Statement on big brutal bill

 The American Friends Service Committee issued this statement on the occasion of the signing of the federal bill that will cut taxes for the wealthy and take food and health care away from millions of low-income and working class Americans.

Today, President Donald Trump signed a bill that will initiate one of the largest ever transfers of wealth from the working class to the rich. It will strip health care coverage from millions of low-income people, deprive children of food, accelerate climate change, and funnel billions to military contractors for weapons that threaten human survival. 

To say we oppose this legislation is an understatement. As a Quaker organization, we believe all people contain the Light of God within us. These policies abandon our fundamental commitment to caring for all people and the Earth that we share. If unchallenged, this legislation will directly and indirectly contribute to the suffering and death of so many people in the U.S. and around the world. 

The bill includes:

The largest cuts to public health care in U.S. history, leaving an estimated 17 million people without health coverage and causing an estimated 51,000 premature deaths per year.

New restrictions on SNAP and other anti-hunger programs, which will deprive millions of children of basic nutrition and the opportunities they need to succeed.

Trillions of dollars in tax cuts that provide almost nothing for the poor and working class, while showering the wealthiest households in the U.S. with massive benefits.

New subsidies for fossil fuel corporations while slashing tax credits for renewable energy projects.

More than $150 billion on the Pentagon for its forever wars and wasteful projects.

Billions for cruel anti-immigrant policies that tear our families and communities apart, including expanding detention centers and adding thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents.

We cannot and will not accept this anti-human framework as the new status quo. Our government should provide for public needs, not transfer billions from the poor and working class to the rich. Already, protests and acts of resistance have been taking place across the country in response to the anti-democratic, anti-working class, anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration. As the impacts of this legislation are felt nationwide, this resistance will only grow. 

Everyone deserves access to health care, housing, freedom from violence, and the ability to participate in the decisions that impact our lives. While Congress, the courts, and the president have chosen to pursue policies that harm our communities, we can care for and defend one another. We call on all people – in the corridors of power and in every corner of this country – to reject and resist these policies and to work for the future we all deserve. 

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

Saving Medicaid: in their own words

 While going through some old files, I came across a copy of an interesting letter dated June 29, 2017, from then Governor, now Senator, Jim Justice to Senator Shelley Moore Capito. The subject was the looming threat of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and especially Medicaid expansion.

Here are some excerpts:

Since so many of our people count on Medicaid, any cut to Medicaid would destroy families in West Virginia. We can’t put the 175,000 West Virginians who benefit from the Medicaid expansion at risk of losing coverage. The consequences would be beyond catastrophic.

In the face of our drug epidemic, fewer people would have access to drug treatment programs under the current proposal. As the debate moves forward, I hope you and your colleagues will consider the fact that it will only make it harder to combat the drug problem that’s ravaging West Virginia.

I think he nailed it then—and his words still apply today, arguably more than ever.

To her credit, Senator Capito issued this statement on July 18 of that year:

As I have said before, I did not come to Washington to hurt people. For months, I have expressed reservations about the direction of the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. I have serious concerns about how we continue to provide affordable care to those who have benefited from West Virginia’s decision to expand Medicaid, especially in light of the growing opioid crisis. All of the Senate health care discussion drafts have failed to address these concerns adequately.

My position on this issue is driven by its impact on West Virginians. With that in mind, I cannot vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians.

I think she nailed it too.

Eight years later, we’re facing a similar threat. This time around, the issue isn’t directly repealing the whole ACA, although it might as well be. Instead, it’s a federal budget reconciliation package that would cut $880 billion from Medicaid (not to mention $230 billion in SNAP food assistance and $12 billion in school meal funding) to pay for more tax cuts for the very wealthy.

A cut that huge would truly be, as Justice said, beyond catastrophic across the US and especially in low-income states like West Virginia. Our already dismal health statistics would get worse. Minor issues will turn major. Substance use disorder will go untreated. The cost of emergency room visits and uncompensated care will grow and be passed on to others. Rural hospitals will close. Jobs will be lost. And people will die.

The margins in Congress are razor thin. Our senators’ votes could influence the final outcome, especially after the House voted to throw us under the bus. I hope they take their own advice and side with the people of West Virginia again.

(This appeared as a column in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Budget bill a disaster for West Virginia

 The US House of Representatives recently voted on a proposed budget that would cut $880 billion from Medicaid and $230 billion from SNAP food assistance while also slashing other programs, including meals for school children…to give $1.5 trillion in tax cuts aimed mostly to benefit the very wealthy.

The measure passed by just a two-vote margin. Both of West Virginia’s representatives voted for it. 

If this becomes law, the damage done to West Virginians across the board would be incalculable. 

Medicaid alone provides health coverage to over 72,000,000 people nationwide and to more than 500,000 West Virginians, including working adults, children, seniors, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and people getting treatment for substance use disorder. That’s close to one out of three of us. 

We’d be hit harder by this than most other states. Nationwide, one out of five people are covered. It’s almost double that in West Virginia.

According to the Kaiser Family Fund, as of August 2024, around half of all childbirths are paid for by Medicaid here, while nearly the same percentage of children are either covered by it or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s the major source of people needing long-term care, including 7 out of 9 people in nursing homes. It provides benefits for 40 percent of people with disabilities.

And while it covers many people who are too young or no longer able to work, most adults receiving it are employed.

The funding, most of which comes from the federal government, supports local economies, keeps rural hospitals open, and keeps people alive. It’s no exaggeration to say that if this goes through, people will die as a direct result. And people would lose their jobs.

If that wasn’t enough, the budget would reduce SNAP food assistance to 42 million people. As with Medicaid, we’d take a disproportionate hit here as well. Our state ranks third highest in the percentage of SNAP households, just behind New Mexico and Louisiana. Nationally, around 12 percent of people receive SNAP, while it’s 16 percent here.

According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), SNAP helps 124,000 households here, or 279,000 individuals. It brings over $40 million a month to the state, helping 2,170 grocery stores and farmers markets and creating jobs. It’s estimated that each dollar’s worth of SNAP spending generates around $1.80 in economic activity.

Households receiving SNAP include children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and veterans. As with Medicaid, most SNAP households include at least one working member. And if you’re worried that these people are living high on the hog you can relax. The average daily benefit here is $4.54 per person.

On top of all that, the budget bill cuts $12 billion in funding for school breakfasts and lunches and makes sweeping restrictions to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which supports meals for all. FRAC estimates this will reduce access to food in 24,000 schools with 12 million students. 

In West Virginia, we’re talking about impacts in 468 schools with over 180,000 students. This would undo years of progress at the national and state level. CEP has proven very popular in every county in West Virginia since it cuts bureaucracy, improves child nutrition and educational outcomes, removes stigma, and gives working families a break.

The combined impact of these proposed cuts would hurt people across all political and demographic lines. Fortunately, it’s not a done deal. There will be more votes on this over the next few months.  This could give time for people to voice their concerns and for lawmakers to reconsider their actions. 

It’s important to also urge our senators to put the brakes on this. To her credit, Senator Capito said back in 2017 “I didn’t go to Washington to hurt people,” when huge health care cuts were on the agenda. As governor, Jim Justice expanded food aid to low-income children when school was not in session and established the Jobs and Hope program.

Before it’s over, I hope at least some of our representatives will put the people of West Virginia above all else.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail)

Toxic medicine

Pick your poison. Image by way of wikipedia.

 If there was a scarier place for a soldier to be in the American Civil War than a battlefield, it might have been a hospital, of either the field or conventional variety.

Medical science had not yet caught on to the germ theory of disease. Overworked doctors rushed from patient to patient with unwashed hands and instruments. Amputation was the order of the day.

But if there was anything scarier than Civil War-era surgery, it might have been the medicine. It was a common practice to administer heroic doses of calomel to patients for a variety of ailments, including diarrhea and dysentery.

Among the ingredients of calomel were a mixture of mercury and chloride.

I managed to avoid a chemistry class in my education, such as it was, but I don’t think you need an advanced degree in that field to get a bad feeling about that.

One obvious result was mercury poisoning, but the specific symptoms could be horrific, including loss of teeth, rotting jaws and gangrene in the mouth and jaws.

Calomel caused misery and sometimes death to countless people, even ruining the health of “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott during her stint as a nurse for wounded soldiers.

It boggles the mind that generations of doctors would rely on a chemical that caused so much damage and prescribe bad medicine for so long.

But the same kind of thing has happened over and over in the realm of policy and politics for the last half century.

And it might be about to happen again in West Virginia unless people speak up.

The bad medicine I’m referring to is the idea that cutting taxes for the wealthy will create jobs and economic growth. We’ve been told that over and over for years, but the evidence for that is about a scarce as that of the benefits of ingesting calomel.

Recently, researchers at the London School of Economics did the math. In a big way. They examined the impacts of tax cuts for the rich over a 50-year period in 18 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The countries included the United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Among the findings:

“We find that major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect remains stable in the medium term. In contrast, such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment.”

And:

“Furthermore, we find no effect of tax reforms on real GDP per capita. When looking at the effect on unemployment rates, the estimates show a slightly different pattern. Here, tax cuts for the rich lead to slightly higher unemployment rates in the short term.”

And:

“Turning our attention to economic performance, we find no significant effects of major tax cuts for the rich. More specifically, the trajectories of real GDP per capita and the unemployment rate are unaffected by significant reductions in taxes on the rich in both the short and medium term..”

And:

“Cutting taxes on the rich increases top income shares, but has little effect on economic performance.”

If that’s not enough, other research in the field of public health from a variety of sources has found higher rates of inequality to be associated with many social problems, including increases in crime and violence, infant mortality, obesity, addiction, mental health problems and general unhappiness.

It’s very likely that there will be efforts in the coming legislative session to pursue this failed policy by changes to income and business property taxes that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

I’m sure we’ll be told that taking the fiscal equivalent of calomel will be good for us. I hope the people of West Virginia send a loud and clear message of thanks but no thanks.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Called it

 

I have a binge-watching confession to make: I'm hooked on The Crown, Netflix's portrayal of the drama of the British royal family. I'm not proud of it.

A lot of the show is pure aristocratic soap opera, which is also arguably the case of the real life counterparts. But it's not all melodrama. I was particularly hit by the portrayal of the cruelty of the Thatcher regime. And for what it's worth, X Files star Gillian Anderson does an amazing job of portraying that person...which couldn't have been easy for anyone with a living soul.

I think one reason for my reaction was living through the American version during the Reagan years, a time of extreme economic hardship for millions of Americans and most West Virginians, including myself. 

Those years were, in the words of the Gospel of Matthew, "the beginning of sorrows," of decades of bad policies, tax cuts for the wealthy, growing inequality.

And the results are in: the London School of Economics just released a report that looks at the effects of tax cuts for the wealthy over a 50 year period and covering 18 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And there's no surprise here.

As Hamlet said, O my prophetic soul! Here are some nuggets from the report:

We find that major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect remains stable in the medium term. In contrast, such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment...

Furthermore, we find no effect of tax reforms on real GDP per capita. When looking at the effect on unemployment rates, the estimates show a slightly different pattern. Here, tax cuts for the rich lead to slightly higher unemployment rates in the short term...

We find that major tax cuts for the rich push up income inequality, as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The size of the effect is substantial: on average, each major tax cut results in a rise of 0.8 percentage points in top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect holds in both the short and medium term. Turning our attention to economic performance, we find no significant effects of major tax cuts for the rich. More specifically, the trajectories of real GDP per capita and the unemployment rate are unaffected by significant reductions in taxes on the rich in both the short and medium term...

...cutting taxes on the rich increases top income shares, but has little effect on economic performance.

The sad part is that I'm pretty sure the WV legislature is going to try to push for even more of this garbage in the coming session.

What could possibly go wrong?

Out of touch

One thing that most people would agree on across the political spectrum is that West Virginia would be better off if more of us were working and earning a living wage. I know I’m down with that.

Unfortunately, some of the ways that have been proposed for working towards that goal are counterproductive and just mean. Possibly cynical, too.

For example, Seema Verma, head of the federal Medicare and Medicaid program under the current regime, recently proposed to solve that problem by clamping down on Medicaid, specifically on those millions of people who gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Most of whom work. Go figure.

In a speech to state Medicaid directors, she said things that have at best a tenuous connection with reality. She seemed indignant that some of those who have gained health coverage in recent years are people who “are physically capable of being actively engaged in their communities.”

Let’s start with the basics. They already are. People who gained coverage due to Medicaid expansion had to come from families that had income, although it was under 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That means they weren’t receiving TANF (welfare) or disability payments, in which case they would have qualified for traditional Medicaid.

Generally speaking, that means they work.

Let’s be more specific. These are the people who do the grunt work of society. They wait on us in stores and restaurants. They change our oil. They clean our motel rooms. They wash our dogs. They clean up our messes. And, most importantly, they take care of our children and elders.

It would take a lot to persuade me that Verma didn’t know better when she said that. But if she, and the regime she serves, didn’t, it only shows how out of touch they are with the reality of millions of working people.

According to the Center on Law and Social Policy, around 60 percent of working-age adults on Medicaid have jobs. And around 80 percent are in families with at least one worker. The few that aren’t are usually seeking work, dealing with illness or disability, or caring for other family members.

In her speech, Verma seemed to imply that people like this who get Medicaid coverage enjoy wallowing in poverty and “government dependence.”

(Ever notice that many of the people who complain about this receive some form of health care from the federal government?)

I guess one of the innumerable advantages of being well-off is being spared the knowledge that less than half of all Americans are covered by work-based insurance. According to the Census Bureau, in 2016 only 58.3 percent of West Virginians of prime working age (19-64) get coverage from their jobs.

Here’s the reality in West Virginia. Since 2001, the percentage of low-wage jobs (earning under 150 percent of the poverty level for a family of two) has grown by 14.5 percent, even as jobs in high-wage industries have declined. These jobs typically don’t offer health coverage.

Nearly one in four West Virginians works in such a job. Around 55 percent of West Virginia’s children live in a family with at least one low-wage worker. For many, low-wage jobs are no longer a temporary steppingstone to a better gig but are rather a lifetime path.

Most low-wage workers are white, although blacks make up a disproportionate share. Fifty-six percent are women. Younger workers are more likely to earn low wages, but nearly half of workers above age 35 work in low-wage jobs.

Behold the face of “the enemy.” It may look a lot like our friends, neighbors, relatives and even ourselves.

I think what’s really driving this push at the federal level to cut back on things like health care is the desire of the administration and its allies in Congress to pass a massive “tax reform” package that would give huge breaks to the very wealthy — who don’t need them — at the expense of everyone else. That $1.5 trillion giveaway to the rich has to come from somewhere.

And, under what must be huge pressure from the federal administration, there are officials in West Virginia who seem eager to push for bogus “reforms” that will ultimately reduce the number of people with health care. Cutting Medicaid rolls may seem attractive to some people, even if it means taking away coverage and increasing the costs of uncompensated care for everyone else.

Some options now under consideration include unnecessary and redundant “work requirements” for Medicaid that would wind up taking millions of dollars out of the state’s economy and harming those sectors that are actually providing and increasing jobs.

In the past, Gov. Jim Justice has eloquently defended vulnerable West Virginians. I hope he continues to hold the line.

At this point, no one can say how far these proposed changes will go. But we’d be better off if they didn’t go anywhere.

(This ran as an op-ed in yesterday's Gazette-Mail.)

That fuzzy line again

There has been story after story lately of politicians pretending to care about West Virginia's--and the nation's--opioid crisis.

Unfortunately, these are the same politicians who have been working night and day to reduce or eliminate the kind of treatment recovering addicts need by repealing the ACA and/or pushing through a #taxscam bogus tax reform bill that gives massive cuts to the rich while crowding out other kinds of federal funding. Like addiction treatment and Medicaid expansion.

Once again, I have trouble distinguishing irony and hypocrisy. But I'm leaning toward the latter.

Anyhow, here's an op-ed by a friend of mine explaining why you can't have it both ways.

Yes, it's that bad

If you want to learn more about how bad the #taxscam aka "tax reform" bill that just passed the US Senate is, you can check this news story, this Gazette-Mail op-ed and this statement from Families USA. Short version: pretty damn.

TaxScam in a nutshell

Here's what I think we need to know about the highly partisan version of tax "reform" now being pushed through the senate:

1. George W. Bush passed massive tax cuts and what we got was....permanent prosperity? Oh, wait, it was the biggest crash since the Great Depression. I'm not saying the tax cuts were the sole cause, although they did contribute to the financial bubbles that led to it. But it's obvious that tax cuts don't guarantee growth or prosperity or economic stability.

2. This is a Trojan horse. The massive transfer of wealth to those who already have it will eventually crowd out funding for things like Medicare, Medicaid, student aid, food security, housing etc.

3. There are plenty of "starve the beast" Republicans who want that to happen. They hope a crisis will force cuts to domestic programs.

4. Then there's the whole thing about adding $1.5 trillion+ to the deficit for no good reason.

5. Whatever cuts some middle class people will get is a sugar high. Those cuts are temporary, while cuts to corporations and the wealthy are permanent.

6. Due to the tilt of the programs towards the wealthy, people in 19 states, including West Virginia, will eventually pay more in 2027 than they do under current law.

7. Then there's the consequences of repealing the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which will greatly increase the number of uninsured Americans and drive up costs for everyone else.

I mean, golly, what could possibly go wrong?