Where's the Outrage?

Cities, counties and states are proposing regressive sales tax increases at the ballot box next week to fund various initiatives, close budget shortfalls and reduce property taxes.

This according to a report in USA Today.

You’d think these proposals would come from Republicans. Sales taxes are regressive flat taxes where the poor, the wealthy and everybody in-between pays the same. This is in contrast to a progressive income tax.

Yet such proposals are on the ballot in Democratic-leaning Maryland, New Jersey and Cook County, Illinois. Chicago is in Cook County.

If this is proposed tax policy in places where Democrats are in control, what hope do we have for fair taxation?

The progressive income tax is at the heart of the income redistribution and funding of social programs that stand at the core of liberalism. If Democrats are not on board with this, who will be?

Raising sales taxes to fund property tax cuts is simply redistributing income upwards.

Please click here for an article relating the benefits of the income tax. 

Hopefully voters around the country will reject sales tax increases and demand a fair and progressive income tax to meet the needs of society.

Tags: Other Political Thoughts, Taxes by Neil Aquino
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Jon Stewart gives a pretty good interview.  Probably the best part of the interview was when she comments on Robert Novak.  She doesn’t say that he was a worthless neocon tool.  But she does say something about as good, “He has about as much credibility as this administration.”  I love it.

TDS - Plame [ 6:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: The Daily Show, Valerie Plame by ecthompson md
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Barack Obama has really said some great things on the campaign trail.  He is not a “sound bite” kind of guy.  He is a “sit back and listen to his paragraphs” kind of guy.  None of the “flaps” that the Republicans have pointed to were anything but solid policy decisions in my book.

Here he discusses the problem with the Iranian vote which Hillary Clinton strongly supported.

Obama Diplomacy [ 1:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Iran by ecthompson md
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The most surprising question was about doctors and their decreasing income.  Average Americans, as a rule, aren’t that sympathetic with doctors but, it is true that doctors have had a decreasing income for some time.  To our government, decreasing Medicare and Medicaid expenditures meant decreasing reimbursement to physicians and hospitals.  This has been the standard practice for over 2 decades.  A solo family practitioner could make between $150 – $200,000 in the early 1980′s.  Now, a solo family doc makes about $156,000 per year.  No change.  That’s a problem.  Then, add in tuition costs for college and medical school.  Many of physicians are graduating medical school owing between $100,000 – $250,000.  During residency, some loan institutions will allow you to defer payments but, the interest continues to build so you owe even more.

The cost of care is one of the things that really chaps Americans.  Just driving by a hospital can cost thousands.  Many Americans incorrectly assume that doctors are the major cost in medicine.  In a recent study on clinic AIDS patients at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the costs that most people associated with medicine (physician and nursing costs) added up to less than two percent of the patients yearly cost of treatment.  Sixty percent of the costs were in medication expenses.  Sixty percent!!!

Anyway, the answers that I heard were very interesting.  John Edwards is 100% correct that we are going to have … already having a severe nursing shortage.  Beds are currently closed at hospitals around the country because there aren’t enough nurses.

Biden’s answer was great.  Dodd’s answer was okay.  Edwards was great but, he didn’t really answer the question.  Clinton really didn’t say anything except that her plan answers something.  Obama’s answer is good but not complete (unclear how you can give a complete answer in 30 seconds).  Kucinich’s answer for universal Medicare will probably not help doctors but will increase access to health care for many Americans.  Governor Richardson’s proposal will not increase reimbursement for physicians and I’m not sure how it will attract more physicians.  In my opinion, Senator Biden’s answer was the most complete.

Physician problem in the US [ 4:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Healthcare by ecthompson md
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The video below tells the tale of a monk who started the resistance movement but had to leave the country of Myanmar because he feared for his life.

More on this topic – here and here.

Cintinued violence in Myanmar [ 2:42 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Foreign Affairs by ecthompson md
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It has been almost 2 weeks ago when Michael Mukasey was testifying in the Senate and Senator Whitehouse asked him a direct question. Is Waterboarding (simulated drowning) torture? He couldn’t or wouldn’t directly answer the question. I wrote that he should be rejected right then. There was nothing else that needed to be considered. So, we have gotten bogged down in the exact definition of waterboarding. I heard on the Diane Rehm show some legal expert split the finest of hairs. He said something like if water actually gets into the lungs then that’s torture. If it doesn’t then it isn’t. What? How could anyone possibly say that simulated drowning isn’t torture (besides mind-numbing neocons)?

Several blogs discuss waterboarding and this horrors  – here and here.   Malcolm Nance, a 20 year veteran of counter- intelligence, has written this great article on waterboarding.

I’ll link to an earlier video in which waterboarding is demonstrated.

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From WaPo:

Democratic support for attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey dwindled further yesterday over his refusal to comment on the legality of a harsh CIA interrogation technique, setting the stage for an unexpectedly close vote next week by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) announced that they will join Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) in voting against Mukasey on the Judiciary panel, after the nominee said in a four-page letter to Senate Democrats that he does not know whether a type of simulated drowning called waterboarding constitutes illegal torture under U.S. law. (more…)

Mukasey in trouble [ 1:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Torture, War on Terror by ecthompson md
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If you want to get into an argument with a group of people, any group of people, bring up the death penalty. If you play your cards right you get a real fight to break out. Americans don’t really have a consensus opinion on the death penalty. So, there is no wonder that we don’t agree on lethal injection either.

I’m not sure that you can say that injecting drugs into someone to kill them is cruel and unusual punishment. Then again, I don’t believe that the State should be in the business of killing its own citizens for any reason. Here’s the problem that I see. Doctors who make up the cocktail of drugs that are to be given to the prisoner seem to have an ethical dilemma. You can’t be in the business of saving lives and relieving suffering if you are actively killing a healthy human being. So, who is going to give the meds? Who should give the meds?

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From WaPo:

The Supreme Court issued an eleventh-hour stay for a Mississippi murderer scheduled to be put to death last night, the third execution the justices have blocked since agreeing to decide whether lethal injections violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The reprieve came less than an hour before Earl Wesley Berry was to be put to death for the kidnapping and murder of Mary Bounds in rural Mississippi in 1987.

Death penalty activists and criminal justice experts said the court’s action is further evidence of a de facto moratorium on executions until it decides the lethal injection issue. The court itself has not declared such intentions, but its actions in Berry’s case were closely watched for clues. (more…)

Death Penalty [ 2:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Supreme court by ecthompson md
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