Progressive Derecho

I just liked the name--a series of thunderstorms which create winds of hurricane levels. The damage here is just two huge branches down and internet off. But over 1 million residents in the D.C. area are without energy and even water in some places. The temperature has hit 105. More storms are expected tonight with less severity.


Have you noticed how much we talk about weather these days compared to the more recent past? The chairman of ExxonMobil said this week that global warming is real and that humankind contributes mightily to it. But he said we just have to adapt to it.


Meanwhile the Western states aren't adapting so well as President Obama informed us in his weekly address from Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs,a haven of libertarians, complained as their homes were burning down that the federal government was not doing enough and blamed President Obama. The specific charge against President Obama was that he cut back funding for the tankers who can spray water on the forest fires. This was widely circulated in the Colorado papers with refutations about the utility of these tankers. In D.C., President Obama was seen as using his incumbency in a swing state to show he was presidential. I remember a candidate Obama helping out in the Iowa floods during 2008. I haven't seen Mitt Romney anywhere near a natural disaster yet. For his part, President Obama has been quite on his toes reacting to natural disasters, which seem to grow by the month,in an attempt to counter the criticisms leveled against President Bush and his non-reaction to Hurricane Katrina.


We heard that the Tea Party will return in full force on July 4th to start the campaign for repealing the Healthcare Bill. Like 2010, they argue this is a great trampling on freedom. I don't see how you are freer sick, impoverished and thrown off health insurance. In their strange logic, wouldn't you think that people who refuse to get health insurance are free-loaders or moochers? I'm sorry this leaves me cold. Tea Party "leaders" are starting to argue that the time has come for a national insurrection because of the healthcare bill. Bruce Bartlett had a mean quip,"The Supreme Court that can make you buy health insurance is the Supreme Court which can also make you serve African-Americans in a restaurant." The feel of this manufactured outrage has a lot of the animosity of expressed during the days of the civil rights movement. With a hot summer, who knows where it will lead.


Another day and another media barrage of conservatives raging against the largest tax increase in history. We've already gone over this but it is interesting to note that the increase in fees primarily rests on medical and health care businesses that don't follow the law. These were already known and were a reason that the health insurance industry spent $250 million to lobby against the bill. The other fee people forget is the tax on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans that few middle class Americans have.


The Republican governors are mounting a real guard action against the healthcare plan by refusing to extend Medicare coverage, a key element to reaching poorer people, and by refusing to create the health insurance exchanges. If you actually believe in markets to govern insurance premiums as the Republicans claim, then you should applaud exchanges and implement them. The exchanges in my opinion will be the engine to enlarge the number of the insured.


For all the talk that the healthcare bill will kill jobs, the CBO has pointed out it will generate about 4 million jobs. 


The kicker with all this verbiage from the Right is that the health insurance industry will be giving more than $1 billion in rebates to individuals and companies because they did not follow the caps on administrative costs. Will we see this reported anywhere when it happens? 


A doctor writing on a left-wing blog speaks about the benefits of the healthcare bill but talked about how health costs have risen over the last 3 decades. I do not know whether it is true but he blames this in part on the Reagan-era law where everyone who goes to the emergency room must be treated. He says that emergency room treatment is far more expensive than any other kind and drove the costs up and they were spread to those who were insured. Interesting theory. 


I saw that my BFD Transportation Act got covered today in the New York Times. It seems to me that "Job, Jobs,Jobs" Boehner should have touted this as one of his great achievements since it really will create jobs. 


The Transportation Act creates or saves 3 million jobs. The Healthcare Act creates over 4 million jobs. That is seven times the jobs created during the eight years of the Bush era. At this rate, we may still have an economy left.


Do you have a feeling we have lost the narrative for this election? I got the anti-Obama part but now what are the issues? Governance against no-governance? Obey the 1% versus Change? So far I have no idea what Romney's policies are. All I know is that the entire Healthcare program will cost only 50% of the costs of the tax cuts Romney will give the top 10%. I guess the choice is what kind of America do you want and what kind of Supreme Court will make that possible.