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Comments and observations about disabilities provide us with revealing insights:
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see…No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit…”I also dislike people who try to talk down to my understanding. They are like people who when walking with you try to shorten their steps to suit yours; the hypocrisy in both cases is equally exasperating.” - Helen Keller (1880-1968), born blind and deaf.
“The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus–the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.” - Helen Keller
“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.” - Helen Keller
“Each handicap is like a hurdle in a steeplechase, and when you ride up to it, if you throw your heart over, the horse will go along, too.” - Lawrence Bixby, author of over 40 books.
“We all have a disability of some kind; all are lacking in one way or another. Saul has an injury to his leg. What if his personality was deformed? How much worse if his soul was lame? Preachers or teachers look for the good in all of us. (Bless them for doing so.) I don’t see a cripple. I haven’t met anyone yet who isn’t handicapped in some way. So what’s the big deal? Don’t hide your deformity. Wear it like a Purple Heart.” - Georgiann Baldino, author, co-founder of cancer support group.
“I discovered early that the hardest thing to overcome is not a physical disability but the mental condition which it induces. The world, I found, has a way of taking a man pretty much at his own rating. If he permits his loss to make him embarrassed and apologetic, he will draw embarrassment from others. But if he gains his own respect, the respect of those around him comes easily.” - Alexander de Seversky (1894-1974), aviation pioneer.
“But pain… seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?” - Lois McMaster Bujold (1949-), science fiction writer.
“The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he’s got an abscess on his knee or in his soul.” - Rona Barrett (1936-), Hollywood columnist, author, TV personality, suffers with multiple sclerosis.
“Disability is not a brave struggle or ‘courage in the face of adversity.’ Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.” - Neil Marcus (1954-), poet, playwright, disabled from age eight.
“Not only do physically disabled people have experiences which are not available to the able-bodied, they are in a better position to transcend cultural mythologies about the body, because they cannot do things the able-bodied feel they must do in order to be happy, ‘normal,’ and sane….If disabled people were truly heard, an explosion of knowledge of the human body and psyche would take place.”
- Susan Wendell, Ph.D., feminist author, suffers with chronic fatigue syndrome.
“For me, the wheelchair symbolizes disability in a way a cane does not.” - Annette Funicello (1942-), actress, suffers with multiple sclerosis.
“A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.” - William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), author, poet, columnist.
“It (hepatitis C) will kill four times as many Americans as AIDS will over the next decade. I feel that whatever kind of disability God has given me, as an entertainer and as a public figure, it is so I can be a representative for others.” - Naomi Judd (1946-), singer, entertainer, mother of actress Ashley Judd and singer Wynonna Judd, suffered with hepatitis C.
“Americans believe that people should work hard and get ahead on their own, but when disaster strikes and they need help with retirement or disability, Americans as a whole should come to their aid.” - Jacob Hacker, Ph.D. (1971-), professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley.
“Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you’re needed by someone.” - Martina Navratilova (1956-), world champion tennis player.
“Congress acknowledged that society’s accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.” - William J. Brennan, Jr. (1906-1997), Associate Justice of U.S. Supreme Court.
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” - Scott Hamilton (1958-), American figure skater, four time Olympic champion.
“I was slightly brain damaged at birth, and I want people like me to see that they shouldn’t let a disability get in the way. I want to raise awareness - I want to turn my disability into ability.” - Susan Boyle (1961-), Scottish singer.
“It is a lonely existence to be a child with a disability which no-one can see or understand, you exasperate your teachers, you disappoint your parents, and worst of all you know that you are not just stupid.” - Susan Hampshire (1937-), English actress, TV star.
“It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I’m not crazy about using.” - Marlee Matlin (1965-), American actress, deaf (from 18 months of age).
In a society that bases life and death decisions on cost, such as the QALY system in Great Britain, it’s easy to see how it’s possible to deny health care to people who may have the potential for great accomplishments.
For example, Helen Keller, who was born blind and deaf, through the patience and perseverance of her nurse and companion, ultimately became a world renown figure for her accomplishments in helping the handicapped. However, my guess is that if she were born at a time when the health care industry was making cost-based decisions about who should live or die, she would not have been spared. She has been quoted as saying, “I dreamt of heaven the other night, and the pearly gates swung wide. An angel with halo bright, ushered me inside. And there to my astonishment, stood folks I’d judged and labeled as quite ‘unfit,’ of ‘little worth,’ and ‘spiritually disabled.’ Indignant words rose to my lips, but NEVER were set free, for EVERY face showed stunned surprise, not ONE expected Me!”
Another person who probably would not be with us today where the health care system restricts access on the basis of cost is one of world’s greatest physicists, Stephen Hawking (1942-). Hawking has suffered for approximately 40 years with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The list of his accomplishments is too long to detail here, but he has authored a number of important contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, including “black holes.” Hawking developed ALS in his youth, while attending Cambridge, and has become increasingly paralyzed over the years, to the point that today he is almost completely immobile and can no longer speak. He has been quoted as saying, “It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.”
If the British QALY system for evaluating the worth of individuals had existed at the time Stephen Hawking first became paralyzed, would he have received the care and support that has kept him alive for the past 40 or 50 years, or would the cost of his care resulted in the conclusion that it was simply too expensive?
There is a long list of people who have made significant contributions to society and who might well have been denied health care on the basis of cost under the British QALY system or a similar policy that could potentially become the method for health care decision-making in America under the type of health care reform that the Obama administration has been pushing. Following are just some examples:
Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), actor: Was crippled as a result of a horse-riding injury and dedicated the remaining years of his life attempting to harness the power of medical research to enable people with spinal cord injuries to recover and walk again.
Ray Charles (1930-2004), musician: Became blind at age seven, learned to play the piano and went on to be one of America’s greatest entertainers.
Jose Feliciano (1950-), Stevie Wonder (1950-) and Ronnie Milsap (1945-), composers and musicians: Were all born blind and overcame their handicaps to become leading song writers and entertainers.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), U.S. President 1933-1945: suffered with Polio, which he contracted in 1921.
Louis Braille (1809-1852), inventor of the Braille System of reading and writing. Became blind at age 3 as a result of an accident.
Anne McDonald (1961-), Australian author and activist for the rights of people with communication disability. She developed cerebral palsy as a result of a birth injury. Diagnosed as having severe intellectual disability at the age of three she was placed in an Australian government institution for people with severe disabilities and lived there without education or therapy for eleven years. Anne wrote her story in Annie’s Coming Out, a book she co-authored with Rosemary Crossley in 1980 (the film Annie’s Coming Out based on the book won several Australian Film Institute awards and was released in the U.S. under the title Test of Love).
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978), two-term Vice President of the U.S. and U.S. Senator, is credited with saying: “The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life . . . the children; those who are in the twilight of life . . . the elderly; and those who are in the shadow of life . . . the sick . . . the needy . . . and the disabled.”
Important words everyone should keep in mind during the current debate about reforming America’s health care system. If the changes lead to health care rationing and decision making about who lives and who dies based on monetary considerations, we will not have moved forward but backward in our quest for fairness and equity.
QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Score) is the methodology used by the United Kingdom (UK) to determine whether or not an individual is eligible to receive treatment for an illness. The formula reduces the decision making to a dollars and cents evaluation. In short, if it costs too much, the patient is denied care.
Fortunately, we have not yet reached the point where our own health care is decided purely on the basis of cost. Or have we?
As legislators and the public have debated health care reform, claims and counterclaims by each side that the other is trying to scare the public into supporting their position have only served to confuse the issue. However, comments made by Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration, now an Obama economics advisor, are worth noting. While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination at the UC Berkeley campus in 2007, he said:
I’m so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on healthcare. Look, we are we have the only healthcare system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That’s true. And what I’m going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people, but that means you, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people, you are going to have to pay more.
And by the way, we are going to have to, if you are very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive. So we’re going to let you die.
Also I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you.
Secretary Reich’s honesty is refreshing. However, since honesty and transparency are hardly hallmarks of the Obama administration and Congress, we are forced to read between the lines in an effort to determine their true intent for reforming America’s health care system. Is it now the prevailing attitude that the government intends to let old people die because caring for them is too costly?
The Brits’ QALY system is used to make life and death decisions about which patients will receive care or medicines. The decision-making process is reduced to a formula for rationing health care based on age and the estimated costs of providing medical treatment and/or services, including prescription drugs. (see http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/che/pdf/mathprog.pdf).
David Lee, a GE health economist, explained QALY as “…Quality adjusted life year, a year of life adjusted for its quality or its value. A year in perfect health is considered equal to 1.0 QALY. The value of a year in ill health would be discounted. For example, a year bedridden might have a value equal to 0.5 QALY…We try and evaluate benefits and costs. The way we measure that is a QALY, quality adjusted life year…We try to figure out what the QALY for certain technologies are. Is the gain in QALYs to the gain in costs worth it? The UK has something like £30,000 per QALY. If the technology can deliver at less than that they’ll pay for it, if it’s more than that they won’t…What it’s telling technology developers is that if you’ve got a high cost with low medical benefit product your chances of getting into market are lower. If you’re a cancer patient that stands to benefit from an additional three months of life that will cost the NHS (National Health Service) $70k is it worth it or not?”
This places a monetary value on human life. Decisions are made based on life expectancy. If a particular treatment isn’t determined to be worth the cost, care is denied. The rationale is that, while these may be difficult decisions to make, they are necessary. The thinking is that there has to be some way to measure costs in order to keep them from getting completely out of control. On the surface, that may make sense, unless, of course, you’re the one who needs the treatment.
Once again, the admonition, “be careful what you wish for,” applies.
Assumptions are not facts. They’re guesses. Sometimes right on, sometimes way off or somewhere in between. But, when it comes to Social Security, regardless of the accuracy of the assumptions used in the various forecasts, the reality is that the system is going broke. The question is not “if” but “when.”
Start with the fact that the Social Security administration does not have any funds in trust or investment accounts, such as stocks, bonds, savings accounts. The entire system is actually a giant Ponzi-type pay-as-you-go scheme that takes the payroll taxes of those who are still working and distributes it to retirees. Individuals who hustle similar dishonest “investments” are sent directly to jail without passing “Go,” but it’s OK for Congress.
“Any surplus is not saved or invested for pensioners. Those funds are borrowed by the federal government to pay current operating expenses and replaced with government bonds…..the federal government lends itself the excess in return for an interest-paying bond, an IOU that it issues to itself……The funds are not invested for the benefit of present or future retirees.” (Source: Retiring With Dignity: Social Security vs. Private Markets, William G. Shipman, The CATO Project, August 14, 1995).
What a brilliant idea, having the government borrow money from itself and issue IOUs to itself, promising to pay it back later. But wait, doesn’t the money all come from the same pocket, the taxpayers, right? If you’re confused by this, don’t fret, you’re not alone. The entire setup is nothing more than a giant shell game: now you see the money, now you don’t, which shell is it under?
Our Social Security program has worked to this point because money has been coming in faster than it has been going out. But that’s about to end. Charles Krauthammer, writing in the Washington Post (2005), noted that in 2018 the “pay-as-you-go system starts paying out more (in Social Security benefits) than goes in (in payroll taxes)…But because the population is aging, in 13 years [now 9 years] the system begins to go into the red.” At that point, Social Security will only be able to pay 73% of “promised benefits” to retirees.
If you’re not yet convinced that Social Security is going broke, here are some stats worth considering (Source: Retiring With Dignity: Social Security vs. Private Markets, William G. Shipman, The CATO Project, August 14, 1995):
In 1935, when the Social Security Act was adopted, life expectancy at birth was 64 years; in 1995 it was 75.8; today it’s over 78.
The birth rate was 3.56 in 1950, 2.0 in 1995 and is currently something less than 2.0.
There were 16 workers for every Social Security recipient in 1950; 3.3 in 1995, and the ratio has been projected at less than 2.0 in 2030.
In 1937, the maximum Social Security Tax was $60 on $3,000 of income. Today, it’s $6,621 on $106,800 of income, over a 10,000% increase. (NOTE: Remember, the employer matches the employee’s contribution).
These numbers clearly demonstrate why Social Security is going under: people are living (read collecting benefits) longer, and there are fewer workers paying into the system to support each retiree. In about 20 years, less than two workers are expected to be paying into the system to support each beneficiary, compared to 16 in 1950.
It doesn’t take a math major or a Ph.d to recognize that the program can’t be sustained without making some drastic changes.
Furthermore, Social Security was not really intended to be a retirement program. The politicians who devised the program in 1935, including FDR, knew perfectly well at the time that most Americans wouldn’t live long enough to collect any benefits.
The United States is not alone in being confronted with the dilemma of a failing national pension system. It’s a universal problem, affecting all the European nations and Russia, among others.
One solution might be to drastically reduce benefits for all social security beneficiaries. How much no one knows, but it could easily be a third or more.
Another alternative is to increase the retirement age, which will slow the rate of outgo, although that will ultimately not be enough of a fix. Raising the age of eligibility (to 67) is already being phased in.
A third possibility is to raise taxes, dramatically. Hardly an attractive option.
Or, the government could borrow the money to cover the shortfall, which currently adds up to something in excess of $17.1 trillion, an astonishing unfunded liability.
Of course, the problem could be fixed by reducing other government spending. However, since the discretionary portion of the federal budget is relatively small, it would mean significant cuts in other expenditures, such as defense, education, highways, energy, welfare, or the host of so-called “entitlement” programs. Not very likely.
The term “greedy corporations” or its equivalent seems to appear regularly in commentaries about health care, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, energy, minimum wage, housing, the mortgage crisis, tax policy, etc. – just about every economic or social issue. “Greedy corporations” and, by implication, their “greedy” owners are said to be responsible for many of the ills that befall our society. However, as Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.”
To begin with, corporations aren’t greedy or generous or socially conscious or anything else, for that matter. They are merely a legal fiction, entities created by the state for the purpose of facilitating the conduct of business. They can sue and be sued in the courts, but they do not eat, breathe, love or hate, or vote, or any of the other things that people do. So, how can they exhibit such human characteristics as greed? And, if corporations can’t actually be greedy themselves, then perhaps it is their owners and managers who are.
And, who might these terrible people be? They are your friends, relatives, neighbors, church and community leaders, directors and executives of non-profit entities, school administrators - just about any leader of any organization, perhaps you yourself. No doubt you may think some of them are greedy, but certainly not all, or even most of them. Who qualifies as greedy and who makes that determination? You do, of course.
Major corporations, such as the Fortune 500 companies, are generally owned by many thousands or millions of shareholders, often through union pension trusts, retirement plans, mutual funds and other entities that make large investments on behalf of their individual investors - “Us.” However, for the most part, small corporations are businesses that don’t have enough economic power to influence anyone. They are usually just vehicles for managing the affairs of businesses that provide a way for their owner-operators to make a living, and their profits are often not much more than wages. Are these the greedy corporations we read or hear about so often?
A total of approximately 2.5 million corporate tax returns were filed in 2007 (IRS Statistics), and in 2005 over 3.7 million small businesses were organized as “Subchapter S” (Sub S) corporations. These corporations pay little or no income tax on their earnings because they are treated like partnerships for tax reporting purposes. Generally referred to as “pass through” entities, their earnings are simply passed through directly to the owners, who include them on their personal income tax returns and pay taxes on the corporate profits at individual rates.
Further demonstrating the extent to which “greedy corporations” are “us,” U.S. Department of Commerce statistics indicate that “Small firms (less than 500 employees) represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms…Employ just over half of all private sector employees…Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll…Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.” These small enterprises account for 52 percent of all U.S. workers (U.S. Small Business Administration)…By contrast, 47.7 million Americans work for firms with 500 or more employees.”
If corporations can’t actually be greedy, and if their owners are, for the most part, “us,” where does the notion of “greedy corporations” come from, and why? The obvious answer is from the media and other special interest groups, including politicians, who want to influence the public’s perception of various issues. Too often people are duped into accepting broad brush character assassination that is specifically intended to influence them for political purposes.
No one ever seems to point out that the critics who label someone else as greedy are, in fact, often guilty of the same behavior themselves. Taxpayers are called greedy if they want to keep their own money, but politicians who want to take it from them and spend it themselves are not. Or, large corporations, as in drug, oil and energy, financial institutions or insurance companies, are labeled greedy when prices go up and their profits increase but not when prices go down and they lose money.
Sometimes there are cases in which profits appear to be so extreme that it’s easy to characterize them as greedy. However, in the final analysis, greed is not bad but good. Greed is actually nothing more than self-interest at work. It is the lubricant that makes the wheels of commerce turn, not just in capitalist America but everywhere in every type of economic system, including socialism and communism.
Unfortunately, it has become acceptable to lose money but it’s greedy to make a profit, unless, of course, it’s our own profit
WOW. Imagine being selected to win a major award without even trying. How great is that? Considering that President Obama was selected as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner after only eleven days in office, without having yet done anything of note, it makes me wonder if I might not be eligible for a Pulitzer Prize for the commentaries I write. Not that I have been nominated by any newspapers or that any of my columns have been singled out for special recognition. They haven’t, nor do I think they should be. But, hey, why should that matter?
Reaction to Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize has been mixed. Those who think he has not accomplished anything of consequence believe the award is completely unjustified, while his supporters argue that he has earned it because he has changed the tone of international diplomacy, especially the aggressive policy of the United States that was the hallmark of the Bush administration.
The Wall Street Journal commented, “The award reflects the enormous hopes invested in Mr. Obama, both in the U.S. and abroad, since he entered the White House, and occasionally unrealistic expectations that his presidency could change the face of international diplomacy.”
TimesONLINE in the UK noted, “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval of the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world…Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronizing in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.”
Three comments about Obama’s award sent to me by a good friend are of particular interest:
“Former President Jimmy Carter, who won in 2002, called Obama’s selection a ‘bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment.’” This from a man who continues to pursue the historical legacy that he seems to believe is his due but has yet to receive.
“Former Vice President Al Gore, who won two years ago, said, ‘I think that much of what he has accomplished already is going to be far more appreciated in the eyes of history, as it has been by the Nobel committee.’” Al Gore’s Nobel Prize was for his subsequently discredited PowerPoint presentation about global warming.
And, “Sen. John McCain, told CNN he could not divine the Nobel Committee’s intentions, ‘but I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I’m sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to. But as Americans, we’re proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.’”
I can agree with Senator McCain’s thought about being proud but, unfortunately, I am not able to associate that feeling with president Obama.
In light of the forgoing opinions, how does Obama stack up against some of the Nobel Peace Prize winners in prior years? You decide.
2008: Maartti Ahtisaari, Finland, for his important efforts to resolve international conflicts.
2006: Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh, Founder of Grameen Bank, for efforts to create economic
and social development from below.
1993: Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk, South Africa, for their work in ending
apartheid.
1989: The 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet
1986: Elie Wiesel, USA, Chairman of The President’s Commission on the Holocaust
1983: Lech Walesa, Poland, founder of Solidatet trade union, which led to the fall of the
Communist government in his nation.
1979: Mother Teresa, leader of Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, for a life dedicated to those
who lived in poverty.
1964: Martin Luther King, Jr., USA, Leader of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
1951: Albert Schweitzer, France, Missionary surgeon, founder of Lambarene
1950: Ralph Bunche, USA, Acting mediator in Palestine
1936: Carlos Saavedra, Argentina, Mediator in conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia
1917: The International Red Cross
Although Mahatma Ghandi never received a Nobel Prize, he was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally in 1948, a few days before he was murdered. Several winners believed in and followed his philosophy of peace and non-violence, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama.
The Nobel Prize dates back to 1901 and, until now, has generally been awarded to people whose accomplishments spanned periods of many years. To my knowledge, this is the first time the recipient has yet to accomplish anything except talk.
So, returning to my earlier question, How does Obama stack up against Nobel Prize winners from prior years?
George Orwell wrote two books over 60 years ago in which he predicted the future of society with remarkable prescience: “Animal Farm” and “1984”. Many of his observations can easily be applied to the political situation in America today. Consider the following quotes from “Animal Farm,” which was written in 1945:
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” NOTE: This has become increasingly difficult in America today because of the failure of our media to meet its responsibility of “speaking truth to power” rather than submitting to it.
“Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.” NOTE the growing trend in today’s America to label people as un-American when they disagree over policy.
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” NOTE: We need only to listen to the representations of our politicians today to recognize the truth of this observation.
“Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” (Including the current generation of Americans).
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” When the animals take over the farm, they think it is the start of a better life. Their dream is of a world where all animals are equal and all property is shared. But soon the pigs take control and one of them, Napoleon, becomes the leader of all the animals. One by one the principles of the revolution are abandoned, until the animals have even less freedom than before. NOTE how this applies to the trend in America today.
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
“Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” NOTE how this applies to the political class in America today, who increasingly talk more with the appearance of authority yet say nothing of any significance or meaning.
“Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”
“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” NOTE the naked pursuit of power by politicians at all levels in America today.
“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
Following are some of the many cogent observations that George Orwell made in his second book, “1984”:
“Big Brother is watching you.” NOTE the massive intrusion of government in our lives today. This is perhaps best exemplified by the federal income tax code (now estimated to require 66,000 pages to document) and the power of the IRS to define and enforce tax regulations and collect taxes.
“The best books . . . are those that tell you what you know already.”
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
“But the proles (the people), if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet —–!” NOTE the fierce, largely spontaneous resistance that has recently developed to the massive deficit spending and expansion of government in the lives of Americans.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” NOTE: As the size and reach of government continues to grow beyond all expectations, the power of the government has become increasingly oppressive. As Lord Acton (1834-1902) famously said, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
George Orwell’s observations were made more than 60 years ago about the future of society, and politics in today’s America is remarkably accurate and more than a little scary to contemplate. My sense is that if the American people do not take their government back from their politicians, our nation’s future will look increasingly like George Orwell’s “1984.”
The Obama administration is turning over every rock it thinks might be hiding a tax that can be imposed to solve the growing problems created by their massive deficit spending. Following is a partial list of the major financial commitments Obama has already made:
A deficit budget that is now expected to exceed $9 trillion over the next ten years,
The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),
The $787 billion Stimulus bill,
The proposed health care plan that has been scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office at $1.6 trillion,
The $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program, and
The “Cap and Trade” program, which will significantly increase the cost of energy.
And to think, all this has been done in just the seven months since Obama became president. With almost three-and-a-half years remaining in his term in office, there’s no telling how much more of the taxpayers’ money this spendthrift president and the Congress will go through.
However, the big question is: Where will they be able to find enough money to pay for all the additional commitments they plan to make, in addition to those that are already on the books?
Obama is now faced with a dilemma: If he continues to spend money without having the revenue to pay for it, he will further exacerbate the financial disaster he has already been launched and is leading the nation down the path of inflation to the possibility of hyperinflation. It could result in the complete destruction of the nation’s monetary system. However, even if he stops spending, he will still have to increase the federal government’s revenue by trillions of dollars.
So, it’s clear that he will have to increase taxes. But how?
Increasing income taxes across the board will violate Obama’s promise not to increase the taxes of the middle class by “one dime,” specifically anyone whose income is under $250,000 a year. And, although taxing the rich fits his social and economic models, it can’t possibly generate enough revenue to pay for everything that’s already on his plate, let alone any new programs, such as health care. Since the top 5% of wage earners already pay over 54% of all federal income taxes and the top 10% pay almost 66% of all federal income taxes, it’s clear that it will not be possible to pay for tens of trillions of increased expenditures by taxing “the rich.” Even the total federal income tax revenue of around $11.15 trillion would not come close to paying for everything (2007 IRS statistics).
And, a national sales tax would also be a problem, because it is already an important source of revenue for most states. Forty-five of the fifty states have a state sales tax, ranging from 4% to 7.25%.
This doesn’t leave Obama with many other options.
Enter the Value Added Tax (VAT). The VAT is a consumption tax that is “levied on any value that is added to a product.” (Wikipedia) It differs from a sales tax, which is levied only at the point of final consumption, by being imposed on the “value added” at each stage of production through the manufacturing and wholesale processes.
The VAT was created in 1954 by France, where it has now brings in 52% of that nation’s revenues. It has a number of advantages, not the least of which is that it is an indirect tax and, therefore, is generally not visible to the ultimate user or consumer. This is accomplished by collecting the VAT from everyone who adds value to a product as it moves through various stages of production and processing to the end user. Double taxation is avoided by enabling businesses to recover the VAT that is charged on the materials and services they buy to use in producing their own products or seervices.
The primary reason for creating the VAT was to avoid the cheating and smuggling that generally result from high sales taxes. However, it has also been criticized because it is regressive, in that it has a greater impact on those with low income. Another negative of the VAT is that it requires a large bureaucracy to manage, regulate and collect the tax as products and services move through the process to the ultimate consumer. More jobs and work for the IRS bureaucracy, I suppose.
Considering the situation that Obama is now facing, the VAT looks like the most likely source to raise the taxes that are needed to pay for his agenda. It probably won’t take too long to find out.
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