Why you can't get a job or proper health care

During the recent political season, when candidates were out pounding the street for votes, I sat with more than my share of veterans and neophytes, wannabes who believed “public service” was their way to “give back” to a country that had “given (them) so much.”

They wanted to go to Washington, D.C., where they would, all of them said, “work hard” to ensure “a better life” for all Americans.

They wanted to “make a difference,” institute “positive change” and “listen to the working men and women of America.”

They would “fix the economy,” they all said. But they couldn’t tell me how.

They would hold taxes down, yet provide more social services. But, they couldn’t tell me how.

They would fix unemployment, but couldn’t tell me how.

Finally, I asked one of the candidates: “You want to really save American jobs and help the economy?”FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org and saw that, indeed, he had received money from Big Pharma, as well as other associated health care lobbyists, which explained his being aghast at pulling in the reins on the pharmaceutical companies and his vote against the Obama health reform measure.


Is it any wonder you can’t find a job or receive the kind of health care you not only deserve but need?

As Pogo once said: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”


“Why of course,” he said.

“Pretty simple. All Congress has to do is lay a heavy tariff on a company for each job it sends overseas.”

His jaw dropped and immediately, I recognized that, well, he started calculating his campaign contributions and where they came from.

He wasn’t quite bright enough to respond that a similar, albeit much weaker, measure came up in the Senate last September and was quickly voted down as Republicans lined up a couple of conservative Democrats to help kill the bill.

It came and went almost unnoticed, but the measure would have given companies a break on payroll taxes for new U.S. jobs that replace positions that had been based overseas. It’s weak sauce compared with my proposal, but even so, it was voted down.

Why?

It would take more than a two-year tax holiday to make it profitable enough to prevent a company from exporting jobs. Besides, there is also concern because, believe it or not, quite a few government jobs are outsourced to foreign countries. Your state, county and city may all be sending jobs to India, Indonesia or some other place where they can get the work done for next to nothing, putting food on foreign dinner tables instead of our own. So, how could we possibly even consider a tariff on our state and local governments who are already overburdened with providing us with such luxuries as police and fire protection, sewers and clean running water?

I asked another candidate who was prattling on endlessly about the “problem” of Medicare and Social Security because of the skyrocketing cost of health care.

“Have you ever considered banning the pharmaceutical companies from advertising prescription drugs?” I asked. “It’s not like Lipitor, Viagra or Valium are out there on the open market. These aren’t the cola wars – Pepsi vs. Coke – where advertising to the general public is necessary. These are prescribed meds. If you can’t get them without a prescription, why waste the billions upon billions on advertising and marketing campaigns?”

His jaw dropped and immediately, I recognized that, well, he started calculating his campaign contributions and where they came from.

At the conclusion of the meeting I went to the websites