Mitt Romney: Obamacare vs. Election

Source: CNN

I had decided to wait a bit after the Supreme Court ruling to see how the politics would play out– insaneabsurdcrazydramaticized, as expected. I’m sure there will be plenty to cover on health care as the election pushes forward. Mitt Romney has been on a roll with promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, on “day one” of his presidency, if that day is to come. I’d like to focus on what he is trying to do for his campaign, and why it is simply the wrong approach.

@rupertmurdoch

Mitt Romney has run a crazy campaign so far, tackling, and avoiding, dozens of important issues facing the American people. The problem is that Romney is sticking to what he is comfortable with, and that is simply not the route he needs to take in order to defeat President Obama. On Sunday, a controversial tweet via Rupert Murdoch stated, “Met Romney last week. Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from team and hires some real pros. Doubtful.” So basically, while Murdoch does firmly support Mitt Romney, he acknowledges the strength of the President’s campaign staff and the weeds within team Romney that need to be pulled out– and he also recognizes that this is unlikely to happen. While many do agree with Murdoch, there are plenty of offended republicans claiming that this tweet was an attack on Romney and his campaign staff. Yesterday Murdoch sent out another tweet for clarification on where he stands; “Romney people upset at me! Of course I want him to win, save us from socialism, etc but should listen to good advice and get stuck in!” I suppose some republicans can’t handle the criticism? (Not that hardcore democrats are any better!)I still do not feel that I strongly support either campaign, but for Romney’s sake, he does need to make some changes! While Murdoch has made his views known about the Romney campaign staff, I’d like to focus more on the decision to shine a light on Obamacare after the decision. I’ve yet to understand why Mitt Romney has decided to focus so much on the recent Supreme Court decision. Yes, it is very important…of course it is important! This decision has been the focus of the media for months, and then CNN decided to misreport the big event for awhile, but I’ll leave that mockery to Jon Stewart in his most recent report. So why is it a bad idea for Romney to focus on the issues? Well, here’s the obvious; he cannot simply repeal the law at will– it will be a long, drawn-out, miserable process for both parties and the American people. With all of the current media hype, it would seem like healthcare should easily work its way into election campaigns. This has given Obama plenty of bragging rights about how his big initiative was the right way to go, with the Supreme Court on his side. At the same time, it has also brought upon him the dreaded words ‘tax increases.’

Source: Getty Images

As for Romney, his main point throughout this election has been to create jobs, fix our economy, and restore America to the prosperous nation that it once was. I suppose the tax increase can be argued to be a huge dent in desperate attempts to lead our nation to one of a lower deficit and a better credit rating, but it isn’t the only issue. There is no way that Romney will step into his office, have the time to repeal Obamacare AND push through a huge jobs bill– it just doesn’t work that way. Romney is making healthcare a huge issue in his campaign, and that is diverting attention from his driving point. He is supposedly the candidate with “real life” experience in business, the one that will get beyond silly political issues and fix the economy. Instead of continuing this image, he is trying to appease the tea party. Come on Romney, they hate President Obama, they are the least likely to vote for your opponent, so stop focusing on the radicals– worry about the independents that want to know when they will find job security and are willing to vote for either candidate to achieve it!

This is no time for Romney to shift gears, especially with polls showing that this decision has not swayed the public’s opinion of either candidate. This isn’t a surprise, since the issue was one of 2010. People are still concerned about jobs! Seriously, get back on the track to the presidency via job creation, and worry about healthcare afterward. If he wants to privatize healthcare, as he has been preaching (this year), he needs a stable private and public sector economy to make it work. I don’t know what his campaign managers are telling him, but maybe Murdoch is right…he needs some pros.

Anderson Cooper: Out of the Closet

I would like to congratulate Anderson Cooper on his recent proclamation that he is a gay man. This is not something to be ashamed of, and he should not have waited another second to reveal this– as personal as the issue of sexual orientation is, is it really better to have people assuming that you are something that you are not? I don’t think so. In a letter written to another gay journalist, Andrew Sullivan, Cooper “came out” and gave Sullivan permission to publish it. In this he says, “That fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.”

The reason that I am happy with his public announcement is not because he has some requirement to reveal his personal life to the public. In fact, I believe that it is important for journalists to feel that they are not in a position to report on their personal life, but for what is important in their work– the news, the facts and interpretations of the issues. I am pleased with his announcement because I am aware of previous rumours spread that he is gay, in a negative context involving words such as ‘shame’ and ‘hiding’ in various posts online. That is simply unfair to Anderson Cooper. Congratulations Anderson Cooper, you are free– no matter what others may say.

Egypt Election: We Have a Winner

Thursday of last week the presidential election results from Egypt were due. Much of the world tuned in to discover that they wouldn’t know the winner until Sunday.  Meanwhile both candidates, Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq declared themselves winners.

The two candidates came from questionable political background that some may not have wanted to be the results of a revolution. Despite some of our well-wishing of a secular democracy for Egypt, it is more important that the Egyptian people spoke through their vote to narrow it down to these two candidates. This is what the Egyptians were protesting for, the right to vote.

One of the two choices was Mohammed Morsi a former member (during the election he was a current member) of the Muslim Brotherhood; secularists and other cringed at the prospect of what would result from Morsi being put into power.  However, it seems better than the alternative Ahmed Shafiq, who served under President Mubarak.

Sunday it was announced that Morsi is indeed then new president of Egypt.  It is the first time modern Egypt will be ruled by a Muslim, and the first non-military president in six decades.

While we believe Morsi’s actions will be speak louder than his promises, like all politicians, let’s talk some about the actual man.  Morsi was born in Egypt where he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Cairo University.  For three years he moved to the United States to earn his doctorate at University of Southern California, and even served as an assistant professor at California State University.  He moved back to Egypt in 1985.  He served in Egypt’s parliament from 2000-2005.

The strange thing is that many are referring to him as a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, when he is in fact ran under the Freedom and Justice Party.  Upon the announcement of his victory he resigned his membership to the Muslim Brotherhood.  He also promised to keep all of Egypt’s peace treaties, including the one with Israel.  This could be political posing, and only time will tell how much conviction and power Morsi will offer as a leader.

The election does not end the power struggle soon to be president Morsi.  The new showdown will be between Morsi versus the Egyptian military or Scaf (The Supreme Council of Armed Forces). The military took power last year when Mubarak was taken down from office.  During this they issued an interim constitution that stripped most of the president’s power.  In addition, while the votes were being counted for the elections, judges dissolved parliament.

If you think back to some of the images of military during the protests in Egypt over a year ago, the military not being involved seemed to be a blessing.  On recollection the military overseeing the revolution could have been an eerie foreshadowing of who is actually in charge of Egypt.  Let’s hope that a dictatorship has not been replaced by a military state.

Scaf now has legislative power and complete control of the military to just list a few of its powers.  They claim to serve Parliament, but Parliament has been dissolved by the courts.  They claim the will set aside their political power post election, we will see what happens.

Next week Morsi is to be sworn into his role as president, but what will that role be?  There is no parliament to oversee, so does he become another dictator? Will the interim constitution actually be temporary, so Morsi has powers of a president?  Will parliament be put back into working order?  Will the military actually step aside to let Morsi rules as promised?  It is hard to tell what will happen in Egypt.  The weeks and months to follow will be a struggle for Egypt.  Let’s hope it is a struggle that is towards freedom and not more oppression.

The Affordable Care Act is in the clear– Initial reactions…

I’m sure the entire world is aware of this by now– the Affordable Care Act is in the clear, upheld by the Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote. Obamacare has won and will continue to implement various steps over the next few years. I’m by no means surprised at this vote given the situation, and knowing what I do of the current Justices. The President is clearly satisfied with the ruling, as he should be, and gave a seven minute speech about why we should all be satisfied as well.
In my opinion, the court should have taken care of the law in chunks– it is 900 pages! (Seriously, I have the .pdf saved!)
The 5-4 vote is nothing for either party to cheer about, because this shows that politics played a factor in the decision. There is still no clear line, in concept, as to whether or not this is constitutional. I personally do believe that the act is constitutional, or at least what I have read of it to this point, which I must admit is not in full and I hate to trust the media entirely. Although, the media is correct on some points that a lot of this act is a tax aimed at certain groups, not to say that this is a bad thing because the middle class can’t afford to be targeted anymore. Since I have yet to give any candidate my full support, I’m trying to figure out the politics of this mess, but only time will tell.
There are parts of the law that I like and there are parts of the law that I do not, which is why I was hoping that it would not be a single ruling. Oh President Obama, what have you done? I mean, I can only imagine what the Daily Show put together for today’s segment- along with OutFront. I have some catching up to do- though I must say that Rock of Ages and Brave were worth the hiatus!

Tomorrow I will  get into the dirty details of how this affects us as a nation, and all of the issues and benefits that will take place over the next few years. I would also like to address the fact that we are 27th in the world in terms of average life span, yet have the highest health care costs.
Meanwhile, let me know what you all think about the act in the poll below!

 

Quote of the Day: I might be in favor of national healthcare if it required all Democrats to get their heads examined. ~Ann Coulter
This woman makes me laugh, and not because I agree.

 

 

Yet again, Congress MUST act… but not on the student loan bill?

Source: HerCampus

Congress always must act, but lately it has been especially important for the future of our nation. First there is the issue of student loan debt interest rates doubling to 6.8% in a week, note the countdown on the right sidebar. Now there is more talk of a Saturday deadline on a highway bill, which I had thought was taken care of since almost three-quarters of the Senate supported their side of the bill– that’s right, democrats  and republicans. Yet, in the House there was no getting past the republican majority, though I’m not sure why, given the strong Senate backing. All the more confusing is that the democratic-majority Senate rallied plenty of support for a two-year bill costing $109 billion, but the republican-majority House proposed an alternative five-year plan costing $260 billion. Yes, the republicans proposed a more committed bill that will cost more. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but recent history seems to show the republicans trending in the opposite direction. I’m sure something will be worked out this week, and I pray for a long-term solution, which would also be a nice change.

Source: My University Money

I am in full support of this bill because anyone who leaves their house knows that our roads still need help. Having spent a year in college in Rhode Island, I can assure you that there are plenty of road issues, with my dozens of bumpy bus and car rides as proof. Although, I do not think this should be at the cost of keeping student loan rates down, as the Editorial Board wrote in a Washington Post article today. I found their statements to be absolutely absurd, unsympathetic, and politically-motivated. The article states that cutting the rates for students was a democratic “campaign gimmick” despite support from both parties, students, parents, and graduates across the nation. Apparently we should let those cuts lapse and only focus on the highway bill, despite equal importance.

Sure, the lower interest rates only benefited students for a short period of time, but that doesn’t mean they should be stopped by any means. These cuts have allowed students to take out loans with hope of actually paying them off in a reasonable amount of time…maybe buy a house by the time they are 30? That is what our nation needs from our graduates, not a generation living at home in debt with low starting-salary jobs in a terrible economy where a huge problem is the number of empty houses around. I don’t think the Washington Post quite understands the issues caused by student loans and whatever party decides to let this slip is going to be under fire.

Students plan their education based on the rates they will have to pay, potentially the determinant between two or three possible colleges or universities. Parents that are helping their children pay for school rely on these lower rates to keep their own finances in line. My problem with this bill is that the extension is only for one year, which was right of the WP to point out, and I know this is just going to be a continuous issue until Congress decides to create long-term solutions for students. Yes, there are other options, but that does not mean that we should drop the current assistance that so many count on.

Between the two bills, assuming the more expensive and long-term solution from the republicans passes for the highway bill, this week Congress and the President will be writing a $266 billion check. Uh-oh, more spending! How will we pay for this?! How can we afford to tack on those extra cuts? Well, as I’ve begged for in previous posts, we need to stop the unnecessary spending– and I am not referring to education or highways or healthcare. Here are some examples of spending that continues to cut into our budget for no reason and shows how little our government respects the more important issues…click here for a longer list, if you dare.

Source: FindFinAid.com

#1 The U.S. government is spending $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. (Check out the Daily Show clip on this)

#2 The Obama administration plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars helping students from Indonesia get master’s degrees. (…)

#12 China lends us more money than any other foreign nation, but that didn’t stop our government from spending 17.8 million dollars on social and environmental programs for China. (I get it that this one is important to fund, but not by the US!)

#14 One professor at Stanford University was given $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love. (Why does our government care? This research should be funded by Stanford- as if they can’t afford it?)

#18 The federal government spends 25 billion dollars a year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant. (That’s a large chunk of cash for doing nothing. From a yearly standpoint with these bills, this alone would cover half of the expenses!)

Those are just a few examples, and there are hundreds more. The sad thing is that many of these are easy cuts, and easily avoidable. I wish DC luck over this next week with so much going on, and I hope they are bold enough to find long-term solutions so this isn’t repeated every year. Of course, I doubt that will happen. Oh, Congress!

 

Quote of the Day: This is absolutely bizarre that we continue to subsidize highways beyond the gasoline tax, airlines, and we don’t subsidize, we don’t want to subsidize a national rail system that has environmental impact. ~Joe Biden (He can say some good things occasionally!)