HR 4213, the so-called “extenders bill,” passed the House Representatives last month but only after the Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans were able to force House leaders to eliminate $31 billion worth of COBRA subsidies and Medicaid funding.  By bowing to the Tea Party – a political movement of fools and idiots – the House Blue Dogs have been able to put the states in a horrifying position.  They badly, very badly, need the $23 billion in Medicaid funds that were lopped off of the bill.

The Senate can restore these cuts but will need the House to go along with the restoration in conference committee.  Where does Congressman Dennis Moore stand on restoration of these cuts?  I can’t say because a call to his Washington office and a discussion with his communications director left that question unanswered.  All he would tell me is that the Congressman voted for the bill.  Yes, but that was after elimination of the $31 billion.  Where did he stand on eliminating it?  All the communications director would say is that he was not part of the negotiations.  Will he fight to restore these funds?  No answer.

CALL CONGRESSMAN MOORE AND TELL HIM TO FIGHT FOR BADLY NEEDED MEDICAID FUNDS:

Overland Park Office – 913-383-2013

Kansas City, KS – 913-621-0832

Lawrence, KS – 785-842-9313

Washington, DC – 202-225-2865

Here is a nasty little piece of ageism appearing in the op ed section of the New York Times this morning:

“If anyone should be complaining about deficits, it should be the 20-somethings who will have to pay for all those meds-popping boomers moving into the comfort of Medicare and Social Security.” (Timothy Egan, “Save Us, Millennials”)

This nonsense is promoting inter-generational conflict.  It is reminiscent of the inter-class, racial conflict promoted by the Neo-cons in the 1970s and 1980s that led to cruel welfare changes in the 1990s.  Poor folks – mostly women and children – were sterotyped as lazy, shiftless, and dependent (and visualized as being African American).  Most people who knew nothing about welfare recipients – and that was most people – bought into all of the stereotypes.  You have probably heard the one about the welfare mom standing in line at the super market with expensive steak.  Everyone had heard a horror story about some welfare mother.

Meds popping, in the comfort of Social Security and Medicare Boomers indeed!  The generation approaching retirement now is quite diverse.  A large portion will be poor (at least a third).  Many have lost a big share of their hard earned retirement funds due to a corrupt relationship between Congress and the financial industry.  Most have paid their FICA and MICA taxes throughout their working careers.   Who were they paying for? 

Comfort?  What comfort?  Social Security doesn’t even provide enough to afford the minimal needs of elderly citizens.

With cuts in resources for public education these days, teachers are being fired.  Many “liberal” older listeners to NPR might think that public radio would be tuned into the types of negative stereotypes and discrimination that accompany employment actions.  No so.  On June 2nd, NPR correspondent Larry Abramson presented a segment entitled “In Teacher Layoffs, Seniority Rules.  But Should It?”

The report bemoaned the layoff of younger teachers due to seniority.  The implication of the entire segment is that seniority laws unduly protect older “slugs” who just happen to have been around a long time.  Below is a picture of Christa Krohn, described in the report as “one of those perky, vivacious teachers every parent wants for their child.”

Hey what parents want a 50 something old person with 25 years of teaching experience around their kid.  How about this:  there are many promising young teachers graduating from college who should have a fair chance to fulfill their career goals in education.  It isn’t about old or young teachers.  Due to budget cuts, we are cheating our children by laying off teachers.  Period.  End of story.  It is on the social justice of offering all children a decent education that NPR should be focusing.

See the last post on the growth of the child population in the U.S.

Given all the palaver about “Baby Boomer” hordes about to descend upon the health care system, you might think that the rest of the U.S. population is shrinking.  That would be wrong – way wrong.  In fact, the overall growth of the population in this country presents real problems to a political-economic system with disappearing jobs, shrinking educational resources, diminished government services, and an increasingly polluted and wasted environment. 

The demographic information presented in this post has come mostly from the U.S. Census Bureau.  One would be hard pressed to find a professional demographer who disagrees with it.  The graph at the bottom of this post displays U.S. population growth in millions (Y axis) for the years 1950 to 2050 (X axis).  As you can see the population between 1950 and now, practically doubled – from 161 million to 312 million.  However, in the next 30 years, another 128 million people – roughly one and one-half Irans – will be added to the U.S.  Only 48.3 million of this growth will be in the 65+ age category.  That leaves a population growth of nearly 80 million in the under 65 age category.

The “Baby Boom” child cohort peaked at 70 million in 1964.  The under 18 population remained at about 70 million for a few years and then declined gradually until the mid-80s when it bottomed out at 64 million.  This was a “dip” but not a bust.  There was never a “Baby Bust.”  Neither was there an echo.  The child population began to grow again and reached 70 million again in the mid-90s and has never quit growing.  As the table immediately below indicates, there are now 75 million children in the U.S.  This will grow to 101 million by 2050!  WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS?

*The 85+ group is counted twice – as part of the 65+ category and broken out as a separate group.

It is easy to be misled by the difference between absolute growth and relative growth.  In relative terms, the 85+ group will grow by 231% by2050 while the 0 to 18 population will grow by 35%.  However, in absolute growth (absolute numbers), the 85+ population will add 13.2 million while the 0 to 18 population will add 26.3 million.  Approximately 63% of the population growth will come in the under 65 age categories.

I will leave the readers of this post with the following question:  “Why is the press, the government,and just about every other influential institution ignoring the unsustainable population growth thatwe are now experiencing?”  It is unsustainable in the current U.S. living and governing mode.

U.S. Population Growth – 1950 to 2050

Poor Billy Nungesser.  Every evening on the national news Billy is presented as the quintessential suffering Louisianan.  There he is, day after day, often with “drill, baby, drill” Jindal, moaning and wailing about the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf Coast and the Obama’s Administration’s indifference to their desire to tear up the environment even more by building berms to stop the oil from entering marshes.

Who is Billy?  Billy is the son of the late Billy senior Nungesser.  Daddy Nungesser  is best known for being the powerhouse in the Republican Party that played a major role in changing Louisiana politics from Democrat to Republican.  Billy, Jr. is carrying on his daddy’s efforts to keep Louisiana Republican and pro-big oil.  Neither Billy Jr. or Billy Sr. have a history of opposing oil drilling in the Gulf as a threat to the environment. 

In fact, Billy Jr. has made a fortune providing catering services to off shore oil operations and by providing housing for oil industry workers.  If you listen closely to Billy’s remonstrations, you will note that he is not in the least bit a contrarian when it come to risking the environment he claims to love so dearly.  If anyone can find any evidence that Billy has ever demonstrated any opposition to drilling at 5000 foot depths, I would like to see it.

Only a feckless, corrupt, incompetent Democratic Party could let a bunch of reactionary, pro-oil, Republicans hang this disaster around President Obama’s neck!

I find it interesting that Republican governors of the reddest of the red states where government regulation and oversight are, to say the least, detested, are screaming at President Obama to fix a catastrophe caused by lax oversight and free rein for the oil companies.  In fact, preventative measures were ignored and no technology was in place for reacting to a possible blow out at 5000 feet under water. This is just the way the Republicans want it to be.  Furthermore, the 1300 off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico weren’t put there during the Obama Administration.  This drilling has taken place for decades without much, if any, protest from the on-shore business people now screaming about the loss of their livelihood.

It is really sickening to see the loony-tunes team of Carville and Matalin running around braying and bleating with Anderson Cooper about the poor job President Obama is doing handling this crisis.  What the hell is he supposed to do?  He has obviously been told by oil industry moguls that technology was in place to prevent this type of catastrophe.  OK so he didn’t have time to run out and get his degree in petroleum engineering so that he could figure it out for himself.  Although he is very smart, perhaps he is human.

Mary Matalin is Dick Cheney’s pal.  She has been one of the leading Republican cheerleaders for “starving the beast,” otherwise known as disassembling the Federal government.  In addition, I can remember her laughing and cheering for the “drill baby drill” crowd at the last Republican convention.

We can destroy the oceans quickly or more slowly and systematically over a longer period of time as we are now doing. The red state Republicans who are derisive about global warming could explain to us how acidification of the oceans due to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will eventually affect the fishing industry in the Gulf, amongst other places.  I suspect that efforts to reduce burning of hydrocarbons through major changes in mileage standards, speed limits, public transportation, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth will be vociferously, emphatically, and forcefully opposed by the likes of Bobby Jindal, and the other red state governors.   So let’s just let them figure out how we are going to save our oceans on which they appear to be so dependent.

I don’t think we should be drilling one damn oil well in the Gulf of Mexico or any other ocean. 

In his book Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our future and What Americans Can Do About It, billionaire hedge fund mogul Peter G. Peterson focuses much of the blame for U.S. fiscal profligacy on “entitlements,” which has become a pejorative term for Social Security and Medicare.  His polemics are aimed at programs for keeping tens of millions of U.S. citizens from sinking deep into poverty while he ignores the obscene personal income and corporate income tax structures that have become increasingly “rigged” to benefit the powerful, wealthy, class of which he is a member.

Mr. Peterson has funded the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank with inordinate clout in Washington, D. C.  It is from this power base – supported by the likes of Larry Summers, as well as most other influential players in fiscal policy – that Peterson and his cronies have launched a fiscal policy crusade.  A major issue for them is government debt, a major cause of which is, according to Peterson, “entitlements.” That deficit spending is such a bad thing is questionable and the subject of many Paul Krugman columns – who just happens to be my economics hero and guru.  Nevertheless, money in our economic system is finite.  The more money directed toward income classes below the super rich, the less available for them.  And that class doesn’t really like to share any more of the wealth than is absolutely necessary to keep the lid on things.

Hence, they skillfully and carefully propagandize in preparation for political moves to divert more resources from the middle and lower income classes to themselves.  For instance, after a long propaganda campaign against poor mothers on public assistance in the 1970s and 1980s, the Clinton Administration disgracefully pushed a so-called welfare reform program through Congress, which was nothing more than an assault on the poor.  At the same time, Congress was continuing to shift federal taxes from upper income classes and corporations to the middle class.

Much like the Peterson Institute is now launching an attack on the “Baby Boom” generation (more about that will be discussed on this blog in the future), Social Security, and Medicare, in the 1970s and 80s, a plethora of powerful, right-wing, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Manhattan Institute supported Neo-Conservative academics and theorists who disseminated theories about the lazy, dependent nature of welfare recipients.  The influence of Charles Murray (bigot and co-author of the Bell Curve), George Gilder, James Q. Wilson, Edward Banfield and a host of other reactionary but highly influential social scientists prepared legislators and the public for passage of Clinton’s punishing program – we have far more hungry and homeless children and their mothers because of it.

Having reduced their tax burden by stereotyping and punishing the poor, it is now to programs needed by millions of aging Americans that the wealthiest of the wealthiest are turning their attention.  A message to “Baby Boomers” is you can ignore these people, but you do so at your own peril.

Attempts by the super rich to stereotype and discriminate against current 65+ citizens and aging “Baby Boomers” are given a boost by some less than super rich – but rich nevertheless – “Baby Boomer” pundits and self-appointed experts such as Thomas Friedman and David Brooks.  The following are a few of the examples of negative stereotypes that appear in the New York Times – the leading print-media outlet in the U.S.:

Thomas Friedman, “Root Canal Politics,” New York Times, May 9, 2010–

“The meta-story behind the British election, the Greek meltdown and our own Tea Party is this: Our parents were ‘The Greatest Generation,’ and they earned that title by making enormous sacrifices and investments to build us a world of a abundance.  My generation, ‘The Baby Boomers,’ turned out to be what writer Kurt Andersen called ‘The Grasshopper Generation.’  We’ve eaten through all that abundance like hungry locusts.”

David Brooks, “Geezers’ Crusade,” New York Times, February 2, 2010 –

“Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money.”

“Second, they are taking freedom.”

“Third, they are taking opportunity.”

“In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come.  In the public sphere, they take it away.”

Ross Douthat, “Telling Grandma ‘No,’ New York Times, August 17, 2009 –

    “And if you think reform is tough today, just wait.  We’re already practically a gerontocracy:  Americans over 50 cast over 40 percent of the votes in the ’06 mid-terms.  As the population ages – by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 – the power of the elderly and nearly elderly may become almost absolute.

    “In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure.  Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks).  Somebody will need to say ‘no’ to retirees.”

TALLGRASS ACTIVIST COMMENTS:

The above types of quotes are becoming increasingly common.  “Baby Boomers” approaching retirement should take these vicious stereotypes seriously and begin to push back.  Journalists such as David Brooks and Thomas Friedman have no professional credentials in the areas about which they pontificate.  They are, however, taken seriously by major media outlets and the public.  For instance, they appear periodically and not infrequently on NPR and PBS where they sound off on a wide variety of issues.

The columns from which the above quotes were pulled are filled with factual errors regarding demographic changes.  Furthermore, they distort reality concerning Medicare and Social Security.  This blog will be dedicated to providing credible information provided by professional demographers, health care researchers, and other individuals and publications recognized as scholarly as well as respected in the scientific community.

The so-called “Tea Party Movement” has made a lot of noise, has been fairly vicious, and has been effectively destructive.  However, it is just the latest anti-intellectual, racist, populist movement that pops up from time-to-time in the U.S.  This current version of mob hatred in the political process has been made more potent by a dedicated cable channel (i.e. Fox News), right-wing billionaire benefactors, and a lack of push back by the mainstream media as well as by moderate and liberal politicians.  It won’t be around very long.

Unfortunately, it won’t be liberal organizing and political activism that will overcome this ill-informed, misguided mass of government haters with a fantasy view of the framers of the U.S. Constitution.  Much bigger forces, already in motion, will determine the role of government in the decades ahead.   

As I write this, the population of the U.S., as well as the population of the Planet, is growing rapidly.  The U.S. population will increase by 38% – from 312 million to 430 million – by 2050.  The environment, the infrastructure, and the education system cannot handle this increase.  But no one is talking about it. All we hear is that “baby boomers” will be fiscally overwhelming, which is scapegoating, pure and simple.  The baby boom generation peaked in 1964 at 70 million children.  Today we are approaching 80 million children and will have 101 million citizens under age 18 in the U.S. population by 2050.

The World population will grow from its current 6.8 billion to at least 9 billion by 2050.  With economic systems based on growth and consumption, the earth cannot sustain this population.  In fact, in terms of global warming and other environmental disasters, we are beyond the point of no return now.  Environmental catastrophes will begin recurring at an accelerating pace with increasingly severe consequences.  If you think the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is disastrous, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Furthermore, without a massive government infusion of public funded jobs and higher education assistance, the U.S. economy will not be able to provide jobs and education to a huge segment of the U.S. population.  These jobs must come in the health care, construction (of infrastructure), and environmental sectors. Otherwise we will have to learn to live with much higher unemployment and lack of access to college for all but the wealthy.

The Tea Party will be put out of business by Mother Nature and human selfishness but I am not optimistic that its disappearance as a viable political force will result in an enlightened democracy.  Liberals and moderates have a tendency to sit on their hands and hope that things will get better.  If you don’t believe me, attend environmental demonstrations, liberal political meetings, and other liberal to leftist events and see how many people show up.

 Capitalist elites, through lobbying and payoffs, along with the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g. United Citizens case) have been setting up conditions for continued oppression of middle and lower socio-economic strata.  The ability of the wealthy top few percent to control the legislative process and manipulate the media cannot be underestimated.  The question is, “what kind of democracy do we have when the rich expropriate the mass media along with legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government for the purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the masses?”

The Deepwater Horizon used a blowout preventer (BOP) that was “beyond the customary warranty period.”  And it didn’t work.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/04/26/daily60.html

See paragraph #10.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.