The State of the Union

By Ronald E. Hignight

There are Populist and Elitist, Liberals and Conservatives, Libertarians, Centrists and whatever. One can hardly make it through an editorial or political comment without being subjected to polarized addendums to an elected official’s name. If a senator or representative suggests that they are for or against something, the reasoning employed in the decision is lost in the clamor of reporters to categorize and isolate the position for their readers.

We are now told that the President has moved from being a pragmatic leader (they could hardly call him an Elitist), to a Populist leaning leader simply because he is sponsoring a discretionary spending freeze in Federal government. Obama’s detractors grin and opine that the shift in governmental philosophy was actually occasioned by the Democratic Party’s defeat in Massachusetts and Obama’s recognition that his party is in danger of losing its franchise.

Post State of the Union, it appears that what mandated the spending freeze was not self-preservation, but rather, a move made to curtail spending in light of the projected success of TARP. Said another way, the discretionary spending is no longer necessary to achieve the aims of the Obama administration and no administration, Democrat or Republican, would want to be known as, or tolerated as, a spend-thrift administration.

Do we now have a Populist President? I don’t think so. Are we moving towards Libertarianism? Let’s hope not. We have altogether too many domestic issues to resolve before we may once again trim government to its bare-boned essentials. The belabored health care reform bill will have to be amended through a series of small battles until it is made effectual. The United States will, as a world citizen, have to curb its energy needs for the benefit of man-kind. Our un-checked capitalist economic policies will have to address the needs of the many, rather than the few, until such time as our citizens are back on their feet.

If Obama has misjudged the American people, he did so only by assigning priority to health care over jobs. It would appear that his only true ‘move’, here at the end of his first year in office, is to focus more on jobs and less on health care. If Americans do not have secure jobs paying a livable wage, there are no monies for the purchase of health care.

While some may argue against the stimulus, and I was one of them, we must all acknowledge that the infrastructure of our economy, especially the banks, has been saved by way of the stimulus. I was wary of stimulus but, pragmatically, it is working and it is time to go on to other domestic concerns – namely, jobs. As for the bail-outs – they were a bad idea and have gained us nothing. A few factory workers up north were given a temporary reprieve but few think that the auto dealers will really survive and thrive. All the bail-outs did was prolong the auto industry’s death rattle.

Obama has a plan to invigorate the economy by offering tax cuts of up to $5,000 each if industry will hire in a meaningful way. The rules are strict, but, on balance, fair to the people footing the bill. But, I’ve a more aggressive step in mind that will create jobs well into the future and end, hopefully, America’s wasteful reliance upon Wall Street to generate jobs.

What I propose is that we somehow force those who are ‘sitting’ on huge cache’s of wealth to do something with their wealth other than to pass it to Wall Street for incremental increase of their wealth. What I would have them do is to obtain direct tax credit for creating jobs. If they merely deposit their holdings with Wall Street, they will be heavily taxed. If they start a new business employing people, they will receive tax credits.

We already do this for corporations – why not extend it to investors? Not only would we be putting people back to work, we would be stimulating the economy through growth, competition and diversity. We would also be minimizing our country’s reliance upon the speculative markets of Wall Street as the basis of our economy.

Lastly, we should take a long and hard look at the insurance industry to see if the industry truly benefits society or is a leach upon society. In its un-regulated state, it is clearly a leach upon society. In its semi-regulated state, it still leaches upon society but does so in a manner that most have come to accept merely because the industry is so ingrained in our society that to fight it is very nearly impossible.

In its purest form, insurance is nothing more than paying another to take a risk that you are unwilling to abide by. Lenders insist on insurance to protect their proprietary liens against money loaned to purchase property. States compel an individual to purchase insurance as against one’s negligence towards others. Individuals seeking to provide for their families after death, purchase insurance policies affording piece of mind. Is all of this risk transferring or shifting really necessary? Is it an incidence that truly benefits society? When all is said and done, the risk is still there – it is just a matter of who pays for it.

Insurance companies write thousands of policies seeking to spread the risk among its policy holders as against a single claim. And, to make it work, they invest the monies collected, rather than merely reserve them, in order to make profit. This sets up the first problem of the insurance industry. How to manage investments in order to make a profit? The record of AIG, for example, shows what can happen if the insurance company mismanages its investments.

The second problem with the insurance industry arises from the not-so-little disparity between the premium paid and the payout. In fact, they have nothing to do with each other on the balance sheet. Claims, however, are treated as though insufficient premiums have been collected and are vigorously fought and denied by the insurance industry.

In those areas where a State has sought to regulate insurance, i.e., where the State has mandated the purchase of insurance in such areas as Workers’ Compensation, the insurance industry is required to pursue approval of premium rate hikes. They are required to show neither the effect of claims paid nor of their secrete investments. They are merely required to assert that they need upward premium adjustments to maintain their franchise. In other words, they want more money, but are not required to prove that they need more money, and will seek whatever the market will bear.

To cover these problems, the insurance industry falls back on its manufactured credibility and reputation image with the aid of Madison Avenue. It distorts its condition and viability presenting policies of insurance in a fully positive light without danger of loss. With subliminal messaging, it even seeks to secure a larger purchasing pool by convincing individuals that insurance is an absolute necessity of life. Competition as among insurance companies has virtually destroyed self-restraint of the type implicit within their Madison Avenue messages.

The so-called ‘public-option’ in health care reform would have eventually led to more self-restraint within the private insurance industry had it been enacted. I suspect that a ‘public-option’ in home, auto and life insurance would likewise lead to self-restraint in those insurance domains as well. It seems that the insurance industries objection to regulation and unwillingness to engage in self-restraint, leaves little alternative other than to enter into competition with the industry through a government operated agency.

In time, and with public-options, the insurance industry will lose most of its leaching aspect and might tend to benefit society. The public-option competition would force insurance companies into a ‘lean and mean’ approach to do business and would eventually cure both principle problems associated with the industry. If they refuse to go lean and mean, they would vanish.

To be sure, health, the environment, international conflicts and jobs are going to be capturing the limelight of political discussion. Unless we bring insurance under control, through meaningful and far-ranging political discussion, we will, however, continue to wander towards a cliff with lead weights in our pockets somehow expecting to overcome gravity and fly into prosperity. My cut is that we will fall to our doom.

The Shoe Heard Around the World

By Ronald E. Hignight

It was not long ago that we witnessed the “shoe heard around the world” fly past President Bush’s head. With surprising agility, GWB dodged the shoe. The event highlighted, and ended, an era of bully, smash and bash politics. Bush was a lame duck at that point and all of us were looking forward to change.

Change. We were looking to increase the esteem not only of the office of President, but that of this Country as well. We were looking eagerly to the Legislature to perform miracles with a Bush-failed economy and to get past Republican obstructionism towards national welfare; most especially health-care reform. And, we were looking for the government to do some long-range thoughtful planning with respect to the environment rather than continue the ‘fix-it when it’s broke’ solutions of the past.

But what we failed to account for, even as among Democrats who secured the necessary majority to achieve these things, was the fact that all politicians – whether they are conservative or liberal or middle of the road – secure their positions by learning and employing the duck and dodge maneuver so expertly displayed by President Bush.

What we have been left with is a collection of salons in charge of the Legislative branch who are trained to react to every adversarial challenge by ducking, dodging and side-stepping. No one of them is capable of directly confronting a challenge and is constantly looking for the euphemistic compromise. If the shoe thrower is appeased, the current salons believe that they will be better able to survive the next election. And, it appears that such is their only concern.

Where are the men and women of character who are capable of taking a shoe to the head and keep on going? President Obama, upon learning of Republican Brown’s seizure of a Democratic Senate seat, stated that he was not going to abandon the fight for health care just because the fight will be tough. Hopefully, the salons in the Legislature will follow suit and take a shoe to the head if one is thrown. After all, they may find that voters are likely to hold them in higher esteem if they have the force of character to stand up to adversity.

Vote for Change or Compromise?

Vote for Change or Compromise?
In the last election, I suspect that those who empowered Obama and the Democratic led Congress did so in order to change government. Had it been otherwise, we would now have a McCain administration and a Republican controlled Congress. McCain and his cohorts ran for office professing that, with only slight modification, the policies of the Bush administration and its Congress would be continued in part and compromised in part. The electors spoke loudly, though, that change rather than compromise was what was expected of government.

While change can mean reversal, it is often used to denote a break in one direction in favor of another and, invariably, means, as Lord Tennyson said, “The old order changeth, yielding place to the new.” Conversely, compromise, such as we have seen in Congress’s efforts to produce Health Care Reform, means a give and take appeasement reaching middle ground. As said by Lord Cecil, a compromise is “[a]n agreement between two [parties] to do what both agree is wrong.” It can resolve impasse for good or bad. If, however, you consider P.J. O’Rourke’s observation that, “[a] compromise is the sense that being bitten in half by a shark is a compromise with being swallowed whole[,]” then compromise can only be bad.

It seems that the Obama administration and the Democrats ensconced in Washington are hamstrung with the Pollyannish notion that bi-partisan support is necessary to formulate a cohesive and comprehensive Health Care Reform measure. We gave them a mandate to change and they should whether Republicans join them or not. Some of course, blame the various Democrats themselves for creating the differing ‘fixes’ needed to overhaul what is a patently critical situation involving good health care. What those contentious Democrats should consider, however, is that they received their jobs by hanging onto the coattails of Obama and adopting the change mantra to get elected. They, too, should embrace and pass the health care reform bill that Obama was elected to foster into law. It is time for the Democratic whips to whip.

Change? Where's the Beef?

Years ago, 1984 to be exact, there was a television commercial run by Wendy’s, which put forth a question that has relevance today. It featured a nice older woman opening an oversized hamburger bun, in front of a sales clerk, and pointing to an absurdly small hamburger patty. In a firm "I will not be patronized" sort of way, the lady asked, "Where's the beef?" We should all be asking today, of President Obama and the Legislature who promised 'change', "Where's the beef?"

It has been over a year since we retired the Smash, Bash and Bully mentality of the Bush administration. The new administration promising change seems to be doing nothing; or, as most recently criticized, is “dithering,” to which might be added the charge of, “withering.” What little the Obama administration has done, by analogy, leaves us wondering, "Where's the beef?"

So far, all that has been done is to hand out huge sums of money to big corporations, banks and insurance companies. That was not a change. In fact, it mirrors what Bush and his Republican legislature did in the form of tax credits in the early “ought’s.” Only the rich have benefited – not the American in the street – and whatever is meant by the “Wall Street to Main Street” mantra sounds a whole lot like “trickle down” which was a huge failure for us all.

We wearied of wars being urged and initiated by the Bush administration but did not manage to put our collective ‘foot down’ until it came to light that we went to war not to protect the U.S. from weapons of mass destruction; but rather, to insure that we had control of our need for petroleum. We knew we had been duped and voted with anger. We had been duped before into believing that by force of arms, we could and should "Americanize" other countries. That theory of international diplomacy failed. The wars are still smoldering, in part, and escalating in part. There has been no change. We are still at war.

The Bush administration effectively blocked all lingering attempts at Health Care Reform left over from the Clinton administration. We sent the new President a new Democratic controlled Legislature expecting a change in health care. Though there is a bill being bounced around in Senate and House committees, we can only expect that it will be so washed down and neutered that it will amount to nothing more than boondoggle. There will be no change. We will still not have meaningful health care that we can actually afford.

To spawn unparalleled growth in American industry, the Bush administration removed all roadblocks to carbon based fuel consumption totally ignoring the consequences of global warming. That administration feared loss of economic growth if any credence was given to an anticipated global catastrophe. We listened, evaluated and determined that whatever economic considerations there were, in conflict with protecting the environment, that the earth must win out. President Obama, and the salons that we sent to Washington, promised alternative energy initiatives but they have done so on so small a scale as to be ludicrous. Our government of change went to Copenhagen with no intention of changing status quo. There has been no change.

This withering and dithering on important public concerns is no less fruitful than our previous posture of smash, bash and bully. We still see money, unearned money, going to the rich. We still see body bags returning from the Middle East. We still see no meaningful control on health care. We still see no change in policy and direction regarding global warming.

Where is the change – where is the beef?

I Am Thankful

I Am Thankful

- Ronald E. Hignight

I am Thankful the decade of ‘o something’ is over. I am also thankful to a number of people who shared it with me.
Thank you, George Bush for abdicating. I know the Constitution stood in your way but, it was grand of you to honor it.
Thank you, Dick Cheney for showing us how to hoodwink America into wars to preserve the petroleum industry and global warming.
Thank you, Sarah Palin for being the governor of Alaska, rather than some other state. We needed the humor you spawned by your political foray during the darkest moments of our economy.
Thank you, Glen Beck for sharing your fantasies. But for your myopic vision and dire predictions for America, our village idiots would have had nothing to talk about.
Thank you, Rush Limbaugh for showing us that people of Radio and TV can abuse drugs without losing their jobs.
Thank you, Jerry Falwell, and to all your christian fellows, for sliding into obscurity. You truly gave us a scare, in the 90’s, that there was no longer a separation of church and state.
Thank you, Mark Stanford for reminding us all that honesty matters most and that even gross philandering does not disqualify one from roles of leadership.
Thank you, Tom DeLay for showing us that Kingmakers can become dance floor celebs; which is far more meaningful than Politics.
Thank you, Tiger Woods for showing us that money, like power, corrupts absolutely.
Thank you, Joe Lieberman for proving LBJ correct when he said, “Politics is dealing with chicken shit, which, overnight, becomes Chicken Salad.
Thank you, Michele Bachmann for showing us the danger of living in Minnesota rather than Alaska.
Thank you, Joe Wilson for reminding us that “Our Party, Right or Wrong” remains the mantra of all Republicans.
Thank you, again, to all these people who served to prove Abraham Lincoln right when he said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.”

I Am Waiting

The following poem was inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti who penned a poem, "I Am Waiting", published by City Lights in the 1950's.

I Am Waiting
--Purloined from Lawrence Ferlinghetti
--By Ronald E. Hignight

I am waiting for my Lotto numbers
to produce something other than disappointment,
and I am still waiting
for a rebirth of wonder, and
I am waiting for Lawrence F to
write anew, as a born again Phoenix,
with poetic prophecies that everyone will understand,
this time,
and I am waiting for our myopic politicians
to walk out of a Mall sporting new glasses improving
their vision for America, and
I am waiting for the newer generations to awaken
from their dreams and delusions and realize that, really,
it is not all about them, and
I am waiting to hear rappers sing of joy rather than anger
thumping their way down the streets
of my neighborhood, where Johnny Nolan still lives,
and runs through screen-door summers,
forever escaping kids who chase him
because of the patch on his ass, and
I am waiting for change to come to the
government of change all changed up
but still withering and dithering, and
I am waiting a rebirth of wonder.

I continue to wait for the
second coming of anything which will
break-up the monotony of TV preachers and
their unsolicited teachings of intolerance, and
I am waiting a rebirth of wonder,
I am waiting for all religions to be taxed
for their profits – we tax newspapers but that
has not destroyed freedom of the press, has it?
And, I am waiting for someone to record
his chat with God so all can see and understand
without having to believe in the believer, and
I am waiting
a rebirth of all the Gods so
that when they are ready, they can compete all
on the same field and all at the same time,
in a footrace for our souls, and
I am waiting to see the word intolerance
disappear from my OED
as an archaic term no longer needed
by anyone, and
no longer understood, and
I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for religions to grow in imagination
giving us all something other than trite
stories with the same climax and boring filler, and
I am waiting for a new Bible to be written premised
upon the fact that ‘shit happens’ and,
I am waiting, longingly, for a rebirth of wonder.

I am waiting to talk to a person when I call and
I am waiting, and waiting, and waiting,
and waiting,
and waiting, and,
I am waiting for someone to give
us Global Cooling in recyclable containers
imprinted with scenes of the former Good Earth and
distributed by Budweiser, and
I am waiting a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for Bill Buckley to arise from his ashes, as well,
and guard our language against dissing, whatever that means, and
I am waiting for public schools to again educate scholars
rather than appease miscreants, and,
I am waiting for the Board of Education to be swung,
hard, again, again and, again
curing forever, those afflicted with ADHD, and
I am waiting to see Armed Cops on School grounds
replaced with costumed Disney characters carrying candy, and
I am waiting for Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck
to go bird hunting with Dick Cheney,
without medics, and
I am waiting for the Press to meet Itself mediated
by Robin Williams and Diane Roberts, and
I am waiting for an entirely new
rebirth of wonder.

I am waiting for the awe of new adventures through
astronauts taking a stroll across the face of Mars
giving me chill banes,
and pride again, and
I am waiting to see if the dividends of my share
of Social Security will buy me more than a glass
of fat free, nutrient free, taste free milk, and
I am waiting for a revival of wonder to be announced
at the next World Series witnessed by a Cereal World, and
I am waiting for the reconstructed Mayflower to
be filled with Republicans and returned to Europe
waived and toasted away by Native Americans and Democrats,
and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the missing link to be found only
because I want to be amused, yet again, by some new
unintelligent design theory, and
I am waiting for Osama bin Laden to crawl out
of his hole, profess his innocence and appear in court
in orange coveralls with an attorney lugging around
a copy of the Koran from which he will offer
a humorous defense, and
I am waiting for a new rebirth of wonder.
I am waiting for David Copperfield to make
the World Trade Center reappear whole and full of laughing
people excited with the joke but ready to go home,
If only he could, and,
I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.

I am waiting for all gays to actually be gay
and to get to do the unhappy things heterosexuals do
and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the New Iron Curtin to be built
from Texas to California,
with high-tech video cameras showing America
the identities of those who want to be free next, and
I am patiently and expectantly waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting on the Green Flash, daily,
with rum in one hand and tequila in the other,
listening to Jimmy Buffett telling me how he
did it wrong while making a million dollars a day,
and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for troops to come home
from their dusty duty, and stay home for good, and
I am waiting for America to formally apologize
to the world for George Bush and I am waiting
for George Bush to formally apologize to General Powell,
and I am waiting for Karl Rove to go moose hunting with a chagrined
Dick Cheney and a smiling Sarah Palin, and,
I am waiting for a real rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for someone in line to tell
me why my Wal-Mart sized shampoo cannot fly
to Tampa with me, I mean, if it is really that explosive,
I want to know, but, I am still waiting
for a rebirth of wonder.

I am waiting for Governor Charlie Crist to
meet Charles Durning and learn that lovely
song and dance step of effective governance, and
I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for One Human Family to
find a way to humanize our
mean old backed-up farts
and turn them into missionaries, and,
I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the jets to land quietly
allowing us to hear the roosters crowing again, and
I am waiting a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting on the ghost of Lawrence F
to visit me and tell me it was ok to try
and update his poem, but then, I suspect
he is laughing with and at himself
and at all of us waiting for a rebirth of wonder -
a renaissance of wonder.