Random thoughts on serious issues

Lots of things going on out there, so I am just collecting my thoughts.

Military:

I attended the 30 year retirement of a very dear friend (we grew up together, beginning in first grade, families always close), and I can tell you, our military has great love for their own, their families, and their country. The ideals of our country, freedom and liberty, are very much alive in our military community.

That being said, I want to see our military brought home -- from everywhere. Western Europe neither needs us nor wants us, or even likes us -- why do we even bother with them? Let them take care of their own countries. We are done in Iraq; my fear is the the Iraqi government will play us and prolong our presence, and if that is not the case, I also fear that like we have done in Europe, we are beyond helping and have moved to enabling, which is disastrous. Afghanistan is a place where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are the enemies. We should train the Afghans to protect themselves, and create a plan to destroy these elements with extreme aggression, then turn it over to the Afghans to decide what nation they want. Perhaps such a plan exists, but shifting 100,000 troops there would be such a sign.

Altogether, I want our military home, protecting our own borders (North and South), and that we sever military alliances with those outside our own hemisphere.

Health Care:

Health care is not a right guaranteed by anything or anyone. Those of socialist/Marxist ideological leanings say that it is, but that is because of what it represents (though they may not have realized it): it makes the State responsible for the person from the cradle to the grave, an incredible power entrusted to government (Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. George Washington).

Health care is a responsibility. Period. I have lifted some comments I wrote concerning health care from a recent Facebook discussion and mixed them below, without citation, as they are my own thoughts. Let me say I am no fan of insurance companies, who are in the risk management business, and IMHO, tend to drive up the price of goods and services such that everyone needs them, wherever they are present. Regulation for those run amok is not a bad thing, and I think insurance companies in general drive prices of anything up rather than down, encourage massive lawsuits, etc. They are in the risk mitigation business, and both parties need to understand that.

Further, I bust my butt to take care of my immediate and extended family, paying out 45% of my wages in taxes to various governments in my life (local, state, federal), and I am not interested in paying more to cover those who will not take care of themselves (I do that through higher premiums already). I know for a fact that many of the uninsured are so by choice. My daughter's company offers to pay 90% of the medical insurance for its employees, who are asked to pay $30/month, but they opt to save the $360/year and get free (to them) care at the local ER, but when something major hits, they are uncovered. Whose fault is that? My dad forked out 25% of his meager monthly pay to make sure we had Blue Cross/Blue Shield, because it was his responsibility to look after us; it was his PRIORITY. More than 85% of people are covered in this land, most would consider that a working system -- oh yeah, our cancer survivor rates hare higher than Canada's and the UK's, and nevermind that there are no medical innovations in those places, they rely on our system.

I know several independent business people who offer employees coverage (because it is cheaper for their own families if it is part of a group plan) and their employees turn it down for the sake of a few extra bucks a month, failing to grasp what a good opportunity they have. The key verbage is "will not take care".

Insurance is a risk mitigation industry, and has become a necessary evil. No government should force any enterprise, no matter how much we dislike it, to take a bad business deal. Look at Medicare. Medicare is a debacle, and by itself will break America, growing at a rate of 4.5X inflation while giving poorer service than private insurance companies (I know this, because my mom has suffered under its "care"). But I do know we don't screw up the whole system for a relatively small number, and if Medicare and its poor service, high cost (I have more taken out for Medicare than I pay in my company's co-pay program) AND corruption is an example of government health care (and it is), then we should run away from it and look for alternative solutions.

Some say tort reform is needed to bring down the cost of health care, first and foremost, but the rights of the patient to hold negligent doctors accountable must be held intact. While those who argue against tort reform say "there is no price you can put on a human life", the self-contradiction is apparent: this is exactly what such lawsuits attempt to do, often many times above the patient's lifetime earning potential. This is wrong and unfair, too.

Begin with tort reform, and correct the prejudicial concept of "pre-existing condition". After all, insurance companies, by definition, are in the risk management business. But I add this in their defense: the insurance company should not be forced to take a client who has no continuity of coverage, i.e., they had no previous coverage and only sought such when a problem arose (of course, therein lies a financial opportunity for someone else). In the case of a person coming of age or transference of jobs, the insurance industry should buck up and cover (since they have driven prices up to force their own necessity), though this will likely result in slightly higher premiums for us all. Open competition by allowing those seeking insurance to buy across state lines to insure healthier competition for premiums, as other industries do.

I'd rather try the above on health care than let the government touch any of it.

Taxation:

Odd to me how people who pay no taxes (Federal) feel so self-righteous as to demand of those who pay the bulk of such taxes to pay more, or receive no tax cuts. Such people are little more than pan-handlers, letting the government do their dirty work of begging, and of such petty self-righteous freeloaders I have no use.

The other aspects of the taxation include the size of governments, the brutal robbery of progressive tax scales, and the participation of citizens.

I used to carry a briefcase in my early years. Briefcases wear out, and the first two or three replacements were larger than the previous. I felt the need to carry more stuff. The last in this series was, at times, painful to carry. It was replaced with a smaller one, and I carried less stuff. I did fine. Its replacement was smaller yet, and I still did fine. Now, most of the "stuff" is in my smartphone, and I cannot remember when I last carried a briefcase. The point is this: I thought I needed much more than I did, which I discovered only after forcing myself to do with less. Our governments, local-state-federal, need to learn to do with less, and they will only do this if we shrink the "briefcase of cash" we are sending them. As soon as the end of next year, the tax haul at all levels will reach 45% of GDP, affecting ALL Americans. When does their spending growth stop? The governments in our lives need to live on significantly less, and this will only happen if we dramatically reduce the haul they are making on our wages, properties, and purchases.

Progressive tax scales are only called "fair" by those who do not pay taxes or are at the lowest end. They are also called "fair" by those who never learned complicated math concepts like 'percentages'. But I repeat myself. The higher wage earner pays more in taxes than the lower wage earner even when the percentage of tax is the same. A person making $20,000 per year pays $2,000/year on a flat 10% tax system. A person making $2,000,000/year pays $200,000/year on the same flat tax. The person making 100x as much pays 100x as much. That's fair. A progressive system says the person making $20,000/year pays 10% or $2,000/year in taxes, but the person making $2,000,000/year should pay 30% or $600,000/year in taxes. How is that fair? It is disproportionate. You say, "Well, they can afford it". Who are YOU to judge? What is fair about YOU deciding who makes "enough"? It is the freeloader mentality that says those who make more should pay DISPROPORTIONATELY more, because it is driven by their desire to get more for nothing.

Excusing people from the tax roles is wrong, because it does create freeloaders. They want more and more in services from the government, and thinks everyone else should pay for such services. A flat tax for everyone would make our government more efficient, since everyone would hold the governments accountable for expensive programming that would raise everyone's tax rate. Or, we say that only those who pay federal taxes may vote in a federal election, and the same down through the local level elections. That would be "fair", too.

Czars in our Federal Government:

I am against it. I have felt it was not a good since the first presidentially-appointed czar I remember -- Bill Bennett, Drug Czar ("War on Drugs"; we have lost some civil rights over that one). I think the first was William Simon, Nixon's "energy czar". The subsequent use of such positions, positions bred of cronies and unvetted, bypassing Congressional review, pose a real threat to the Constitutional Cabinet system. BO has appointed more czars than Cabinet positions and threaten our "government of the people" system. BO has only taken it to the extreme; his predecessors are guilty, too, and I think this whole "czar thing" needs to be abolished, however expedient it may seem and regardless of who is in the White House.