Washington Siren

Reparations

I cannot support this proposal.  Reparations based on mistreatment of blacks is not a sane idea.  I didn’t do it.  My family didn’t do it.  Slavery legislation ended 157 years ago.  I wasn’t alive then.  We never voted for discriminatory rules or laws and my family never owned  slaves by any nationality. (Now if you want to talk about female repression that’s another topic)

From Larry Elder Dec 23, 2022…American slavery though horrific, was legal; it ended 157 years ago;  the government did not own slaves (so why is the government recommending making reparation payments?) ; some private sector people owned slaves; most Southerners did not own slaves;  nearly all slave owners were Democrats, so why should non-Democrats pay?;  hundreds of thousands of Northerners lost their lives and suffered serious injuries fighting in the Civil War that ended slavery.

Kamala Harris’ family owned slaves.  Her fathers  family owned 125 Jamaican slaves decades ago.

Africa played a large role in slavery.

 In the 18^th and 19^th century in the Kingdom of Dahoney, one of the most powerful states of Africa, there was a band of warrior women called the Dahomey, or Amazon women.  They were fierce, feared and bloodthirsty fighters.  They used that ferocity to kill and conquer other Africans for sale to slave traders. They captured tribespeople from enemy tribes and sold them as slaves, in exchange for rifles, tobacco and alcohol.  Some of these slaves ended up in America. The trans-Atlantic African and the Arab African slave trade could not have occurred without the complicity of African chiefs, who sold conquered Africans to European and Arab slavers.

Maybe Africa should be paying reparations, if any?

Mental Health Programs

The Mental Health Services Act , Prop 63,  taxes millionaires 1% on incomes above $1 million,  to pay for mental health  programs.  (See LAT July 10, 2022) Since 2005 $29 billion has been generated.   But there are increasing numbers of mentally ill and drug addicted people in the streets and encampments.   “Things have not gotten better since this ballot measure passed, they have gotten much worse”,  said former Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Democrat from Los Angeles.” Prop 63 and the entire system has failed”,  he said.  Lack of staffing who do not want  to be exposed to covid and other diseases from people living on the streets, or want remote/telemed jobs so they can work from home and not have to meet directly with patients.  Los Angeles county reports it taking up to six months to get a mental health appointment.

Medicare

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget wants to increase Medicare coverage, universally.  Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposed lowering the age requirement for Medicare to give people age 60 and older the option to enroll in Medicare programs with the same premiums and benefits as current beneficiaries.  Currently the rule is a person has to be eligible for Social Security benefits before they are eligible for Medicare.

The Washington Examiner in May of 2022 reports that a study was conducted by the Congressional Budget Office examining the effects of a policy that would lower the age eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 60.  If Sanders and Biden’s plans to drop the age for Medicare Part A eligibility to age 60 from 65 moves forward to fruition, these changes add $146 billion in cost to the Part A trust fund between 2026 and 2031.  By 2030 it is estimated that the Medicare Hospital Insurance fund will be $335 billion in the red. 

 It assumed that the Hospital Insurance Trust fund that provides money for Medicare Part A is projected to become insolvent due to rising health costs…the program has been financed through payroll taxes and taxes on Social Security benefits. 

Thus options include cutting benefits, with consumer paying larger portion for medical services; premium increases; increased taxes, increased sources for contributions (employers).

Medicaid – Food as Medicine

Biden administration has started approving state requests to use Medicaid to pay for groceries and nutritional counseling.  This is an unnecessary expansion, and very expensive expansion to Medicaid.  Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, or SNAP,  was developed to help people on lower incomes pay for food.  SNAP is part of the Agriculture Budget determined by Congress.  However, Arkansas was allocated up to $85 million in federal and state funds to use towards health related social services, including nutritional counseling and healthy meal preparation counseling.  Similar funding has been made available to Oregon and Massachusetts.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that the agency funds “produce prescriptions”, to help purchase fruits and vegetables.

Medicaid is a handful of states is now paying for air conditioners and up to six months of rent.  Medicaid is also paying for devices that boost air quality.

It’s no wonder our national budget has such a huge deficit;  WSJ Feb 13, 2023