By Jerry D. Rose
In matters of public policy there is always, I think, a disconnect between the dimensions of problems that need to be solved and the capacity of political entities to deliver those solutions. When the engine of our public goes so radically out of whack, as it has done today in so many areas, we need radical overhauls when what the system delivers is only tweaks that do little to restore smooth running or, even worse, make the problems we are trying to solve even worse. Let me mention some examples and let’s see if there isn’t a pattern here.
1. Health care. By any measure of cost (high) and services (low), the American system of medical is a roaring disaster. Paul Dean has written an article that provides the overall theme for this entry, his view that a single-payer pooling of all medical needs provided by a single administrating entity is the overhaul our system needs. Instead it is about to get a tweaking in the form of the “public insurance option” and a “compulsory insurance” requirement (to be sure everybody gets in the pool)—and these are only the most “liberal” of the tweakings being promoted by the Democrats while Republicans are digging in their heels for “free market” defense of the system. Now comes a story of the “Baucus plan” for dealing with the seldom-considered problem of dealing with the problem of how to pay for the “expensive” new medical coverage. He is in negotiation with pharmaceutical companies to get them to rebate $10 billion to purchasers of prescription drugs…as if consumers were not savvy enough to know how retailers typically jack up prices (price controls? Heavens, no!, free market you know) so they can give purchasers a “discount.”
2. Immigration reform. Whether you decry the exploitation of undocumented immigrants and the brutality of their harassment and deportation—or whether you see the “flood” of immigrant as over-taxing public services and depriving American workers of jobs—there is no disagreement that our immigration system is a sputtering system in drastic need of an overhaul. But you would hardly know that from the “priorities” of Congress and the White House, which finally gets around to taking up immigration policy with little sense of urgency or expectation that anything like “comprehensive reform” is going to occur. Even the “path to citizenship” (a rocky path as usually conceived) for the undocumented is itself a tweaking when, as I and others have long noted, nothing is going to work with the problem short of the simplest of solutions which would involve: (a) rolling back the neo-liberal trade agreements that impoverish people in countries whose people have to emigrate elsewhere to find employment; and (b) removing legal barriers to immigration, letting the vaunted “market” take care of where people move as the demand for labor will attract an appropriate supply—no more and no less than what is needed.
3. Humanitarian aid. There is nothing more maddening to me in the “tweaking” efforts to deal with public policy issues than the response of people to the “suffering” of people elsewhere. As with other tweakings, our efforts here seem to avoid the obvious solutions in favor of those that are more complicated and less effective. For example, the suffering of people today in Gaza, a humanitarian crisis of the first order. In as tepid a response on the part of the U.S. government as one could possibly imagine, the President of the United States urges Israel to relent in its blockade of humanitarian supplies to Gaza, a blockade maintained partly by our other “staunch ally” in the Middle East, Gaza’s neighbor Egypt…as if U.S. appeals to Israel without any sanction of threatened withdrawal of military assistance (actually downright sponsorship) have received the slightest response, except the middle finger Netanyahu has given to Obama in his “appeals” about Israeli settlements.
In this context, I want to note material I have received from Cynthia McKinney regarding the plans of herself and about 30 other people to go personally to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies. I think it is worth quoting here the letter she wrote to the President:
I understand that you sent a message to Israel about its blockade of Gaza. Thank you. It is reported that you specifically mentioned food, medical supplies, cement and building supplies in your note. This note is to inform you that I embark today on a trip to Gaza and we will have for the people of Gaza, exactly the materials that you mentioned, and school supplies for the children. Thank you for the note to Israel and I hope that also means that you will not sign any appropriation bill that has weapons for Israel. President Carter noted that seven schools were completely demolished with F-16s from this country. We all are responsible and I know you know that. But all of us are not in a position to stop the carnage. You are. Please, not one more dime not one more weapon for Israel’s war machine.
The ultimate remedy that McKinney suggests to the President—that he back his request with the threat of diplomatic and military withdrawal from Israel—is the kind of “overhauling” operation without which all the negotiations and appeals are going to be feeble tweaks that allow the situation to fester and worsen until the ultimate explosion in the Arab world against the United States. (I could mention as well the maddening “investigation” just released by the Pentagon with it’s almost-causal admission that an air strike that killed many civilians in Afghanistan resulted from violating rules of engagement “regulations,” as if the U.S. wants credit for its good intentions through those regulations.) In these and so many other ways, I have the feeling that we are tweaking our way to oblivion.
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Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist
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