Democrat language abuse
He also talks about Hillary Clinton's latest pander to the middle class.Explaining a simple proposal to help people squirrel away gold for their golden years, Hillary Clinton said that a person "should not require a Ph.D. to save for retirement." But can even Ph.D.s understand liberalism's arithmetic and logic?
Consider the controversy over the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which is up for renewal. Most Republicans favor extending it. Almost all Democrats, and some Republicans, favor expanding it in a way that transforms it.
SCHIP is described as serving "poor children" or children of "the working poor." Everyone agrees that it is for "low income" people. Under the bill that Democrats hope to pass over the president's veto on Thursday, states could extend eligibility to households earning $61,950. But America's median household income is $48,201. How can people above the median income be eligible for a program serving lower income people?
Politics often operates on the Humpty Dumpty Rule (in "Through the Looking Glass," he says, "When use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less"). But the people currently preening about their compassion should have some for the English language.
...John Edwards, too, has puzzling ideas. For the entertainment of Iowans, he has reinvented himself as a 19th-century Kansan -- Mary Elizabeth Lease, the prairie populist who urged farmers to "raise less corn and more Hell." In August, Edwards urged an Iowa audience to throw off Washington's yoke: "We need to take the power out of the hands of these insiders that are rigging the system against you."
To measure how much Iowans are suffering from the rigging, Stephen Slivinski of the libertarian Cato Institute was asked to mine the most recent Census Bureau data. He concluded that Iowans paid $15.6 billion in revenues to the federal government and got $19.4 billion back, a gain of $1,286.53 per Iowan.But that is not all. Washington has rigged the system to inundate corn-growing Iowa with subsidies for corn-based ethanol. Slivinski says it is difficult to pin down the Iowa corn farmers' harvest of dollars because the subsidies come from exemptions from excise taxes and tariffs (54 cents per imported gallon) that stifle competition from cheap ethanol imports. It is, however, reasonable to add $2 billion to Iowa's gain from Washington's rigging of the system, so the average Iowan's gain is at least $1,963.65.
Suppose Iowa did not have crucial presidential nominating caucuses. Or suppose it had them but that its crucial crop were, say, broccoli rather than corn. Would the federal government still be, well, rigging the system to create a phony "market" to satisfy a specious "demand" for mandatory and subsidized ethanol? No, but it probably would be mandating broccoli at every meal.
Many politicians pander, as Edwards does with gusto, to Americans' current penchant for self-pity. Hence the incessant talk about "the forgotten middle class." Because such talk is incessant, it of course refutes itself.
It is not surprising that Democrats continue to abuse the language so much, because they have had so much success. The have redefined the words "lie" and "disaster" to fit their special definition for events in Iraq that bear little relation to the dictionary version of those words. In rush Limbaugh's case they have twisted his words describing real phony soldiers to mean any soldiers that agree with them on the war, in order to create a phony scandal. Democrats are also masters of the fraudulent failure to disclose material facts. If SEC Rule 10b-5 applied to political speech many Democrats would be in serious trouble.
Update: I know some Democrats have a tic about the spelling of their party. I left it off on purpose to tweak them and at least one blogger suggested I was abusing Democrats. Perhaps, but it is not an attempt to mislead anyone which was really the kind of language abuse I discussed. I have also added a health care label so those who are not aware of the serious problems with rationed health care in the UK and Canadian system can check them out.
"How can people above the median income be eligible for a program serving lower income people?"
ReplyDeleteBecause it would be on a state by state basis.
So in New York, where the cost of living is higher, you could make more money and still qualify.
It's George Will who is using language to obscure the facts.
Actually quite a pathetic case of projection on the part of the right.
You should be embarrased.
[[Under the bill that Democrats hope to pass over the president's veto on Thursday, states could extend eligibility to households earning $61,950. But America's median household income is $48,201. How can people above the median income be eligible for a program serving lower income people?]]
ReplyDeleteAh, an excellent question. To reframe it, you could say, "How has our nation come to the point where people above the median income still cannot afford healthcare?" The answer is, profit-seeking, at the expense of caregiving. Medical care, like police protection, like fire protection, like infrastructure, like national defense, is important enough that its implementation should not be dependent on a competitive system. You got competition, by definition you have winners and losers. And privatization leads to some people beating the system, and some people getting beat. The middle class has been defeated by the insurance companies, and you make the point eloquently, it's time that take our ball and get the hell off that playing field.
Government provided health care has been a disaster where ever it has been tried. If free health care is so wonderful why are Cubans risking their life to get off that island? Where would the Canadians go for the care they cannot get in Canada? In the UK people are dying before they can receive the rationed health care. They are pulling their own teeth because they cannot get dental care from the government system. Government health care is a real killer deal. To compare it to police and fire service is just ridiculous. The cost is better managed by more competition which would occur if health savings accounts were used instead of the current system.
ReplyDeleteHey merv, got any facts to back up your bullshit? People die here before they get health care. People die here of medical problems that could have easily been headed off if the initial application wasn't so expensive. But I did like your "pulling their own teeth" line, that is very evocative and if you’re just stupid enough, almost believable and germane to the topic.
ReplyDeleteThose who want examples of the problems with rationed health care should click on the HEALTH CARE label. There is ample evidence of the horrors of government health care. No more comments with obscenities will be posted. If you can't express yourself without don't expect to see your thoughts added to the debate.
ReplyDelete