January 22, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH'S CALLOUSNESS SHOWS AGAIN

George W. Bush has come out with another rotten privatization scheme right out of right-wing fantasy land. This time it's health insurance. According to Bush, people with good health care coverage, usually through their employers, should have to pay taxes on that coverage because their coverage supposedly drives up the prices for everyone else. And, of course, Bush's plan features tax cuts that will benefit only the very wealthy. Just when you think this guy can't get any more despicable, he proves he can. This column by Paul Krugman is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:

On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”

Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.

Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.

Most people without health insurance have low incomes, and just can’t afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low tax bracket.

TAKE BACK THE AIRWAVES

It was definitely a case of one hand washing the other when Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation that would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Big media companies loved it. It opened the way for creeps like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity to spew out their propaganda hours and hours every day without a counter viewpoint. These right-wingers are not "entertainers." They're well-paid shills for the Far Right. Now a Congressman named Maurice Hinchey has introduced a bill to restore the Fairness Doctrine. He points out that the fascists who took control in Italy and Germany also had exclusive control of the airwaves. This article by Miriam Raftery is at www.rawstory.com:

Hinchey believes the takeover of the U.S. media has been carefully calculated by the “political right wing,” starting with the abolition in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine, which was originally adopted in 1949 in reaction to the rise of global fascism prior to World War II.

“Fascist government dominated discussions in Europe. They could now broadcast all over and control all information going out. That’s how they took over governments in Spain and Italy,” Hinchey recalled. “The U.S. said the airways should be owned by everyone.”

The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.