The curious paradox of modern life: technology has brought us closer together and, at the same time, makes it so you can’t even hear what’s happening right down the street.
Look Behind GM’s Curtain!
There’s been a lot of good news coming out of federally-owned General Motors (GM) lately, which you should pay attention to since you, the American taxpayer, are the majority shareholder in this company whether you wanted to be or not. I’m still searching for the clause in the Constitution that authorized this, by the way . . . I’ll let you know as soon as I find it.
So, the good news from Detroit: First, GM announced last month that it was going to pay off its entire $5.8 billion in government loans. Then, this month, the company announced its first quarterly profit since 2007. Awesome!
The problem is that it’s all a lie. That’s not a word I use lightly, but it’s the only one that really describes what’s happening here. It’s like a home listing in a newspaper showing a picture of the front porch of a lovely house, without revealing that—just out of frame—the vast majority of the house is a burned-out shell. What do you find when you look behind the curtain?
Who Knew? TARP Angered Fiscal Conservatives
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government. The old political dichotomy in this country was between the Democrats—who wanted to increase the size, breadth, authorities, and cost of the federal government—and the Republicans who wanted to do the opposite. If you wanted a small, limited federal government, you voted Republican.
That was a nice theory, but the Republicans didn’t always practice what they preached. The Reagan revolution in the 1980’s and Contract With America in the 1990’s all promised reduced federal spending, and both delivered on those promises . . . at least to a point, and at least for a while. Things quickly went back to ‘business as usual’ in Washington, though. President George W. Bush (R) and the Republican Congress he enjoyed for much of his presidency expanded the federal government and increased our deficits, contrary to the wishes of the fiscal conservatives (like myself) that voted them into office.
The death-knell for Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign in 2008 was his idiotic move to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to help pass the bipartisan 700 billion dollar TARP bailout plan that virtually no Americans outside of the Wall Street intelligentsia supported. Then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) also voted for TARP, but he at least had the good sense not to say so very loudly. The TARP bailout was the first 700 billion dollars of many trillions of dollars since wasted for ill-advised socialist bailouts under both Bush and President Barack Obama (D). Anybody with sense opposed them; they passed in Congress with wide Republican support.
Now, many of those Republicans (including McCain) who supported TARP are finding themselves on the receiving end of a vicious (and well-deserved) populist backlash. The Republican Party has already found several of its ‘establishment’ politicos being supplanted by people with actual records of fiscal conservatism . . . you know, people who don’t think that sending trillions of your tax dollars to bankrupt banks and car companies made any sense.
People like me who have generally voted Republican for many years are rejecting those ‘Republicans in Name Only’ who supported TARP and these other monstrosities of anti-American legislation. Politico.com says that votes for TARP ‘trap’ GOP incumbents and, indeed, they do—they ‘trap’ them in their own hypocrisy, and they deserve it.
Letter to Cigna Health Care
So, I got a letter from my health insurance company—Cigna Health Care—with a questionnaire about one of Melissa’s health insurance claims. Apparently, the company was concerned that the pathologist from Melissa’s surgery in January might have been dealing with a ‘pre-existing condition’ (though, apparently, the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and hospital room that all filed claims for the same surgery passed without inquiry).
Let me know if you think my cover letter on the questionnaire response gets my point across . . .
Dear Sir or Madam:
In response to your inquiry of 4/29/2010 regarding the above referenced claim number, please find our response to your Pre-Existing Condition Questionnaire enclosed.
Please note that Melissa has been a Cigna customer for several years without interruption. The only change in that time has been a one-time switch from her employer’s Cigna plan to my employer’s Cigna plan. This change occurred with no interruption; in fact, there was an about 1-month overlap of coverage between the two plans.
I would respectfully suggest that any further inquiries regarding Melissa’s medical history, or inquiries relating to her ‘prior creditable coverage,’ be referred to your own company records and not to us.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Scott Bradford
For the record, just because I opposed the particular health care reform plan passed by Congress doesn’t mean I think the system doesn’t need fixing. . . .
Presidents Are Entitled to Their Appointments
In writing my brief report about President Barack Obama’s (D) appointment of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court, I discovered that she had been appointed to the federal judiciary once before by President Bill Clinton (D). The appointment, toward the end of Clinton’s presidency, was not acted on by the Republican-controlled Congress. After the end of Clinton’s term, President George W. Bush (R) made is own appointment for the still-vacant appeals court position that Kagan had been appointed to.
This is a long-standing point of contention of mine with both of our political parties: the Constitution requires that the U.S. Senate give its ‘advice and consent’ to the president when he makes political appointments (Article II, Section 2). When the Senate filibusters the president’s nominations or otherwise delays or interrupts or stops the appointment process, it is skirting its Constitutional responsibilities. Every presidential appointee, Republican or Democrat, is entitled to a plain, prompt up-or-down vote in the Senate. Period.
There are plenty of valid reasons for the Senate to not give its consent to a particular appointee: if an appointee is legitimately unqualified for their intended position, for example, or if they have shown poor professional judgment or a lack of respect for the Constitution. But in all cases, they should be permitted to make their case before the Senate and all Senators must vote yes or no for whatever reasons they might have. The objections and ‘no’ votes, however, are then public record.
Luckily, appointees to the Supreme Court rarely get hung up for too long . . . but I would advise the Republicans in the Senate not to harp too much on Kagan’s lack of judicial experience, since the only apparent reason she doesn’t have judicial experience is because the Republicans running the Senate in the 1990’s failed to perform their Constitutionally-mandated ‘advice and consent’ duty.
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.