USDA program devoted solely to procuring contracts for cheese manufacturers. I mean, seriously?); raising taxes on the mega-rich; raising the tax rate on dividends; and vastly simplifying the tax code. And we must return to carrying on civil debate with one another that involves actual facts, rather than bantying about catch-phrases and soundbytes without ever really discussing anything of significance.
I for one find the issue of whether or not millions of grandparents across the country will have to be homeless instead of receiving adequate medical treatment to be a rather significant issue that is deserving of more consideration than a 60 second snippit devoted to "entitlement spending" on a 24-hour news network. Ultimately, I believe my government is capable of carrying out justice. And it is certainly not just to watch the elderly middle-class be drained of its every last dime in order to continue living without additional physical suffering. Wake-up Congress! Your constituents are demanding that you act, that you show that you still possess a conscience, that you quit arguing and quit campaigning and start addressing the problem!
After Mrs. Smith's move into the facility it quickly becames clear that Mr. Smith's decision to move his wife is not only going to break his heart, it's going to break him financially as well. The cost of her care (which will not be paid by Medicare or health insurance), is $6,500 per month.
Now, the Smiths aren't paupers. Mr. Smith has a respectable pension of $1,200 per month. Mrs. Smith is a retired school teacher with a much smaller, but still helpful, pension of $600 per month. And their combined Social Security payment is $1,200. A few years ago they used most of their savings to buy the run-down house next door, fixed it up a little and began to rent it out for the rock bottom price of $700 per month, utilities included. Their combined total monthly income is $3,700 a month, just under $45,000 per year. Fortunatley, they still have about $50,000 from their life savings. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the prototype for a middle-income, retired couple.
But one year of care for her will cost $78,000, even before paying the monthly $400 co-pays for her various prescriptions, let alone his. All of their savings will be gone in a year. And if Mr. Smith is able to sell the rental property in the present market, he will lose the monthly income from the rent and the entire purchase price will be gone in less than 2 years. At the very best, Mr. Smith can hope to provide adequate health care for his wife for less than 3 years before being forced to sell his home. They have decided to apply for Long Term Care Medicaid to try to avoid losing everything they have.
I can feel myself fighting back tears at the corners of my eyes when I ask Mr. Smith if he needs this deed drawn so that he can apply for Medicaid for his wife's care, and he hesitantly says yes, looking at the ground. When he looks up and meets my eyes he is looking for my reaction, he expects to see my disapproval.
And I am heartbroken. I am ashamed of my country for making this good, honorable man feel embarrased. I am ashamed of my country for ripping Mr. Smith's dignity away from him. He has never asked his country to do anything for him, and he is embarrased to be asking for a handout now, at 73 years old. I am ashamed that this has become the status-quo in the richest nation on earth.
Is this really what we intended? Did we intend to design a system that wretches every last penny away from middle-class families who have worked and saved their whole lives just like we told them to?
If Congress converts Medicaid to a block-grant funded program as Paul Ryan has recommended, states will be forced to decide which Medicaid programs will be cut to accommodate the drastic funding reductions. In 2004, 1/3 of all Medicaid spending in North Carolina was for long term care, and that amounted to a whopping $2.3 billion! It is impossible to think that this would not be one of the first areas of Medcaid spending to be cut, or at least to see its eligibility drastically reduced. And I suspect that just as happened with the stystematic dismanteling of our state mental health system, our streets will be flooded with the homeless, but this time they won't be crazy, they will be old, infirm and disabled.
Cutting entitlement spending sounds great when it is just a soundbyte that can be associated with the mental image of a welfare mother in tattered clothes with disheveled hair, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a baby wearing only a diaper propped on her hip. But when you have to actually think about the real lives that are affected by "entitlement reforms" and realize that some of those people might be your own parents or grandparents, it quickly loses it's appeal.
Balancing our national budget will not be done by eliminating entitlement spending. It must be done with a common sense approach that includes drastically reducing military spending; eliminating wasteful government spending (such as the USDA program devoted solely to procuring contracts for cheese manufacturers. I mean, seriously?); raising taxes on the mega-rich; raising the tax rate on dividends; and vastly simplifying the tax code. And we must return to carrying on civil debate with one another that involves actual facts, rather than bantying about catch-phrases and soundbytes without ever really discussing anything of significance.
I for one find the issue of whether or not millions of grandparents across the country will have to be homeless instead of receiving adequate medical treatment to be a rather significant issue that is deserving of more consideration than a 60 second snippit devoted to "entitlement spending" on a 24-hour news network. Ultimately, I believe my government is capable of carrying out justice. And it is certainly not just to watch the elderly middle-class be drained of its every last dime in order to continue living without additional physical suffering. Wake-up Congress! Your constituents are demanding that you act, that you show that you still possess a conscience, that you quit arguing and quit campaigning and start addressing the problem!
Monday, August 1, 2011
How's this thing work?
So, I've read a couple of blogs recently for the first time and I find myself very inspired. It seems incredibly cathartic to be able to just put it all out there. So I thought maybe I'd give it a shot and share with the world some of this crazy, hectic, amazing life of mine.
At the moment, I have become increasingly disgusted with my physical health. I quit smoking last year and promptly gained 35 pounds! Gross! And in the process I've become less flexible, less agile, more tired, and much, much more "muffin-toppy." Double-gross! So, with a little inspiration from a few new-mommy friends, I'm jumping back on this weight loss band wagon. Two years ago, when I hit roughly the same weight I am now, and was equally disgusted, I started Weight Watchers. I lost 30 pounds and kept it off for over a year until I quit smoking. And now I've surpassed my previous weight record and it is seriously affecting my mood and my mental health.
And it's not like I'm a pig. I'm just really, really busy. No, seriously, I'm really busy! Single mom of two, full time paralegal, part time student taking 2 classes a semester at UNCA, minute-taker for Black Mountain Board of Aldermen, Secretary/Treasurer/Scheduling coordinator for local baseball/softball league, softball coach, and somewhere in there I try to maintain a social life and a relationship.
So, a typical day goes something like this,
6:30am - up, shower, wake up kids (about 8 trips to Dylan's room to accomplish this), pack lunches, drive kids to school
8:30am - work
10:30am - leave work, drive to UNCA, class until 12:00, scarf down food in the car on the way back to work
12:30pm - work until 5:30
5:30pm - pick up the kids, stop at the grocery store, go home
6:30pm - get kids started on homework, start a load of laundry, start dinner, help with homework, eat dinner, clean up from dinner (truthfully, sometimes this happens and sometimes the dishes just hang out on the kitchen counter until somebody else cleans them up. Thank God for Alicia!). Switch the laundry, kids in the shower, bedtime story, kids tucked in.
9:30pm - start on homework, get interrupted about 8 times for drinks of water and "I can't sleep."s.
11:00pm - finished with homework and realizing just how mentally and physically exhausted I am, I turn on the Daily Show, log onto Facebook and mindlessly play stupid Zynga games that require absolutely no complex reasoning or conversational skills!
My dilemma of course is where exactly I am supposed to cram exercise into that schedule. In theory I could go walk after work and pick the kids up at 7:00, but that means I only see them for 2 hours before they go to bed and that two hours is filled only with homework and chores. I could get up half an hour earlier in the mornings and work out then, but. I. Can't. Do. It! I want to. I really do. But my body has this visceral reaction that I cannot control to the sound of an alarm before 6:30 in the morning. My nervous sytem kicks into autopilot and doesn't just snooze the alarm. Oh no, we kill the alarm. So my good intention of getting up early to work out turns into oversleeping and running around the house like a mad person trying to get me and two kids out the door in all of 15 minutes. I have tried working out on my lunch break, but then I'm all sweaty and sticky and that's just unpleasant for me, my coworkers and my clients. Yuck! So, what to do? At the moment I have committed myself to an aquafit class at UNCA on Thursday nights. This means that one night/week I have to drive straight from work to UNCA for a fitness class and I won't be able to pick the kids up until after 7:00. That makes two nights per week really since I have an actual class on Tuesday nights which means I don't get to pick them up until after 9:00. I am going to commit to walking one day per week with Courtney at the lake after work. If I leave work at 5:00 and go walk, I could still pick the kids up by just after 6:00, not too bad. And I have all day Saturday to work with, so maybe I just need to start planning a 90 minute work-out on Saturdays. Ewww!
In addition to being busy, I really love food. I'm not a sweets fanatic, although I can totally kill an ice cream cone or a piece of cheese cake, and I endulge in the occassional candy bar. I love cheese. I love Mexican food and Italian food smothered in cheese, lots of it. I also know that I drink too much. I'm not an alcoholic by any means, but I consume way too many empty calories in glasses of wine and bottles of beer.
So, I recognize that I need to reduce the amount of calories, the amount of fat, and the overall portion size of what I am eating, and I really just need to make smarter food choices. I started working on it last week and I just have to keep working at it. I went grocery shopping and bought healthy snacks, stuff with whole grains, no high fructose corn syrup, around 100 calories and less than 5 grams of fat per serving, and lots of fish instead of read meats.
Today was: Breakfast - English muffin with 1 tbsp grape jelly, 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar; Lunch - PB&J on whole wheat bread, 1/2 C grapes, 6 mini rice cakes (cheese flavored of course); Snack - 6 slices of Havarti Fennel cheese, 12 sesame Toasted crackers; Dinner - Turker burger with cheese and bacon, 1/2 C mac & cheese, 2 glasses of red wine.
I have scheduled an appointment with a personal trainer at Ascending Fitness in Black Mountain next week. I am still trying to get set up with the dietician at UNCA who can help me work out meal plans. I'm signed up for Aquafit and I'm meeting Courtnery to walk tomorrow. I have seriously got to lose at least 40 pounds. My clothes don't fit and I feel awful every time I put on a pair of blue jeans. So I'm going to try to make use of every resourse available to me and hope beyond hope that something works. So my short term weight loss plan is this:
Breakfast every day with less than 200 calories
Pack lunch for work - sandwich, fruit, and one 100 calorie snack
Snack - 100 calorie snack
Dinner - chicken, turkey, or fish, with vegetable and rice/beans/pasta.
Limit to 2 drinks per day, no more than 10 per week
Exercise at least 2.5 hours per week, hopefully broken up into 4 sessions.
Drink 2 bottles of water every day.
Here goes nothin.
At the moment, I have become increasingly disgusted with my physical health. I quit smoking last year and promptly gained 35 pounds! Gross! And in the process I've become less flexible, less agile, more tired, and much, much more "muffin-toppy." Double-gross! So, with a little inspiration from a few new-mommy friends, I'm jumping back on this weight loss band wagon. Two years ago, when I hit roughly the same weight I am now, and was equally disgusted, I started Weight Watchers. I lost 30 pounds and kept it off for over a year until I quit smoking. And now I've surpassed my previous weight record and it is seriously affecting my mood and my mental health.
And it's not like I'm a pig. I'm just really, really busy. No, seriously, I'm really busy! Single mom of two, full time paralegal, part time student taking 2 classes a semester at UNCA, minute-taker for Black Mountain Board of Aldermen, Secretary/Treasurer/Scheduling coordinator for local baseball/softball league, softball coach, and somewhere in there I try to maintain a social life and a relationship.
So, a typical day goes something like this,
6:30am - up, shower, wake up kids (about 8 trips to Dylan's room to accomplish this), pack lunches, drive kids to school
8:30am - work
10:30am - leave work, drive to UNCA, class until 12:00, scarf down food in the car on the way back to work
12:30pm - work until 5:30
5:30pm - pick up the kids, stop at the grocery store, go home
6:30pm - get kids started on homework, start a load of laundry, start dinner, help with homework, eat dinner, clean up from dinner (truthfully, sometimes this happens and sometimes the dishes just hang out on the kitchen counter until somebody else cleans them up. Thank God for Alicia!). Switch the laundry, kids in the shower, bedtime story, kids tucked in.
9:30pm - start on homework, get interrupted about 8 times for drinks of water and "I can't sleep."s.
11:00pm - finished with homework and realizing just how mentally and physically exhausted I am, I turn on the Daily Show, log onto Facebook and mindlessly play stupid Zynga games that require absolutely no complex reasoning or conversational skills!
My dilemma of course is where exactly I am supposed to cram exercise into that schedule. In theory I could go walk after work and pick the kids up at 7:00, but that means I only see them for 2 hours before they go to bed and that two hours is filled only with homework and chores. I could get up half an hour earlier in the mornings and work out then, but. I. Can't. Do. It! I want to. I really do. But my body has this visceral reaction that I cannot control to the sound of an alarm before 6:30 in the morning. My nervous sytem kicks into autopilot and doesn't just snooze the alarm. Oh no, we kill the alarm. So my good intention of getting up early to work out turns into oversleeping and running around the house like a mad person trying to get me and two kids out the door in all of 15 minutes. I have tried working out on my lunch break, but then I'm all sweaty and sticky and that's just unpleasant for me, my coworkers and my clients. Yuck! So, what to do? At the moment I have committed myself to an aquafit class at UNCA on Thursday nights. This means that one night/week I have to drive straight from work to UNCA for a fitness class and I won't be able to pick the kids up until after 7:00. That makes two nights per week really since I have an actual class on Tuesday nights which means I don't get to pick them up until after 9:00. I am going to commit to walking one day per week with Courtney at the lake after work. If I leave work at 5:00 and go walk, I could still pick the kids up by just after 6:00, not too bad. And I have all day Saturday to work with, so maybe I just need to start planning a 90 minute work-out on Saturdays. Ewww!
In addition to being busy, I really love food. I'm not a sweets fanatic, although I can totally kill an ice cream cone or a piece of cheese cake, and I endulge in the occassional candy bar. I love cheese. I love Mexican food and Italian food smothered in cheese, lots of it. I also know that I drink too much. I'm not an alcoholic by any means, but I consume way too many empty calories in glasses of wine and bottles of beer.
So, I recognize that I need to reduce the amount of calories, the amount of fat, and the overall portion size of what I am eating, and I really just need to make smarter food choices. I started working on it last week and I just have to keep working at it. I went grocery shopping and bought healthy snacks, stuff with whole grains, no high fructose corn syrup, around 100 calories and less than 5 grams of fat per serving, and lots of fish instead of read meats.
Today was: Breakfast - English muffin with 1 tbsp grape jelly, 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar; Lunch - PB&J on whole wheat bread, 1/2 C grapes, 6 mini rice cakes (cheese flavored of course); Snack - 6 slices of Havarti Fennel cheese, 12 sesame Toasted crackers; Dinner - Turker burger with cheese and bacon, 1/2 C mac & cheese, 2 glasses of red wine.
I have scheduled an appointment with a personal trainer at Ascending Fitness in Black Mountain next week. I am still trying to get set up with the dietician at UNCA who can help me work out meal plans. I'm signed up for Aquafit and I'm meeting Courtnery to walk tomorrow. I have seriously got to lose at least 40 pounds. My clothes don't fit and I feel awful every time I put on a pair of blue jeans. So I'm going to try to make use of every resourse available to me and hope beyond hope that something works. So my short term weight loss plan is this:
Breakfast every day with less than 200 calories
Pack lunch for work - sandwich, fruit, and one 100 calorie snack
Snack - 100 calorie snack
Dinner - chicken, turkey, or fish, with vegetable and rice/beans/pasta.
Limit to 2 drinks per day, no more than 10 per week
Exercise at least 2.5 hours per week, hopefully broken up into 4 sessions.
Drink 2 bottles of water every day.
Here goes nothin.
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