Scary Stuff - Why They Aren't Talking About It

A friend and co-worker reacted to my most recent ‘Scary Stuff’ entries.

He wondered why the Democratic candidates for the House and the Senate were not making an issue of bread and butter issues like the outsourcing of American jobs and the fixing of our healthcare mess. He e-mailed the Democratic Party posing that same question to them.

The time seems ripe for the Democrats to retake the House if they use the right tactics.

According to a recent New York Times-CBS poll, “…The disdain for Congress is as intense as it has been since 1994, when Republicans captured 52 seats to end 40 years of Democratic control of the House and retook the Senate as well. It underlines the challenge the Republican Party faces in trying to hold on to power in the face of a surge in anti-incumbent sentiment.”

"By broad margins, respondents said that members of Congress were too tied to special interests and that they did not understand the needs and problems of average Americans. Two-thirds said Congress had accomplished less than it typically did in a two-year session; most said they could not name a single major piece of legislation that cleared this Congress. Just 25 percent said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job. END QUOTE

When the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, they did so with great promise, proclaiming Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” The Democrats had been in control of Congress since the 1950’s. Corruption ran rampant throughout. The Democrats had been in power too long.

It could be that just twelve years has been too long for the Republicans. They have lost sight of those issues that affect those of us in the Middle Class.

Howard Dean (the Chairman of the Democratic Party) has addressed those issues. In an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Dean said, “…Democrats believe strengthening the middle class is essential for a thriving economy that rewards work, provides economic opportunity to all and makes it easier for parents to devote time to their families…

“…Under Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress, incomes today are $1,000 less for the typical household than during Bill Clinton's final year in office; incomes for the typical working-age household have declined every year since the president took office…

“ … Health and retirement coverage have declined for most workers and their families, and workers' costs have increased. The share of Americans with job-based health coverage fell over the last five years from 62.6% in 2000 to only 59.5% in 2005, virtually erasing gains in such coverage under Mr. Clinton, when coverage rose from 57.1% in 1993 to 63.6 % in 2000. Workers are also paying more for their coverage. Between 2001 and 2005, the amount workers paid for family premiums grew more than 50%. These factors have fueled increases in the number of uninsured every year under Mr. Bush to almost 47 million last year -- roughly one in six Americans…”

So Dean, the guy who heads the Democratic Party, is aware of the problems. The question remains, why don’t his candidates for the House and Senate make those the issues, rather than the war in Iraq?

Most incumbents, Republican or Democrat, won’t raise those issues because the special interests fund their campaigns. Candidates running against incumbents can make those issues the cornerstones of their campaigns, but what happens when they get elected? Will they fall into the same trap that our present representatives find themselves, having to go hat-in-hand to those with the cash that can help them get reelected?

The Democrats feel they have a winning issue in the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War. Recent polls indicate that they could be right. But could the Democrats be playing right into the Republican strategy of portraying them as ‘left-leaning’ and soft on defense and terrorism?

As long as Bush is in the White House, we’ll be in Iraq. So that leaves the same question my friend posed to the Democratic Party in his e-mail. Why don’t the Democrats present a comprehensive legislative program to help save the American Middle Class? Howard Dean seems to have gotten the message, but what about the rest of them?

If you’d like to contribute to the foregoing, you can comment on this site by becoming a ‘blogger’ or you can e-mail me at WGDavis46@aol.com.

Visit my web site: www.authorsden.com/williamgdavis

Scary Stuff #2

Employment in the U. S. automotive industry has dropped by 200,000 jobs over the past four years. During that time, imports of Chinese auto parts have doubled. Just last week Ford Motor Company announced it is planning buyouts of 75,000 of its American factory workers.

In 2000 over 100,000 jobs were outsourced (sent out of the U.S.). In 2005 over 500,000 jobs were lost and within 10 years an estimated 3.3 million will be affected.

96 percent of clothing production is now done outside our borders. Last year 37 textile factories closed in North and South Carolina, Our own Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that over 14 million Americans are at risk of having their jobs outsourced.

Management consultants conduct seminars for American corporations to provide information on how to outsource their American operations. According to Lou Dobbs in his book Exporting America, “The thing that’s not being communicated at these conferences is that American multinational companies that are outsourcing and offshoring are … essentially firing their customers. India can provide our software; China can provide our toys; Sri Lanka can make our clothes; Japan can make our cars. But at some point we have to ask, what will we export? At what will Americans work? And for what kind of wages? No one I’ve asked in government, business, or academia has been able to answer those questions.”

How did this happen?

During the past two decades, while we were busy raising our families, making a living, and pursuing our leisure time activities, multi-national corporations and international financiers were at work “globalizing” the world economy. American trade negotiators signed on to various international agreements that benefited what they called “free trade.” A couple you may or may not have heard of. One was the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the other was NAFTA. Free trade actually meant that our borders and our workers were no longer protected from cheap foreign manufactured goods getting an unfair advantage to our own workers and production facilities.

Through lobbying and campaign contributions, our representatives in Congress were sold a bill of goods as to how these agreements would ‘benefit’ our own economy. They didn’t, and today we are reaping the consequences, a wholesale loss of jobs. We have sacrificed our American sovereign right to enact tariffs to an international body. If we try to protect our economy and our workers, that body can decree trade sanctions against us. You and me.

Some deal, huh?

What can we do? Find out how your congressmen and your Senators feel about this issue. There are several that have proposed legislation to try to fix it. Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont introduced the Defending American Jobs Act of 2004 with 50 co-sponsors from both the Democratic and Republican parties. It obviously didn’t pass since the problem of American job loss persists. Powerful forces lobby against such measures that try to protect the American worker.

Another congressman speaking out against these trade agreements is Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. While I’ve always considered him some wild-eyed liberal nut, what he says on this issue makes sense. “ …Canceling NAFTA and the WTO will enable the U.S. to protect high-tech jobs from outsourcing … We must not tolerate the loopholes and offshore profit shifting that corporations engage in to get out paying their fair share of taxes … We live in strange times when patriotism merely extends to unnecessary wars and not to protecting the lives and welfare of American families by keeping jobs here. It is necessary to promote a new corporate responsibility and sense of shared commitment, so that the race to minimize wages … and maximize … profits in already profitable businesses is considered unpatriotic and punishable …”

So here’s the challenge. When you go out shopping for clothes, electronics or most other non-food items, try to find something that is still ‘Made in the U.S.A. If you do, pack it up in plastic, put it away, and then bring it out in twenty years and offer it up for sale on e-Bay. It should be as rare as Mickey Mantle’s rookie baseball card.

That’s no joke. If we don’t get Congress to do something about this loss of American jobs, we’ll all be learning to say, “Do you want to super-size that?”

If you’d like to contribute to the foregoing, you can comment on this site by becoming a ‘blogger’ or you can e-mail me at WGDavis46@aol.com.
Visit my web site: www.authorsden/williamgdavis

Scary Stuff

With congressional elections less than 2 months away there seems to be a concerted campaign to instill fear in us of the Islamic fascists.

While I agree that we are in a struggle that could determine the course of history, there are other issues that the politicians aren’t talking about. It’s really scary stuff, too … stuff that endangers the very survival of America as an economic powerhouse, a place where you’d want your kids and grandkids to grow up.

We, the citizens of the United States of America, are being sold out by a coalition of our own elected representatives and the special interests who fund their campaigns.

In this and future entries in this blog I’d like to reveal some of this scary stuff to you, stuff that doesn’t always make it into the national media or the political debate.

Today’s scary stuff comes from healthcare …

The percentage of people with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.8 percent in 2004.

It is estimated that we have spent as a nation nearly 10 trillion dollars on health care since 2000, but this expenditure has not resulted in demonstrably better quality of care or better patient satisfaction compared to other nations.

Health care spending reached $1.9 trillion in 2004 - about 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.

In 2005, employer health insurance premiums increased by 9.2 percent - nearly three times the rate of inflation.

The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $11,000.

The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000.

Average out-of-pocket costs for co-payments, such as for prescriptions, deductibles and coinsurance for doctor visits, rose 115 percent since 2000.

National surveys consistently show that the primary reason people are uninsured is because health coverage is too expensive.

It is estimated that 600,000 patients have died in hospitals due to medical errors since 2000.

Unnecessary medical accidents, errors and poor quality are the nation's third leading cause of death, just behind cancer and heart disease.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that nearly 100,000 patients die in hospitals each year due to medical errors. This is three times the number of people who die on the highways.

About 18,000 unnecessary deaths occur each year due to lack of health insurance

It is estimated that 77 million Americans over the age of 19 have difficulty paying medical bills, have accrued medical debt, or both.

The above facts were gleaned from the National Coalition on Healthcare (www.nchc.org).

These are not issues you are hearing about in the national election debate. But they are problems that could affect any one of us if our luck turns sour.

More scary stuff in future entries …

If you’d like to contribute to the foregoing, you can comment on this site by becoming a ‘blogger’ or you can e-mail me at WGDavis46@aol.com.

Visit my web site: www.authorsden.com/williamgdavis

What Do You Think? New Poll Question ...

As Fall approaches we’re hearing more and more about the upcoming congressional elections.

Will the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives? Will the Republicans lose critical seats in the Senate?

The main issue on which this election will turn appears to be the war in Iraq. At least if you believe the new media and the pollsters.

Frankly, I think it’s more than that.

Polls indicate that the majority of Americans feel that the country is “heading in the wrong direction.” If you agree with that assessment, what does “the wrong direction” mean to you?

Let your opinion be known by going to:

http://www.worldsentiment.com/question_detail.asp?question_id=6371