On the Contrary

The House voted on the energy bill, better known as the our first attempt at managing climate change.  The key is a cap and trade program with ever decreasing allowable carbon emissions.  But the vote was close (219-214) with 44 Democrats voting against it.  Republicans called it a tax (and therefore an evildoer), and the 44  Democrats who voted against it were protecting coal states and their fear that producing energy by coal would be less competitive.  Well as one would say, no duh.  The idea that we can solve our energy problems without using the incentives of the market place that punishes hurtful and damaging processes is understood by everyone, but for the 44 Democrats, just not in my backyard.  Don’t you just love short term thinking?

What is the alternative boys and girls?  How are we going to cut our greenhouse emissions unless, oh dare I say it, we cut our greenhouse emissions?  But it will hurt businesses and raise prices to consumers lament Republicans and these Democrats.  No it really won’t.  What it will do is start to realign the economy toward other sources of energy.  Of course there will be winners and losers.  But what these vote no politicians are saying when they say it costs too much is that the status quo is okay.  We don’t need to change anything because change could be painful.  What a bunch of wimps.  But with wimpishness, there is also gross hypocrisy.  The guys that think the market place solves all problems don’t want to use the market place on this one because, well, change would hurt their contributors.  The country be damned.

It is the same with health care reform.  “We can’t afford it.  It will drive the deficit to new heights.  With a government system, your employer will drop or lower your coverage.”  Just where do you think health care is headed?  Well I will tell you , you midget brains:  Higher costs and more and more employers dropping their coverage.  So we should do nothing or just tinker at the edges?  I hear about the horror stories of all the other industrialized nations that have gone to a single payer system, but I keep wondering why their infant mortality rate is lower and their citizens live longer.  Must be the horrible medical care they get.  Maybe it is because we have easier access to guns so we die younger because we shoot each other.  I really like the conservatives idea that kids should be allowed to go to college packing heat.  It certainly will lower health care costs since they will die young and not be burdening our system in their old age.  Let’s face it, we can’t afford not to do it (universal health care).

I think what amazes me the most is that the nay sayers really don’t offer any alternatives.  As though down the road all these things will fix themselves.  Reminds me of that Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.  Here is the thing I really don’t understand:  We have tried it the conservative way for the last 20 years and things are just getting worse.  Can’t we just try a new approach, and if it doesn’t work, the Demos will be swept out of office and we can go back to the old ways?  You conservatives have got us to where we are, so trying the progressive solutions for a couple of years won’t destroy the country.  What have we got lose?  Oh, I forgot.  You might become irrelevant.

I was having a discussion the other day with one of my conservative friends (that is all we have up here in self-serving thinking land).  The topic was the approaching California meltdown.  My opinion was fairly simple.  We have to decide what it is that is important, and then gut up and pay for it.  Their opinion was that the whole problem is waste in government.  Then I got an earful about how California State workers have too many benefits. I bet that would be a surprise to them as they are about to be forced to take another day of furlough while no one is being asked to raise taxes. So I asked them to give me an example.

I was told a story about one of their friends who worked for the State and when this person went on travel, used their mobile home and made a bundle because they got all this per diem while staying in her mobile home.   I pointed out that because it was more cost effective for most business and agencies to pay per diem instead of collecting receipts for meals and incidentals, the mobile home had nothing to do with it.  They then claimed, oh no, this person also got a per diem for her lodging.  When I pointed out that even the State, like the Feds, requires a receipt for lodging (and establishes maximum rates by locale), I was told I was wrong.  So based on this one fairly inaccurate description of someone gouging the system, the self-serving conclusion is that is where the problem is.  Once again it is those evildoers.

I wish it were that simple. One person’s waste in another person’s life line.  Sure there is inefficiency in government and I am all for rooting it out, but it is not the root cause of our problems.  But, and this is the moral of this story, the focus is on what they want to believe, not what the reality is.  They all think they pay enough and if it costs more for what they want, then it costs too much.  I think we can’t continue down this road and there is no free ride.  Sure there are smarter ways of doing things and we all know government can be improved, but failure of all of us to step up to the plate and realize that gutting education, infrastructure spending, help for the helpless, because it cost too much is a path to disaster for all of us.  Failure to make changes in the status quo because it costs too much is a quick trip to oblivion.