One more on politicking, then I'm done. Promise. For the next while, anyway.

Remember those links I posted yesterday? The ones talking about how much we've spent on the Iraq war, and the fact that it's deficit-funded - meaning that our grandchildren are still going to be paying the interest on it decades from now?

Today I get an email from the Planned Parenthood Action Network. Now, I sometimes think these folks are a little too quick to jump into "OMG MUST TAKE ACTION NOW!" mode, but this was a fairly distressing message - due to something called the "Deficit Reduction Act", birth control is doubling and tripling in price in many places, to the point where low-income women are no longer able to afford it.

The letter didn't go into any more detail than that, so I went and Googled the DRA to see what came up. One of the first hits was the White House press release associated with it, including a transcript of the speech our Fearless Leader (and by "fear", I mean "clue") made upon signing. The fourth sentence of said speech, which came directly after the preliminaries:

This important piece of legislation restrains federal spending -- and it will leave more money in the pockets of those who know how to use it best, the American people.

A couple of paragraphs later:

To keep our economic momentum, we need to look at the challenges down the road and respond with wise policies now. And one of the most important policies we need to pursue is spending restraint in Washington, D.C.

Does this man not understand the meaning of the word "irony"? Because I think this very definitely falls into the category of such, and not the whiny Alanis Morrisette type, either.

The act itself essentially slashes the budgets of both Medicare and Medicaid. While a few of the changes are positive, in the words of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, "Many of the policy changes in the DRA would shift costs to beneficiaries and have the effect of limiting health care coverage and access to services for low-income beneficiaries."

So, like so many other of Chimpy McFlightSuit's policies, this bill will leave more money in the pockets of the healthy middle-class and rich Americans - those who're lucky enough to be able to afford insurance or to be covered under an employee plan. Those on the bottom rungs of the ladder, however, or those who're considered to be high-risk for health insurance, appear to be pretty much S.O.L.

Y'know, looking at the whole thing from a somewhat less humanist and more Machiavellian socioeconomic standpoint, it's hard to fault his reasoning. Any system of government will remain stable so long as the majority of its subjects feel like they're making out okay, which is part of why America's done so well - we've always had a large and mostly-content middle class to balance out the gap between the working class and the elite wealthy. So a bill that promises (no matter how ephemeral the promise may be) to put more money in the hands of the middle-and-upper-class people, even if it is at the expense of the lower class, is a sound political move.

Put in conjunction with some of the rest of his economic policies, however, the picture is less favorable. Many economists have noticed a distinct trend over the last seven years of the middle class being eaten away on both sides, the upper-middle class becoming wealthier and the lower-middle class sliding back into debt. This is something that's unfortunately inherent to a capitalistic society and has happened in cycles throughout American history, but it's supposed to be the government's job to pass legislation to slow the process and compensate by keeping enough wealth in the middle so that the majority are happy. It seems, however, that very few of Georgie Boy's policies have done anything of the kind - he's shown time and again that he's interested in keeping the wealthier folks happy (especially his friends in oil) and assuming the middle and lower classes will take care of themselves. Didn't Reagan try something of the sort (I believe it was called "trickle-down economics"), and wasn't it fairly obvious at the time that it just plain didn't work? I seem to remember something like that in my American History text...

From a personal standpoint, I think what annoys me most is that (thanks to our wonderful system of elections) George W. isn't going to be around to reap what he's sown. However, I certainly can't fault the logistics of such a system - give the public four to eight years to deal with flawed policy, at which point they're usually pretty sick of it, and then someone new comes in to clean up the mess. And, as much as I'd like to see G.W. be forced to realize the consequences of his actions for so many of those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, it's probably better for the long-term stability of the country that he doesn't.

Only one year and change left until the next administration...

One more on politicking, then I'm done. Promise. For the next while, anyway.

Remember those links I posted yesterday? The ones talking about how much we've spent on the Iraq war, and the fact that it's deficit-funded - meaning that our grandchildren are still going to be paying the interest on it decades from now?

Today I get an email from the Planned Parenthood Action Network. Now, I sometimes think these folks are a little too quick to jump into "OMG MUST TAKE ACTION NOW!" mode, but this was a fairly distressing message - due to something called the "Deficit Reduction Act", birth control is doubling and tripling in price in many places, to the point where low-income women are no longer able to afford it.

The letter didn't go into any more detail than that, so I went and Googled the DRA to see what came up. One of the first hits was the White House press release associated with it, including a transcript of the speech our Fearless Leader (and by "fear", I mean "clue") made upon signing. The fourth sentence of said speech, which came directly after the preliminaries:

This important piece of legislation restrains federal spending -- and it will leave more money in the pockets of those who know how to use it best, the American people.

A couple of paragraphs later:

To keep our economic momentum, we need to look at the challenges down the road and respond with wise policies now. And one of the most important policies we need to pursue is spending restraint in Washington, D.C.

Does this man not understand the meaning of the word "irony"? Because I think this very definitely falls into the category of such, and not the whiny Alanis Morrisette type, either.

The act itself essentially slashes the budgets of both Medicare and Medicaid. While a few of the changes are positive, in the words of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, "Many of the policy changes in the DRA would shift costs to beneficiaries and have the effect of limiting health care coverage and access to services for low-income beneficiaries."

So, like so many other of Chimpy McFlightSuit's policies, this bill will leave more money in the pockets of the healthy middle-class and rich Americans - those who're lucky enough to be able to afford insurance or to be covered under an employee plan. Those on the bottom rungs of the ladder, however, or those who're considered to be high-risk for health insurance, appear to be pretty much S.O.L.

Y'know, looking at the whole thing from a somewhat less humanist and more Machiavellian socioeconomic standpoint, it's hard to fault his reasoning. Any system of government will remain stable so long as the majority of its subjects feel like they're making out okay, which is part of why America's done so well - we've always had a large and mostly-content middle class to balance out the gap between the working class and the elite wealthy. So a bill that promises (no matter how ephemeral the promise may be) to put more money in the hands of the middle-and-upper-class people, even if it is at the expense of the lower class, is a sound political move.

Put in conjunction with some of the rest of his economic policies, however, the picture is less favorable. Many economists have noticed a distinct trend over the last seven years of the middle class being eaten away on both sides, the upper-middle class becoming wealthier and the lower-middle class sliding back into debt. This is something that's unfortunately inherent to a capitalistic society and has happened in cycles throughout American history, but it's supposed to be the government's job to pass legislation to slow the process and compensate by keeping enough wealth in the middle so that the majority are happy. It seems, however, that very few of Georgie Boy's policies have done anything of the kind - he's shown time and again that he's interested in keeping the wealthier folks happy (especially his friends in oil) and assuming the middle and lower classes will take care of themselves. Didn't Reagan try something of the sort (I believe it was called "trickle-down economics"), and wasn't it fairly obvious at the time that it just plain didn't work? I seem to remember something like that in my American History text...

From a personal standpoint, I think what annoys me most is that (thanks to our wonderful system of elections) George W. isn't going to be around to reap what he's sown. However, I certainly can't fault the logistics of such a system - give the public four to eight years to deal with flawed policy, at which point they're usually pretty sick of it, and then someone new comes in to clean up the mess. And, as much as I'd like to see G.W. be forced to realize the consequences of his actions for so many of those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, it's probably better for the long-term stability of the country that he doesn't.

Only one year and change left until the next administration...