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Politifact, Obama, and Tax Plans

R. Horton

Mitt Romney has repeatedly said that several studies prove his tax plan is possible without tax increases on the middle class. President Obama claims that even these “studies” show that middle-class tax increases would be required to make the plan work. The studies (or analyses) in question are those by Harvey Rosen and Martin Feldstein. Politifact rated the president’s claim “mostly false.” This is just one more egregious rating from Politifact.

The president has said that making the plan work would require either raising taxes on the middle class or eliminating popular deductions such as the home mortgage deduction. In supporting their “mostly false” rating, Politifact said, “Rosen found that when a wide array of tax breaks are eliminated — from home mortgages to charitable giving to health insurance benefits — and projected economic growth rates are factored in that the increased revenues can balance out the money lost through tax rate cuts for high-income taxpayers.” These are, of course, exactly the middle-class deductions the president was referring to. Eliminating these deductions will, of course, increase the taxes middle-class families pay.

As for the Feldstein claim, Politifact quotes Feldstein as saying he did not separate data on the income earners to which President Obama referred, so it is impossible to say whether Obama’s statement is true or false. But please note, it is possible to say that Romney’s claim that the study proves his plan is possible without increasing taxes on the middle class is possible to evaluate. It is false. Feldstein says his claim was that Romney’s plan was possible without raising taxes on families earning less than $100,000/year. As Josh Barro pointed out, “Feldstein allows for tax increases on people making more than $100,000. But on Sept. 14, Romney told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he would hold people making less than $200,000 or $250,000 harmless from tax increases.” Feldstein certainly doesn’t claim that Romney’s plan is viable without eliminating the deductions President Obama says will need to be eliminated, and he does not claim it would not require tax increases on those making $100,000 to $250,000, which is Romney’s definition of middle class.

Wither Education; Whither Education

R. Horton

In his Apology, Socrates boasted that he shared whatever knowledge or skills he had in the agora with no expectation of payment, and he managed to work in a little reminder that he had reduced himself to poverty by refusing payment for his tireless search for truth. By this, of course, he insinuated no small measure of superiority over the Sophists, who choose to offer educational opportunities in exchange for a living wage, something educators are only occasionally lucky enough to achieve today. Socrates shared his information primarily with wealthy young men who had plenty of leisure time to sit around the agora soaking up tidbits of brilliance from an old master. Likewise, it is currently difficult for any but the most affluent to afford the luxury of study for the sake of intellectual stimulation and personal enrichment.

Indeed, it is increasingly painful for most middle-class people to afford even a vocational education that doesn’t leave them deeply in debt. Education is now typically only worth the expense when students go for the quick credential—a certificate or license that will get them in the pool of skilled labor. In the past, students such as myself could afford to pursue intellectual interests without worrying about being reduced to poverty. Study in the arts and humanities has never generated great financial rewards, but it did not always result in a lifetime of crippling debt as many recent graduates are finding awaits them now.

So, unlike students we once had, entering freshmen will forgo anything resembling a liberal education and opt for vocational training instead, leaving them unaccustomed to the expansion of the moral imagination and sharpening of the critical edge. We no longer need visionary writers to describe some hellish dystopia where critical thinking is forbidden and creativity is quashed. We have seen this future, and the future is now. The Texas Republican Party is now officially opposed to the teaching of higher-order thinking skills. They argue that education in critical thinking causes students to challenge the teaching of their parents, but they seem less concerned about parental authority when parents teach their children that global warming and evolution are real but the seven habits of highly effective people are not. Parents have the right to turn off the lights, they believe, but not the right to open the window and invite illumination from the sun.

A few days ago, I read and shared a blog by Jack Rasmus, who warned of the dangers of corporatization and privatization of education (another excellent blog on the subject is here). His blog is insightful and accurate, but I don’t think many in education will need his warning—we have already experienced the move away from education and toward indoctrination. Rasmus says one goal of privatization is to replace educators either with machines or curricula so standardized that teachers are no better than machines. I once had the surreal experience of sitting in a meeting where we were told in no uncertain terms that there was no movement toward developing a standardized curriculum. No, we had it all wrong. In fact, what they were doing, we were told, was developing a few standardized questions for the final exam. They were merely determining the content of our classes; we were free to teach it anyway we saw fit, so long as we used the tools provided in the training we would be required to complete.

Not surprisingly, many teachers have left the schools for other pursuits, but no teacher wants to give up on education. We may not all be willing to die for education as Socrates was, but we aren’t likely to give up without a fight, either. And we do know, of course, that we may very well end up reduced to poverty and may face trouble with the authorities.

As we flee the schools and universities, where will we take our questions, answers, and insights? Socrates lectured in the open market, where he ran into trouble. We can go to the public spaces, but the public spaces are now almost entirely privately owned. We can emigrate away from repressive governments, but we cannot escape the reach of the transnational corporations that own the public spaces, water, and land we occupy. The internet is democratic we thought, until we realized the corporate owners of internet services store and compile the private messages, tweets, and personal information of everyone, and they often do not hesitate to turn over such information of rabble-rousers to authorities.

In an entirely Socratic move, some universities and individuals have decided to offer their instruction for free with open-sourced content. Students thirsty for knowledge can find lectures uploaded to various content sites, syllabi posted for all to see, and bibliographies filled with provocative citations. If the content is difficult to comprehend or organize, many dedicated individuals are willing to provide coaching, tutoring, or lecturing for any and all willing to listen.

As the conservative fear, teaching is a subversive activity (though it can subvert either the left or right), and subversives will not stop teaching. The pursuit of knowledge, even if unattainable, is a worthy endeavor, and the desire to broaden our imaginations and expand our reach is the only path to a brighter future. The next dark ages could, indeed, be the last, but we must strive for a new age of enlightenment or die trying.

 

Update on Saylor White

R. Horton

After public pressure and eliminating all excuses for denial, Aetna has finally approved Saylor’s surgery, so he is at last getting treatment. His wife sent the following message to those who were concerned about him:

“Great news! Aetna APPROVED Saylor White‘s surgery with the original surgical team and hospital. They could not provide the services in-network so had to approve it. His doctors office is working to reschedule ASAP. Thank you to everyone who has been comfort and support to us during this trying time. Bless you all!”

While we are all relieved and thrilled he is getting treatment, there is no excuse for subjecting sick people to so much stress and indignity.

Notes on European Socialized Healthcare

R. Horton1 Comment

Yesterday, I posted a blog about three people who must rely on contributions from friends, admirers, and strangers to maintain the healthcare they need, and these three individuals are not unusual cases in the US. It is the argument of conservatives that universal healthcare coverage (or anything socialized) will deprive workers of their dignity. It is the pride of ownership and rewards for hard work that gives people self-respect and a feeling of accomplishment. Providing for yourself makes you a better person.

The majority of Europeans, where it is generally inconceivable that anyone would be forced to hold a fundraiser to pay medical bills, seem to disagree. Just as most Americans do not consider Social Security or public education to be a demeaning form of charity, most Europeans do not consider healthcare to be a demeaning government handout. Rather, healthcare is a burden shared by all to protect their common interests. The costs of advanced medical technologies and surgeries are out of range for all but the richest Americans. Medical emergencies can quickly run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. A six-figure salary will not offset the costs.

Having to ask friends, family, admirers, and strangers to help pay your bills is demeaning, demoralizing, and degrading. The conservative vision of letting everyone pay their own way or debase themselves in their dying months, weeks, or days is appalling and unconscionable. I have my own objections to the Affordable Care Act, but trying to fix the problem is more honorable than ignoring the problem or, worse, declaring that the current crisis in healthcare is acceptable. We must demand solutions. If you are opposed to the solution on the table, bring your idea to the table.

Ignoring the problem is killing us. Unfortunately, we must also be humiliated before we can die penniless and ashamed.

Leaving Artists (and others) to Die–Saylor White, Candye Kane, and Paul Williams

R. Horton8 Comments

Last Sunday I attended a benefit concert and auction to raise money to help defray medical expenses incurred by the talented and hard-working musician and songwriter Saylor White, who is insured by the Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan, is suffering from spinal cancer. Saylor’s doctors recommended surgery to relieve the pain and, with luck, remove the tumor, but Saylor’s insurance company refused to cover the surgery. Saylor has many friends and admirers who rallied around him and did whatever they could to help. After the benefit, Saylor posted the following on his public Facebook profile:

“It will be a few days before we can deal with all the benefit information. I am sorry there is so much information and it is taking a lot of people to collect it all, but it really boils down to this: On Feb 17 my doctor told me I had a tumor, and malignant cancer in my spine. Since then I have never been treated for the cancer or the damaged spine. On the 17 of Feb. I could walk to appointments. I no longer can walk without someone else’s help, and my wife cannot pick me up. We have done [what] we can to get treatment. We do not know what to do now because we officially have no treating physician. Thanks for all the amazing support. We feel blessed but we, and you all have done all you can do–the help will have to come from some other place.”

Saylor’s many friends and admirers will attest to the hard work he has done throughout his life. There is simply no justification for treating a working and decent person with such inhumanity. Of course, Saylor is correct that he is blessed to have so many people supporting him. Many people in his situation suffer in isolation and despair. How can we live in a country that claims to be civilized, developed, or free and allow this kind of unnecessary suffering to continue? We cannot. We must face the barbarism of our current system and work to change it.

This information is disheartening enough, but when I returned from the benefit I saw that friends and admirers of blues singer, Candye Kane, had a benefit on the same day as Saylor’s to cover her medical costs, and her future is uncertain. Candye expressed her gratitude on her Facebook page as well:

“Thank you so much to all of you for your ongoing support and thanks to all who attended and played the benefit last night at the Belly Up Tavern. I can’t even believe how many people care about me.”

And it is true, many do love her and support her. It shouldn’t be necessary for her friends and followers to do this, but I am glad they can and will. Still, I think of the many who spend their lives in more obscure kinds of work. Does justice require that we work hard, buy insurance, and also be popular? Must we punish those who fail to develop vast social networks of emotional and financial support? Our system is as absurd as it is unjust.

Finally, last night I read the latest installment of a blog by Cindy Lee Berryhill, who is a musician and wife of rock journalist and biographer Paul Williams, who suffers from dementia resulting from injuries sustained in a bicycle accident. (For anyone interested in caregiver narratives, Cindy’s blog provides and excellent example.) Paul now requires full-time residential care. Though he and Cindy have both worked and made great contributions to our society (I really want to emphasize this theme), Paul’s care is too expensive to be borne by most working people. On her Facebook page, Cindy explains that the California Medicaid program enables her to keep him in care so long as she does not make more than $2,200/month. In order to make sure she meets all requirements, however, she hires a lawyer to maintain her paperwork and ensure she does not run afoul of the requirements. In order to have money to do this, she seeks help from friends and followers.

Is this really what we want to be as a society? Is this the best example the wealthiest country in the world can set? This is unjust and shameful. Our country is in crisis. It is time that we demand solutions.

If nothing else, we can enjoy some of the work of these fine musicians.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlnLojVPacM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwskX49Qxf8]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYYoHZNBbjE]

Religion and Morality: You could do more

R. Horton1 Comment

Immanuel Kant said, “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” In the past I was of the opinion that if a moral system makes people miserable, it is not a useful moral system at all, but I think perhaps I’m finally starting to grasp Kant’s meaning. Sometimes it takes me longer than I’d like to get things.

It seems to me now that there are two ways of viewing morality. First, we may seek out systems that give us guidance on how we may improve ourselves. Second, we may seek out systems that validate how we already are.

Over the past few decades (or is this problem much older?), we appear to have embraced a massive self-esteem movement that compels us to seek self-validation rather than self-reflection and self-criticism. Christian mega-churches now teach people that God wants them to be happy, so they should pursue whatever makes them happy: luxury homes, cars, vacations, or other possessions. No more are congregants taught the value of restraint and humility. Thus, immediate and intense gratification is combined with the arrogance of ones who must not be questioned. It is not that I want to see medieval flagellants in the streets, but humble servitude and stewardship might be a nice change. I do realize, of course, that such meek worshipers still exist, but they are too quiet to gain so much notice.

And many people who claim to be interested in Buddhism say that it helps them stay centered. By this, they mean, as far as I can tell, that it helps them cope with the stresses life throws their way. But Buddhism as I understand it teaches discipline and awareness of the suffering of life. Suffering is universal, and relief from suffering must also be universal. To relieve your own suffering, you must stop believing in your “own” suffering and work to relieve universal suffering through loving kindness that pervades all your actions, words, and thoughts.   Your relief comes from the kindness you show others and your restraint from pursuing selfish desires, not from freeing your mind of unpleasant thoughts.

Finally, those who are not religious often turn to moral philosophy as a source of comfort. Rather than evaluating a moral system to see how sound it is and what advice it can offer for living a life that is good, proper, and noble, we read for a philosophy that exalts someone who is very much the way we already are.

When corporate leaders and other public figures are criticized for immoral behavior, they often react angrily and declare that it is their critics who are acting inappropriately. Of course, not all criticisms are valid, so sometimes they are correct, but imagine a world where the same people responded with an air of humility. We’ve entered an age where we constantly demand apologies of anyone in the public who says something we don’t like. I find apologies on demand to be extremely unsatisfying. I would much rather hear someone say, “I try to be a good person, but sometimes I make mistakes. I would ask you to show me the same forbearance and forgiveness that I promise to show you.” And maybe we can all set to the task of improving ourselves and our world.

Arthur Levitt “Defends” Goldman Sachs

R. Horton

Arthur Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and a senior adviser to Goldman Sachs, says no one puts customer’s first and the firm should stop saying they do. He says this in response to Greg Smith’s op-ed published on the day of his departure from Goldman Sachs. Smith, of course, said that Goldman Sachs was disrespectful of clients and did not put their interests first. Levitt thinks it is wrong to expect financial services firms to put the interests of clients ahead of their own. That would be unreasonable, and anyone who doesn’t understand that is just too stupid to even be doing business, apparently. Levitt said, “That’s not to stay that buyers should beware. It is to say there should be transparency. But on the other hand, let’s not create a fellowship of buyers and sellers that will march into the sunset.”

What he is saying, I think, is that the most successful firms are also the most ruthless. If they put their clients first, they will fail. This is the same reason so many athletes use performance-enhancing drugs. It isn’t that it is right; it is just that everyone is doing it, so it has become necessary to compete. More regulation and oversight might help financial services, but this doesn’t seem to occur to Levitt.

But it does occur to Matt Taibbi, reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. Way back on May 11, 2011, Taibbi reported on Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, the 650-page report just released by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, alongside Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. From Taibbi’s article:

“But the mountain of evidence collected against Goldman by Levin’s small, 15-desk office of investigators — details of gross, baldfaced fraud delivered up in such quantities as to almost serve as a kind of sarcastic challenge to the curiously impassive Justice Department — stands as the most important symbol of Wall Street’s aristocratic impunity and prosecutorial immunity produced since the crash of 2008.”

But we shouldn’t be too critical, right?

It seems absurd to even have to write about this in an ethics blog. Is there any ethical question here? The fact that anyone would defend fraud and client abuse is a sad indication of our current state of moral decay. How do we revive a sense of honor and decency in corporate executives? How do we weave a new moral fabric and replace the one that is soiled and rent?

 

Jana Pochop on Death and Dying (in song)

R. Horton1 Comment

For most of human history, it was ordinary for families and even close friends to be present for the death of a loved one. People knew the sights, sounds, and smell of death. For a sick person to die alone would be considered an extreme misfortune. But the 20th century moved death from home to hospital. As Philippe Aries wrote, “The hospital is the only place where death is sure of escaping a visibility—or what remains of it—that is hereafter regarded as unsuitable and morbid.” While it was once a great tragedy to die alone, many now consider it a tragedy when one must be present for the death of a loved one.

To be sure, no one who witnesses the death of a loved one escapes trauma. Death is painful, and even those who are prepared for it often panic at the last moment. When people plan to die at home but end up dying in a hospital, caregiver panic is frequently the reason. The last moments of life can be excruciating to watch, and caregivers often call an ambulance to bring relief for their loved ones.

Caregivers who have a home healthcare provider to reassure them do much better. When the family knows the process is normal and unavoidable, they are able to brace themselves against the pain and endure it to the end. The advantage of hospice over home death is that professionals are responsible for all medical decisions, and the family can focus on comforting their loved one, grieving, and saying farewell.

I’ve thought a great deal about this process and how it may improve our society if we once again become familiar with death and dying in a more personal manner. I honestly believe this experience gives people a deeper experience of life, grief, love, and loss. I’ve read about it, and I’ve written about it, but I was surprised to hear so many of my thoughts on the subject expressed in a folk song of just a few minutes.

Last night I went to see a performance by Susan Gibson, an extremely talented singer/songwriter. During the second set, Gibson invited Jana Pochop on stage to sing two songs. The first was about what you will do in the moment when your soul leaves your body. The imagery was compelling and profoundly sad. When this song is available, I would recommend it to help families prepare for the imminent death of a loved one. I also believe the song will be appropriate for a medical humanities curriculum.

I didn’t intend for this blog to ever have anything to do with folk music, but I also did not anticipate folk music intersecting my interests in medical humanities, caregiver narratives, home/hospice death, and survivor stories. The following video is not of the song in question, but it gives you an idea of Jana Pochop’s talents.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnx_lNuyoNA]

Pitch for a sequel to W;T

R. Horton

Some friends and I were saying we wish Margaret Edson, author of “W;t,” would write another play. Jokes about possible sequels ensued, so I imagined the following:

After witnessing and participating in the disrespectful and undignified death of Vivian Bearing, a feared and respected scholar of John Donne, Jason Posner begins to question whether biological reductionism is any more reasonable than attempts at metaphysical reductionism that John Donne paradoxically sought and repudiated. As Posner grapples with the contradiction between his desire to prolong life through medical research and his denial of the significance of suffering, he develops a yearning to create meaning out of the intersection of biological necessity, emotional fervor, and human connection.

As Posner completes his required clinical experience in the hospital and moves into the lab full time, he finds himself plagued by questions about the patients whose tissue and cells he is observing and manipulating. He begins to question the motivation of nurses, social workers, chaplains, and therapists in the hospital.

As his curiosity grows, isolated from human contact, he begins to read not only Donne’s “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions” but patient narratives as well as caregiver narratives. He begins to realize the importance of suffering to meaning humans make of their condition.

Through the turmoil of his own imagination, he has one other realization: He realizes he will die.