Paul Ryan should be feeling good; seniors, those over 50, and the vulnerable should not

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, January 3, 2018

https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-ryan-must-be-feeling-good-not-so-for-seniors-and-the-vulnerab
le/

.”Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader,  must be feeling good: .His life long quest to become the iimplementor of the Ayn Rand school of political/economic philosophy is half way done with the passage of the tax reduction bill. For his next act he wants is to cut “entitlements”, the social safety net,  Medicare and Medicaid.

The  unpopular tax cut legislation passed and signed by President Trump in December  lopsidedly benefitted the rich and left the middle class with some small change and  with  future generations  paying the interest to bond  holders of  trillion more debt  the “reform” caused. While both houses of Congress are still in the hands of a compliant GOP, Ryan is going to make hay while his sun shines before the 2018 Congressional elections in November, where the House and possibly even the Senate GOP majority is at risk. In so doing, he is  also handing Democrats an issue which will only help them to appeal to usually GOP stalwarts, seniors and about to be seniors.

Ryan’s motivations have been attributed to his  long time love affair with Ayn Rand, a writer of a  1957 seminal book beloved by many a conservative,” Atlas Shrugged.”  Rand, a Russian immigrant, railed against Communist collectivism, and  believed the way for governmental fiscal well-being was based on Paul Ryan is retiring; he will not run again. He was always in pursuit of putting Ayn Rand's philosophy into practice, to prove his ideological hero philosophy worked in practice as well. Rand wrote her books as a response and critique of Russian's form of communism. The old USSR is dead and capitalism won, but capitalism in the US is not even close to Russian communism. It has morphed into a blend of capitalism with one of the most limited social safety nets in the world, but at least it has addressed some of the worst problems the poor and the less abled have faced.

Total laissez faire capitalism has had a result that fed the rich, but not the poor.It was the excesses of the industrial revolution that led to the philosophical rise of communism and the rise of the Soviet communists. Rand then took the extreme opposite tack in her revolt against communism which became the bible of so many of the conservative intellectuals of my early life. Ryan entered Congress with the goal of doing what he could to put Rand into practice via legislation and tax policy. While Catholic Ryan had rejected Rand’s aetheism, he shrugged his shoulders when a 2012 budget he had proposed cut the social safety net to the poor so drastically, the Catholic Bishops wrote …' deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility efforts must protect and not undermine the needs of poor and vulnerable people. (and his budget) ...fails this basic moral test.'” In 2014 he proposed even more dire cuts to the safety net..

However, instead of invoking the Rand philosophy as a reason to cut the safety net and retirees’ benefits, his rationale  now  is that the deficit (he helped enhance) is too  large. On December 6, on a radio talk show he is setting his sights on welfare and seniors and those about to be seniors.  “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,.. Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements “ Already the Children’s Health program has left 9 million kids in jeopardy of losing their insurance because  its renewal is still on the GOP chopping block. The tax reduction legislation he helped engineered could trgger $25 billion from Medicare next year.  Over ten years, thirteen million under retirement age  ($4 million next year) will find health insurance unaffordable.

My conservative friends love Ryan’s approach to cutting welfare. In their mythological world, “ those welfare queens are robbing good American taxpayers and ought to get a job. “ We already had welfare reform in the Bill Clinton era that addressed that “get a job”  issue. .. Who is left getting most of “welfare” now? Kids.   Put them to work ?  Here are some statistics for a reality check: Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. “  So what do you want to cut, Speaker Ryan?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/aarp-opposes-senate-tax-bill-calls-medicare-cuts-troubling.html

http://time.com/5043838/republican-tax-bill-deficit-increase/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/fact-check-democrats-claim-gop-tax-bill-slashes-25b-medicare-n822956

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/gop-eyes-post-tax-cut-changes-to-welfare-medicare-and-social-security/

.”http://fortune.com/2012/05/02/republicans-and-ayn-rand-a-love-hate-affair/  

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/chip-funding-measure-passes-through-committees-but-its-not-smooth-sailing-ahead-for-bill/

https://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/ryanpoor.asp

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/aarp-opposes-senate-tax-bill-calls-medicare-cuts-troubling.html

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14247

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/what-paul-ryans-budget-actually-cuts--and-by-how-much/2012/03/20/gIQAL43vPS_blog.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/1/paul-ryans-final-federal-budget-cuts-5-trillion/ http://www.asu.edu/mpa/Bartels.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906872.html  http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/23/us/cnnheroes-hungry-children/

A reprint of a 4/12/14 Muftic Forum Blog

WHO SPEAKS FOR THE POOR

When Rep. Paul Ryan first proposed weakening the social safety net in a budget proposal in 20,12    ,the Catholic Bishops called it “immoral”.  That was even before Pope Francis reset priorities of the Catholic Church to care about the poor. Ryan’s newest budget passed by the House this month (and DOA in the Senate), reduces food stamps by $125 billion  and restricts access of the near poor to health care by repealing Obamacare and reducing Medicaid.If his first proposal was immoral, the 2014 version  is beyond immoral. Who is speaking for the poor these days?,

 Not The GOP, many of whom oppose even raising the minimum wage, so low now even full time workers live in poverty. Not Republicans who support laws making  it harder for the poor without affordable  and easy access to drivers’ licenses and birth certificates or convenient voting hours to raise their voices .Not the GOP House members including the GOP Colorado Representatives who voted for Ryan budget this month, that would have  cut  food stamps while cutting  taxes for the rich.

Growing  up in Oklahoma in the 1950’s, I  heard many  rationalize opposing government assistance  by blaming  the poor themselves,  opining African Americans  were lazy or undeserving.. Racist attitudes coloring opposition to  welfare still linger into recent times  per  a study of  many public opinion polls reviewed by Arizona State University.

Pres. Johnson’s  War on Poverty  and civil rights legislation were  the reaction  to the injustice and  fueled by the long hot summer riots of the late 1960’s . America learned that the poor could get attention even if they did not have a political voice. But there were also abuses as some gamed the  new welfare system .

 Reality check: Welfare reform in the 1990’s  put more  to work. Those left receiving  food stamps now, per the US Department of Agriculture, are mostly kids  (47 percent are under age 18)and elderly (8%). . Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children.    

 The charity community is  doing what they can , but sometimes the food bank cupboard is bare..Hunger plagues 1 out of 5 kids who do not know where the next meal is coming from and government through school lunch programs and food stamps make up part of the  difference.  

Many of the states with the largest number of poor have  state houses dominated by the GOP yet whose budgets are the most dependent on federal money for social programs. They have  the greatest need and the least will to provide .Leaving   states to use their own resources with federal block grants masking diminished federal contributions to Medicaid, as Ryan’s budget does, would  further divide this country  between the have  and  have nots..

Even the Democratic Party has  focused priorities  on issues supporting the middle class.

The voice of the poor was further overwhelmed by recent Supreme Court decisions that  gave corporations the same right as individuals to contribute political campaigns (Citizen's United), and a recent decision (McCutcheon v FEC) that made it much easier for the wealthy to  spread their  influence around.

So who is left as the strongest voice for the poor? Some in the  faith community and Pope Francis and God bless them.

Warning to the GOP: don't overplay your hand in the March fiscal cliff

In the winter of 1995-1996 there was a death with repercussions lasting a decade. The deceased was the Newt Gingrich Republican Revolution.

It was a self-inflicted wound. The weapon used to commit suicide was the shutting down of government for days, used as a GOP bludgeon in arguments over the budget. So angered were the voters that in the next election cycle, Bill Clinton was re-elected easily.

In 2011, the GOP used the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip again and the economy took a measurable dip. In 2013, the debt ceiling, continuation of the resolution to fund government, sequestered spending cuts, and raising the debt limit unite in a perfect storm of entangled issues in March. The GOP should know from past experience if they overplay their hand, they risk a public backfire and a dent in economic growth.

The compromise avoiding the fiscal cliff on Jan. 2, also delayed debate on sequestered spending cuts for 60 days. The GOP is threatening to use disapproval of raising the debt limit and shutting down government as bargaining chips to get their way. They think they have a hot one, too. Hot, indeed.

What they may have done is set up the possibility of some of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the past 125 years, addressing the fundamental question of the separation of powers. Just how far does the GOP want to take their “leverage?” Are we now headed for a constitutional crisis, too? Do they really want to default on our loans if we do not raise the debt ceiling and imperil the economy to get their way over the debt ceiling? A wiser Newt Gingrich called this strategy a “dead loser” last week. Or is this just more brinkmanship bluffing?

While not precluding reduction in spending or more revenue enhancement, the president made it clear in remarks Jan. 2 he would not allow the GOP to use the debt ceiling to get their way on future spending cuts. The president staked his legal claim that Congress voted for the expenditures and he had the obligation to pay bills as they came due. That is indeed a major constitutional issue the Supreme Court could decide: Can Congress keep him from his duty as the executive branch to pay bills Congress had already authorized?

The president could also choose to tap the 14th Amendment, daring the GOP sue him and throw the issue to the Supreme Court. The president could continue to make good on payments on bonds (treasury notes) even if Congress forbids him from doing it. At issue is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution regarding the executive's power to pay bonds as they came due. Legal experts are divided so the outcome could be risky for both parties.

The question is not whether the debt problem should be tackled: Both the GOP and the Democrats know it must happen to avoid a credit rating downgrade or future economic problems. The issue is how. That “entitlements” need trimming is also acknowledged by both sides of the aisle and the Pentagon budget also needs close scrutiny. It is a matter of coming up with ways acceptable to a bipartisan coalition large enough to get it through Congress.

The GOP is laboring under a questionable belief they have the public mandate because they were re-elected to be the majority in the House. Some 2011 gerrymandering resulting in more safe districts for conservatives may have been greater factors. Public opinion polls in November 2012 showed more than 60 percent supporting balanced taxing and cuts. Public opinion also counted in the mid-90s when the GOP shut down government and the Republicans paid the price in the next election.



This is my column that appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com today

For more, go to  www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com

Obama should embrace Simpson Bowles

My column in the Sky Hi News today
As expected the presidential election is coming down to the 5-6 percent who either are not focused on the campaign or who are just plain conflicted.

On many of the major issues and ideology, most voter opinions are already set in concrete. The problem facing both Mitt Romney and President Obama is how to keep the concrete firm and still snag the elusive middle.

The president has some work to do, but his options are not as big as some gambles he has already taken, and embracing Simpson-Bowles debt reduction proposals by name is one good bet.

Obama has a record of taking risks and winning. Reflecting on what has happened this last week regarding the president's endorsement of marriage equality, events moved so quickly he went with his gut, but the gut may be a winner when the dust settles. Like Obama's decision on how best to get bin Laden that gambled his re-election chances, or taking the risk to bail out the auto industry, his gut coupled with good analysis and faith in our special forces and changes forced in business practices turned out to be   gambles that paid off.

Marriage equality is a gamble with only 50 percent in agreement. Evangelicals, Southerners, the LGBT community, and social libertarians had already dug themselves in. Others who were not with him on this issue, like members of the black and Hispanic communities and young voters, are committed to him for other reasons. The gamble is that    Rust Belt blue collar workers who were grateful for the auto bailouts and women would likely put their own economic and health access agendas ahead of marriage equality issues in deciding whom to support.

To appeal to moderates, Obama needs to endorse Simpson-Bowles debt reduction plan by name, because just about everyone in both political parties and in between do feel there is a need to tackle debt. Opinion polls are already showing support, with voters approving Simpson-Bowles. It is not that big of a gamble.

By embracing Simpson-Bowles, the president can put a brand name to his policies. He can then pit Simpson Bowles against the GOP-Ryan plans and make case that Simpson-Bowles is far more fair and balanced when it comes to   who or what gets hit with the cuts and who pays more or fewer taxes.

Obama has already embraced many of the details in Simpson-Bowles. However, there is still left the thousand pound gorilla: “entitlements” and support of Simpson-Bowles implies support of their proposals.

I hate the term “entitlements” because it makes me feel guilty that I am a beneficiary of two of them, Medicare and Social Security., From time to time ill relatives have also been able to live out their lives humanely, first on Medicare and Social security, and later on Medicaid after assets ran out. We had put in our money and time and earned them or desperately needed them. Many on the conservative side  have been or will be beneficiaries as well. That is why  Obama and many on the right pussy foot around the issue, delay decisions for lame ducks to tackle, or exempt from changes current beneficiaries.

Potentially to their downfall, Rep. Paul Ryan, and the House Republicans have proposed a solution that Romney called “marvelous.” However, what policies they propose, especially regarding Medicare, are potentially politically toxic. Obama can bite the bullet and endorse the Simpson-Bowles proposal to raise retirement age to 70. He should contrast that with the Ryan plan to privatize, voucherize, and leave future beneficiaries stuck with higher co-pays when they do get their “entitlements.” After all, fellow retirees, we are so much healthier than our predecessors. The next generations will be able to work a few more years, too. It is a haircut we can more comfortably ask them to take.

For more, go to www.mufticforum.com and www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com.

Obama's plan to reduce the deficit better and less painfu

 My column in the Sky Hi Daily News today:
Forget Congress. Forget the President's 2013 budget. Forget the deficit: Except for extending the payroll tax holiday, nothing much is going to happen in Washington until after the November elections. Congress will just be too busy posturing and pandering.

That is not all bad because what the Obama administration has been doing to improve the economy seems to be working. The better time to make changes will be in a year or two when our economic recovery is more secure and could survive any extreme or inappropriate attempt to fix the debt problem. About 40 percent of the deficit was caused by the 2008 crash and could be cured by recovery. Social Security and Medicare will not go broke this year or in the near future.

To avoid nasty surprises, we should demand that contenders for president be more specific about their post-November 2012 plans for the remaining deficit. The question is: Which party has the better proposal to reduce the deficit that also causes the least pain and collateral damage?

There is already a plan on the table that does make sense. The Simpson Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission report was serious, comprehensive, and fact-based.

A case can be made that the Obama administration is more likely to enact Simpson Bowles because it has already enacted or proposed a large number of Simpson Bowles recommendations, while the GOP has proposed and voted for some unpopular alternatives and has outright opposed others.

One Simpson Bowles proposal was to cut defense spending, and Obama has implemented much and plans more. The GOP, especially Mitt Romney, favors spending even more on defense.

Simpson Bowles recommended continuing Obamacare to reduce the deficit. Yes, their conclusion was that there are net cost savings (and not the fictional additional trillion dollars of costs the GOP wrongly pins on health care reform).

The GOP has no proposal to replace Obamacare other than to shove health care solutions and expense to the states to do as they will. Leaving health care to the free market, as the GOP often proposes, is a farce. There is no free market: Insurers are exempt from anti-trust action, free to collude to set prices and coverage.

Unlike Obamacare, the GOP offers no requirement to cover pre-existing conditions or to insure the 30 million uninsured, or to provide for everyone no co-pays for annual physicals, mammograms, and now maybe not even requiring inclusion of contraceptives. Those without insurance would still go insurance-naked, visiting the ER only when they got so sick they required expensive treatment, and passing their unpaid bills onto the rest of us in the form of increasingly unaffordable higher premiums. GOP plans contain no checks on health care costs to us or to the Medicare and Medicaid system, either.

Simpson Bowles concluded that tax fairness was needed and the deficit could not be reduced without raising taxes and letting Bush tax cuts expire, with which Obama agreed. The GOP could not stomach any of that and they proposed to increase the unfairness with more tax breaks for the rich, relying solely on cuts to social programs. Obama has also proposed a millionaires' tax, further getting the fairness part right.

Simpson Bowles recommended cutting $2.5 of government expenses for every dollar of tax increases. Obama has supported similar ratios, depending upon what is included in the calculations, but he has consistently supported more dollar-for-dollar cuts than tax increases.

Those who have the most at stake are the future seniors. Both political parties have fumbled or became MIA on solutions to keep Medicare and Social Security viable. A sensible recommendation made by Simpson Bowles was gradually to raise the retirement age to 70. That is far less painful than GOP plans: eliminating the “security” in Social Security by gambling retirement on Wall Street with no safety net to cover failed investments, and/or requiring $6,000 in annual Medicare co-pays.

How candidates' first impressions count and how policy positions fortify them

My column in the Sky Hi News today..
Print

Copyright 2012 Sky-Hi Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. January, 24 2012 3:01 pm

Felicia Muftic: This long trial by fire

Sky-Hi Daily News

The cost of modern presidential campaigns is staggering, and the money flowing into the process is corrupting.

The length of it is brain-numbing, but there is an offsetting value. This long trial by fire gives us greater insight into the candidates' character, perspectives, priorities, and background that soars beyond the issue of the moment.  We get a better initial impression of which direction his/her knee will jerk, and how that translates into policies that affect us.

Publicly stated Issue positions and platforms are still important because they support or contradict first impressions . A wealthy candidate may be “of and by” a certain background, but what that candidate is “for” could either contradict or validate first impressions. We have had many wealthy presidents who still advocated policies benefiting the less fortunate. Mitt Romney does not fit that mold.

Barack Obama in 2008 made some good initial impressions: In ringing rhetoric and quiet interviews he convinced Americans he understood them because his life story of coming from a white, struggling middle class family of loyal American grandparents. He was of, by and for policies that recognized the declining income of the middle class relative to the upper 20 percent that began years before the Bush crash of 2008.

That impression, fortified by supporting policies, trumped the attempt by the Republicans to paint him as an angry black, or a secret Muslim who would sell out America to the  jihadists.

Familiarity can also bring contempt. Documented character flaws could be Newt Gingrich's Achilles heel, but so far it has not stopped him. It is yet unknown how that would translate on the national stage when contrasted with Romney's or Obama's living the ethic of family values.

Romney is coming across as not being comfortable in his own skin. He seems to be a person who fears that if voters realize what a cold-hearted, privileged businessman he is, they would not believe he has their good interest at heart. His caginess about releasing his tax returns and discomfort with his 15 percent personal income tax indeed plays right into the hands of the Occupy Wall Street movement that  raised the awareness of the unfairness of income disparity.

An initial impression of Romney as a rich guy disconnected from the middle class is backed up by what policies he supports. They are not for the middle class. On public record is his throwing Romneycare under the bus, dumping it on the states with no requirement to make heath care affordable to many more than can pay for it now. On his website he promotes a tax structure that decreases taxes on the rich and increases taxes on some poor. Missing is how he will pay for increasing spending on the Pentagon, a more interventionist foreign policy, and reduction of the wealthy's income tax contributions to the Treasury. His priorities would leave little money for investment in education to enable the middle class to achieve their American dreams or to provide infrastructure job creation or to fund block grants to states to provide services, in spite of his lip service to those goals.

Romney has been a flip-flopping pig in a poke when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. He has changed views and now differs from the remaining GOP field by not yet subscribing to their “privatization” or “replacing it with savings accounts invested in Wall Street.” His disquieting solution: Let's sit down and talk.

However, for sure he wants to make employees pay entirely for their own unemployment insurance by investing it in a savings account. He proposes no safety net if those unemployment savings accounts run dry . He rests most solutions on his brand of job creation proposals, lax regulation of business and lower taxes for the well off, the very same policies that led to the middle class's income disparity and the economic disaster Obama inherited.

Recommend