Political Place 12/5/2013

The views and opinions expressed in Political Place do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sun Day or its staff. The section is meant to offer readers a chance to express their thoughts on political issues.

Obamacare “never waste a crisis”
It is becoming clearer and clearer that Obamacare was never meant to work, even in its flawed state. It was meant to fail so badly that the insurance industry could not go back to the policies they were forced to cancel, and they couldn’t move forward because the means to purchase a new policy was not workable.
The website where one could purchase coverage couldn’t be accessed, and the phone numbers they gave out were just pacifiers, much like a switch with no wires connected to it. Flip it all you want and believe that somewhere something would happen.
Today we find out that even if they fix the original website, there is another website where one must go to pay for the insurance, and it has not had 40 percent of the content created yet.
All this is on purpose. When the public insists on having something, the progressives will pull the rabbit out of the hat and thrust it onto us.
Here is the solution they wanted all along:
Medicare and Medicaid are working, although doctors don’t actually recover the cost of doing business, but it is a single-payer system and that was the plan all along. They reason that even if we don’t like it and doctors cannot survive on it, we’d rather have something than nothing, and once the Genie is out of the bottle, it would be impossible to coax it back in. The doctors who keep practicing will become employees of the state and accept a salary from the treasury.
Mr. Obama said, “Elections have consequences” and this is a consequence of electing a progressive.
In Mr. Obama’s mentor’s book “Rules for Radicals,” Saul Alinsky said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” He made the crisis and now he will use it to please those who elected him.
Welcome to the “New Socialist Soviet States of America.”
Wilton Jere Tidwell
Sun City resident

______________________________________________

Where your tax money goes
It is morally and ethically disturbing that legislators give millions of taxpayer money in hand-outs to corporations, gambling casinos, CEOs, golden parachutes, and publicly funded, but privately run, charter schools while cutting programs for the disabled, seniors, children, SNAP, safety programs, and the pensions of workers.
In 2010, legislators gave $98 million for three UNO Charter Schools in Chicago with the promise of millions more in the future.
In 2011, taxpayers gave Motorola Mobility $136 million to keep jobs in Illinois, while paying its former CEO Sanjay Jha $66 million to quit!
Illinois basically paid Sanjay Jha’s golden parachute. Also in 2011, legislators gave $50 million in tax incentives to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Tax incentives mean that the corporation will leave if Illinois doesn’t give them what they want.
In 2012, legislators gave $168 million in tax incentives to CME, AT&T, Museum of Broadcast History, Boeing, and United. Corporations use blackmail to get what they want, and you are picking up the tab.
Not only does Illinois not collect licensing fees from gambling casinos, but they also get a free pass on taxes on their facilities.
Recently, Archer-Daniels-Midland of Decatur told legislators that they need $24 million in tax incentives to move headquarters to Chicago.
Taxes on corporations make up only 5.5 percent of the general revenue in Illinois. By contrast, individual taxpayers are on the hook for about 55 percent (2011 comptroller’s Report Judy Barr Topinka). Loopholes are a big part of the disparity.
Illinois is not broke! Our legislators will just take from pensions and taxpayers! Our legislators are about to take money from the savings of retired Illinois teachers to write “welfare checks” to the corporations or for their threats to leave Illinois. God forbid that they would make corporations pay what they owe Illinois!
Joni Lindgren
Edgewater resident

_________________________________________________

It isn’t any wonder that Obamacare is having a hard time getting started when half the country (Republicans), with the help of the corporate controlled conservative news media, are confusing people with misinformation, distortions, and lies. What you won’t see on Fox News and conservative media is that Obamacare is working very well in states like Kentucky, Washington, Rhode Island, California, Connecticut, and Minnesota. It had a rough start in Massachusetts, where it is called Romneycare, but has been working very well for many years, and people there like it. Obama’s objective is to give people better health insurance that he thinks they would like at a lower cost. If they choose to keep their old junk insurance, they will be running for Obamacare, if they get a catastrophic illness.
According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in health care systems in the world, which Obama is trying to fix by helping 40 million poor people get health care.
To equate this to Bush turning his back on people during the Katrina storm, which resulted in the death of almost 2,000 people, and lying about the Iraq war, resulting in the death of over 4,000 young men and women, is obscene. But, just like Social Security and Medicare, which every Republican voted against, Obamacare will succeed in spite of the Republican smear machine.
Cecile Powell
Sun City resident

---

---