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.)

Political blackmail

 The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted on a bill that will, if enacted, will bring nothing but misery to thousands of West Virginians and millions of people across the country. It passed by a two vote majority. 

To quote a former occupant of the White House, “SAD.” 

The so-called Limit, Save, and Grow Act, which I like to think of as the Retch, Croak, and Die Act, will force automatic and devastating cuts in discretionary federal spending that would overwhelmingly hit working class and low-income people. And it will probably hit West Virginia harder than any other state. 

It’s a classic example of political hostage taking by either forcing massive across the board cuts to programs that help families, seniors, kids, and just about everyone else OR creating a global financial crisis if the U.S. defaults on debt payments. Either way, everyday people will be hurting. 

Rather than proposing an unpopular specific budget that its supporters would have to own, the bill would set spending limits that would make the cuts automatic. 

According to the DC based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “The agenda represents failed trickle-down economics at its worst and would narrow opportunity, deepen inequality, and increase hardship.” Specifically, they report that “The bill would make severe cuts – $3.6 trillion over the next decade – to the part of the budget that funds child care and preschool, schools, college aid, housing, medical research, transportation, many other national priorities.” 

For starters, cuts for the next year would mean that more than 900,000 low-income people lose housing assistance and 200,000 children would lose access to Head Start, along with a reduction by $1,000 to the maximum Pell grant that makes higher education more affordable. The only real trickle down that will happen will be a loss of up to $1.3 trillion to state and local governments in federal grants to fund services. 

Pentagon spending would be left untouched, and the bill would also make it easier for wealthy people and corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. 

Among the bill’s poisoned pills are the kind of failed bureaucratic reporting and paperwork requirements for SNAP food assistance and Medicaid that West Virginia’s Republican supermajority wisely rejected in the regular 2023 session, but on a massive scale. Such provisions do nothing to promote work but have the effect of increasing hunger and decreasing health coverage due to paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources has estimated that the proposed requirements would jeopardize coverage for 21 million people on Medicaid, the majority of whom are either already, working, dealing with disabilities and serious health conditions, caring for family members, or are in school.  

The SNAP changes would fall hardest on older Americans by raising more hurdles for those between age 50 and 55, a group more likely to be subject to age discrimination and/or health issues that affect employment. 

Those changes come in the wake of a decrease in funding for Medicaid and SNAP as the official COVID-era public health emergency ended. It’s probably no accident that the cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF over the next decade are almost identical to the amount of unpaid taxes rich people and corporations would save due to cuts in IRS enforcement.  

For West Virginia, this would also mean cuts to things like rail safety inspections (what could possibly go wrong there?), mine safety, opioid treatment, air traffic control, preschool and child care enrollments, WIC food aid for mothers and young children, and more. 

Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story. The bill has pretty much zero chance of passing the senate in its present form. Once again, in a closely divided senate the votes of our Senators Capito and Manchin will be crucial. 

I’m hoping they will weigh the house bill’s impact on West Virginians and just say no. West Virginians deserve better. 

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

The secret of my success (that was irony)

 West Virginia's legislative session began this week and I already wish it was over. My annual prayer has been for the state to finally hit bottom politically, but were heading down like the family in the late great John Prine's song The Bottomless Lake.

The session officially kicked off with Governor Jim Justice's state of the state address. Justice was once the state's only billionaire, but recent news reports have placed him a bit below that level but still way ahead of the rest of us. He was elected as a Democrat in 2016 but switched parties the following year. He was reelected in 2020 and seems set on running against Senator Joe Manchin if the latter runs again in 2024. 

He is perhaps best known for the prominent display of his English bull dog universally known here as Babydog. Usually these displays are of her frontal regions, although there has been at least one major exception to that.

If I had to describe him politically, I'd say he's kind of random. Compared to many state legislative leaders today, he looks pretty moderate. His address blended some good proposals, such as raises for teachers and public employees, investing money in the state's tottering Public Employees Insurance Agency, help to food banks and such with some in the not so much category. One of the worst is cutting the state income tax, WV's only progressive tax, by 50 percent over three years.

The rationale is that WV is running a budget surplus and doesn't need the money, but that's due to low budget estimates, years of flat budgets, federal COVID money and a spike in severance tax revenues that are extremely volatile. In other words, it's a sugar high, although most people here don't feel it.

That would mean an annual loss of revenue of around $1.2 billion per year when fully implemented, coming after several years of a state budget that didn't keep up with inflation. This would mean cuts to all kinds of programs from child care to K-12 to early childhood to higher ed to human services at a time of great and unmet needs. I was please to work on a press conference about this and other issues (see here and here) yesterday.

But the event made me think of a self-esteem saving way of always declaring victory when you try to pull something like that together that I cooked up with a friend years ago. It goes like this:

*if you plan to rally the masses and generate media coverage and the masses don't show up but the media does, pretend you just planned a press conference all along;

*if you plan to rally the masses and generate media coverage and the only people who show up are your cronies, pretend you just planned a meeting all along;

*if you plan to rally the masses and generate media coverage and not even your cronies show up, pretend you're just looking around and that was what you meant to do all along.

The main thing is to declare victory, even if it has to be drastically redefined.

So there.

Frying pan to fire with latest tax plan

This week, the West Virginia House of Delegates will vote on House Bill 3300, its version of repealing the state income tax. It’s quite a bit different from Gov. Jim Justice’s proposal.

While I have serious concerns about Justice’s plan, as I’ve written here more than once, I think the House version would do even more damage over the long run. The governor’s plan would at least try to balance some of the cuts with some revenue increases, even if some of these are regressive and unpopular, in an effort to preserve some programs and services.

The House version is all cuts, all the time. Basically, it would cut personal income taxes by $150 million per year over several years until it’s gone, with no effort to make up lost revenue.

This would come on top of untold millions of dollars taken from the K-12 education budget to pay for new legislation defunding public schools to pay for education savings accounts.

In 2021, the state’s base budget, made up of general revenue and lottery funds, is about $5 billion. Of that, more than $2 billion, or about 43%, comes from income taxes. Seven years out, and we’d be out over $1 billion. It gets worse from there.

The income tax is West Virginia’s only progressive tax, meaning that those with higher incomes pay a somewhat higher rate. If eliminated, more than 60% of the benefits would go to the richest 20% of residents. The pain would go to everyone else, from young children to students to workers to retirees.

This becomes clear when we consider where our tax dollars go as things stand now. Over 40% goes to public education. Nearly 25% goes to health and human resources, which provides health care and other benefits to hundreds of thousands of West Virginians, including many seniors, children and people with disabilities. About 10% goes to higher education.

What’s left covers everything from public safety to parks and natural resources to outdoor recreation/wildlife management to environmental protection to economic development to courts.

House leaders recognized, in a memo circulated to delegates earlier in the session, that an income tax repeal would have painful consequences. Specifically, the memo noted: “Such a plan will require measures that are not politically popular standing alone.”

Among the possibilities listed in the memo were across-the-board cuts to “public ed, higher ed, DHHR. This would necessarily involve a real reduction in at least some services;” “Reduction in Higher Education funding including funding to specific schools;” eliminating “all state appropriations to WVU and Marshall;” and “reduction or elimination of promise scholarship.”

Those possibilities were listed about the governor’s plan, which replaced some lost revenue. Cuts under the House plan would be even more drastic.

Contrary to a common belief, tax cuts don’t “pay for themselves,” as West Virginia’s experience has shown with the hundreds of millions in corporate cuts from reforms enacted in 2007.

We’re not an outlier in that respect. A study of tax cuts for the wealthy by the London School of Economics of 18 countries over 50 years found that “such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment.”

The main things they increase are inequality and the wealth of a few at the expense of the majority. And an abundance of public health research has found that growing inequality makes other social problems worse, whether we’re talking health, crime, social trust or the lack thereof, addiction and general well-being.

Low- or no-income taxes don’t count for much, if you’re living in a wasteland.

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

Another bad idea

 Some of West Virginia’s political leaders want to abolish the state income tax. One has even said doing so would help bring 400,000 new people to live in West Virginia.

If memory serves, some of the same people predicted that abolishing the state’s prevailing wage for workers on public building projects would save the state $200 million to $300 million a year.

That didn’t happen. In fact, a study released in 2019, albeit from a pro-labor source, found it lowered wages for construction workers, worsened workplace safety and substantially reduced the number of young people in apprentice programs that would set them on a path to lifetime economic security. There wasn’t evidence of savings for the state either.

I think the latest prophecy might meet a similar fate.

The state’s income tax brings in almost $2 billion per year, or over 40% of West Virginia’s basic budget. Most of that goes to K-12 education; health and human services for seniors, children, and working families; post-secondary education; and things like public safety, libraries, parks, natural resources and other public goods.

It’s also the only progressive tax in the state, meaning that those with higher earnings pay a somewhat higher rate. Otherwise, West Virginia’s tax system is already upside down, with lower income residents paying a higher share of their income in taxes than the very wealthy due to regressive sales and excise taxes.

The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy has calculated that the 20% of West Virginians with the lowest income ($15,900 a year or less) pay 9.4% of their income in taxes. The wealthiest 1% (with earnings of $401,600 or more) pay 7.4%.

Adam Smith would not approve. In his justly famous “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), widely regarded as a classic celebration of capitalism, he wrote, “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

If the income tax is phased out, it will be made up for either by increasing regressive taxes that will hit lower income people the hardest or by cutting the services they rely on.

Generally speaking, families and businesses want to locate in places with good schools, a good quality of life and a well-trained workforce.

I’d be surprised if 400,000 new people will want to rush into a state with defunded education and training, a crumbling infrastructure, a degraded environment, a lack of the public goods that make a place desirable and an unhealthy workforce.

I think it’s far more likely eliminating the income tax would only speed up our ongoing exodus.

The two step budget shuffle

Congress just voted to engage in a grossly irresponsible two step maneuver which will cut taxes mostly for the rich in the short term and make everyone else pay for it long term. For a quick look at just how the tax cuts will hurt people who need housing, health care, food, and education, check out these posts by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For a look at what the two step will do to people in West Virginia--and what would make much more sense--check out this report from the Coalition on Human Needs and the WV Center on Budget and Policy.

Bare bones

Well, West Virginia finally has a state budget, assuming the governor doesn't veto it, which I doubt will happen. It's pretty bare bones.

Most disturbing is the $16 million cut in higher education in a state that desperately needs to raise its educational attainment level, which will raise costs for students. After spending half a mill on the special session.

Here are some facts about higher ed and the state budget from the WV Center on Budget and Policy:

*Average tuition at West Virginia’s public colleges and universities has increased by $4,200 since 2002, a 147 percent increase, and far outpacing inflation.

*Tuition increases, in large part, have been fueled by falling public support for higher education. Since 2008, state spending in higher education has declined by $130 million, adjusting for inflation.

*As tuitions have increased, so has student debt. The average debt of a college graduate in West Virginia has increased by 70 percent since 2005. West Virginia also has the second highest student loan default rate in the country.

*Tuition increases have eroded the value of the state’s financial aid programs. The share of tuition covered by the PROMISE scholarship has fallen from 100 percent to 70 percent.

This was the second year in a row the state skated to the edge of a government shutdown. Back in what I didn't realize were the good old days, the legislative session was 60 days with maybe a  mostly drama-free week right after to nail down the budget. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into Groundhog Day.

On the bright side, the budget doesn't include tax changes that would make the bottom 80 percent pay more while giving a big break to the wealthy, a measure that would have also cost the state hundreds of millions in lost revenue in future years. One bad year is betting than signing up for a bunch of them.

Here are two views on the budget process by two veteran reporters, Phil Kabler from the Gazette-Mail and Brad McElhenny from WV Metro-News.

Easy action alert to protect WV

If you live in WV and want to do a good deed for the day, here's your chance. Call Gov. Jim Justice's office at 304-558-2000 and tell whoever answers that you want the governor to veto the bad budget passed by the legislature and fight for one good for WV kids, families and seniors. Don't forget to thank him for his work on this so far.

Also, if you're around Charleston, which I won't be, show up to support a decent budget tomorrow (Thursday, April 13) at 2:00 in the lower rotunda of the capitol. The governor is expected to make an important announcement about the budget at that time.

You can read more here,

A step in the right direction

I don't know about you, but I listened to newly elected WV Governor Jim Justice give his first state of the state address last night.

I tried to watch it on television, but public TV hasn't come in very well ever since we had a dozen or so of our free range turkeys roost on the antenna. But that's kind of off topic.

WV is no doubt in a budget crisis and nobody that I know had any idea which way Justice would go. I'm glad to say that he recognizes we can't just keep cutting but need to raise revenue. I didn't agree with all the specifics of his plan, which, for example included zeroing out WV Public Broadcasting, which is not cool.

(Obviously, if he was a Front Porch listener, the thought would have never crossed his mind.)

Of course, Republican leaders, who control both legislative houses, don't want any kind of revenue increases, so we're in for a game of chicken. More cuts now would be terrible and would likely include shutting down colleges, selling state parks, gutting libraries, ditching seniors, etc.

It's going to be interesting. And I'm getting tired of interesting...

Not another no-brainer!

It's no secret that WV's budget is a hot mess. The majority-Republican legislature didn't pass one at the end of the session and there's still no deal.

Hardliners oppose any new taxes, even extremely reasonable ones like a $1.00 increase in the cigarette tax, which would both raise needed revenue and have a positive public health impact. Instead, they are talking about slashing budgets, laying off public employees, and even privatizing public colleges and universities and the Public Employees Insurance Agency.

There are some voices of reason, including this Gazette editorial, this op-ed, and  this bit of myth busting about the budget. A number of groups came together Thursday at a press conference calling for higher tobacco taxes.

It's not clear if the ideologues in the legislative majority are listening. One of the speakers at the press conference said that raising this kind of revenue was a "no-brainer." I'm not sure what this says about WV, but in my experience the no-brainers are the toughest fights of all.

Good times...not

The WV legislative session is more than half over...which is good...but the Republican leadership has spent most of its time cutting workers' wages, bashing poor people and gays, and pandering to pistol packers...which is not.

Meanwhile, their answer to the state's budget and revenue problems is draconian budget cuts to everything from public safety to K-12 to higher ed. So far, they've shown little interest in common sense solutions that would raise revenues.

Other bad ideas involve spending millions of dollars to tighten benefits and rules for programs that effect low income families and test them for drugs, an expensive policy that has basically turned up next to nothing in other states.

The fun never ends. Once again I say hitting bottom would be nice.

A road to nowhere

Want to get there fast? As in nowhere? Keep cutting corporate taxes and slashing job training and higher education. The sad part is the newish WV legislative majority may want to go nowhere even faster.

This is your higher education system on tax cuts

It's no secret that a tax overhaul is on the newish WV Republican legislature's to-do list. This is kind of ironic, since we are still dealing with the impacts of the last round of tax cuts, courtesy of the then Democratic majority.

The jury is in on that: the main result of cutting taxes in WV is making higher education MUCH less affordable than it had to be in a state with the lowest educational attainment in the nation.

I guess learning from the past isn't much of a strong suit around here.

ONE MORE THING. Last year's chemical spill could be even more toxic than we thought.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Late Expectations

It has long been observed that youth is wasted on the young. Sometimes I wonder whether the reading of classics is too. When I was in school, I read some that eventually became favorites but seemed boring at the time. It wasn't till I re-read The Scarlet Letter as an adult that I realized how hilarious Hawthorne's opening chapter on working in the customhouse was.

Dickens' Great Expectations is another example of one I didn't fully appreciate until I revisited it as a grown up. Jack Murnighan, author of Beowulf at the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits, hit the nail on the head:

The fact that everybody doesn't already realize that Great Expectations is one of the most delightful books of all time absolutely befuddles me--and is a testament to how badly we mishandle literary education. What should be a cherished favorite in everyone's library is too often squandered by being assigned to people who can't go alone to R-rated movies.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't read classics. But maybe they should contain a warning label saying something like "The contents of this book will seem way cooler in 15 years or so."

A PARTIAL WIN? WV Gov. Early Ray Tomblin partially restored funding for domestic violence legal services and early childhood programs. This is one of the top issues of the Our Children Our Future child poverty campaigns, although folks are trying to out what this really means.

SOMETHING ELSE TO DENY. That would be the latest climate change news.

URGENT LONG SNOUTED DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

I think we have consensus...

Based on the testimony of around 50 eloquent speakers at a public hearing on the West Virginia chemical spill, I think it's pretty safe to say that the people affected are not amused. Further, the people are expecting the legislature to step up and pass some strong regulations to ensure it won't happen again. You can watch the testimony here.

WORTH A LOOK. Here's an op-ed by the president of the WV Council of Churches opposing proposed cuts to programs for vulnerable families in the state budget.

A CALL TO ACTION.Two friends of mine lay it out here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The word of the day is...

...austerity. You hear calls for it all the time from the crew that runs Congress these days. Apparently, these folks are unaware that things are already pretty austere for the nearly 25 million Americans who are un- or under-employed or the nearly 50 million without health insurance.

If these people have their way, things will get even more austere for the millions of seniors who depend on Medicare and Social Security and the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for everything from pre-natal to nursing home care.

AUSTERITY is bad medicine at a time when the world economy is sliding towards a double dip recess.

SPEAKING OF AUSTERITY, you won't find a whole lot of it amongst the very wealthy.

STILL SPEAKING OF AUSTERITY, conservative ideologues seem to want to destroy the economy in order to save it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Wrong turn

The theme at Goat Rope these days is the current economic mess the US is facing and how we got there.

Installment one is here. It traces the roots of the Great Recession to 30 years of supply side economics, deregulation, tax cuts and privatization.

Installment two is here. It's about the inadequacy of policy responses such as TARP and the Recovery Act to counter the Great Recession.

Installment three is here. It's about how shifting the agenda from the jobs crisis to the deficit isn't going to do much good to either.

One problem with the current budget debate is that all the attention is placed on cutting programs rather than raising revenue. Another problem is that the right wing approach to dealing with the budget doesn't look at what really caused it to mushroom. The main drivers of current deficits are things like the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, other increases in military related spending, the industry-friendly prescription drug Medicare benefit, and rising health care costs.

There are realistic solutions to these deficits drivers: raise revenues, end the wars, cut military spending, redo the drug benefit law and implement health care reform. Unfortunately, these ideas aren't on the table. And the jobs crisis continues to be ignored at a time when 25 million Americans are either un- or underemployed.

Instead, we have a situation in which political ideologues are willing to inflict vast harm on ordinary Americans and the global economy to protect the interests of the very wealthy.

I believe the technical term for such situations is a goat rope

A REAL LOOK A DEFICITS can be found here.

IS ANYBODY LISTENING? Here's a look at what Americans really think about taxes, spending and budget cuts from a recent poll.

INEQUALITY, REAL AND IMAGINED. There's a big difference between what Americans think the division of wealth is, what they think it should be, and the way it really is. Here's a brief discussion of the difference and here's a more detailed look.

HIGHLIGHTING AN ABSURDITY. Here's how some of El Cabrero's amigos plan to save the good old USA, one hot dog at a time.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Get up, stand up

I've been thinking lately about some words of wisdom from the great abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. He had a strong belief that people would not stand up for the rights of those who don't stand up for their own.

The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.

This kind of reminds me of a story passed down about my late great grandfather, John "Crawfish" Gillespie (he got the nickname after blowing off his middle three fingers with a shotgun given him by a Confederate politician and war veteran). When hosting someone at his table, he asked the guest if he wanted more peas and corn.

"I don't care," said the guest.

Old Crawfish replied, "If you don't care, I'm sure I don't give a damn."

BROTHER LARRY SPEAKS. Here's a good op-ed on the debt ceiling "Satan sandwich" deal and what it ignores by my fried Larry Matheney of the WV AFLCIO.

AN AUSTERITY INDUCED RECESSION? Maybe.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Giving away the store

As debt ceiling negotiations proceed in Washington, I can't help but wonder how much of the store President Obama is willing to give away in pursuit of a deal. My guess is...a lot.

It's kind of hard to believe that in barely two years, things have got to the point where the hard right is close to achieving the kind of drastic cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that some of them have been dreaming about for years.

There's a new study out about one of the most vulnerable programs. As NPR reports of an examination of Medicaid,

"What we found in a nutshell is that having Medicaid makes a big difference in people's lives," said Amy Finkelstein, another MIT economist and one of the study's principal investigators.

Overall, researchers found that compared to people without insurance, those with Medicaid had better access to and used more health care; they were less likely to experience unpaid medical bills; they were more likely to report being in good health; and they were less likely to report feeling depressed.

In fact, says Finkelstein, among those with Medicaid, "We report almost a one-third increase in the probability that you report yourself as being happy."

Of course, things like human health and well being seem to matter a lot less these days than extending tax cuts for people who don't need them.

MORE ON BUDGET CAVING here.

INEQUALITY. Here's a brief look at some gaps in well being.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Channeling Shelby

The droop.

I think I'm going to be out of control for the next few weeks. I just started listening to an unabridged recording of Shelby Foote's epic Civil War trilogy. If only it was read by the man himself, I'd be in paradise.

People who have known me for a while know that I have worshiped and have been known to attempt to channel Shelby ever since I saw Ken Burns' series on the Civil War. At any moment, I can go off on vast tangents of attempting to impersonate Shelby by relating the adventures of the fictitious Mississippi 7th during that historic conflict. Sometimes, this experience seems to be involuntary.

In my version, the men of the 7th commenced their involvement in the war with a heroic if ill advised cavalry charge on Fort Sumter, which lay more than a mile across the water of Charleston Harbor from Confederate batteries that fired on it. It was a moment of unparalleled gallantry, as Shelby might say. It goes downhill from there, but I'll try to stop now. While I can.

At times, I've even picked up various volumes by Shelby in public places and read aloud sentences chosen at random. He has the most amazing turn of a phrase, which can only be improved by hearing it in the voice of the author. One such gem that appears in the first volume refers to "the phallic droop of the Florida peninsula."

How come I can never come up with a phrase like that?

SUPPLY SIDE SNAKE OIL refuted here, for the millionth time.

SHARED SACRIFICE? Don't count on it.

MORE ON THAT here. Looks like a cave in is in progress.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED