Are There Any Winners?

The Affordable Health Care Act is once more the center of controversy. The rule that requires all employers, including hospitals and universities owned by the Catholic Church, to provide a health insurance policy that includes coverage for contraception and birth control is being attacked on the grounds of religious freedom. This issue involves a broad interpretation of religious freedom versus a more measured interpretation of that right. I do not think anyone can seriously argue that freedom of religion is absolute. For instance, this country outlawed polygamy even though it was a part of the Mormon faith. Furthermore, although a church that thinks a woman’s place is in the home can discriminate against women in their church, they cannot violate the law by discriminating against women in a more secular setting such as a hospital or university that church owns and operates. What the Catholic Church wants is an exemption from having to provide insurance that covers contraception and birth control. The Church argues that the exemption should be granted on the grounds that the Catholic Church opposes all contraception and birth control as a matter of conscience. I do not agree with the Catholic Church on this issue, but I must concede that I understand its objection to a requirement that forces it to violate its own doctrine. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem, and both sides have a lot to lose.

Any controversy over contraception and birth control is particularly problematic for the Catholic Church because the vast majority of American Catholics use contraceptives and/or other forms of birth control. In a recent poll fifty-three percent of the Catholics asked said they even agree with the government on this issue of insurance coverage. Fifty three percent, however, still leaves a lot of people who disagree with the position the Obama administration has taken. This is understandable. Catholics are very aware of the history of prejudice against them and their church in this country. Like most people who have faced prejudice and discrimination, Catholics are sensitive to anything that might make them think that they or their church are being treated unfairly. This is probably why President Obama has softened his position on this issue. He is now trying to address the objections of the Catholic Church by requiring insurance companies to cover contraception and birth control at no cost to Catholic hospitals and universities.

As difficult as this dispute is for the Catholic Church and the Obama administration the Republican Party will probably suffer the most damage from it. This is because the Republicans have shown a callous disregard for the health and rights of women. The Republican controlled House of Representatives withdrew the government funding of Planned Parenthood on the grounds that Planned Parenthood provides abortions. The Republicans did this even though Planned Parenthood provides cancer screening and contraceptives and does not use any government funds to provide abortions. On the state level what the Republicans have been doing is just as bad. Not being content with violating Roe v. Wade by making abortions unavailable in their states, radical Republican governors and legislators have also been attacking many forms of birth control and the Planned Parenthood organization. That right wing Republicans would go this far is no surprise. What is a surprise is that women have not mounted an organized defense of their health care and their reproductive rights. For several years now I have been asking what it was going to take before women started fighting back. What it has taken is an incredibly stupid and political act by the Susan Komen Foundation. The Komen foundation used a bogus investigation of Planned Parenthood being conducted by a radical Republican congressman as a pretext for withdrawing its funding of Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening program. This time women quickly and effectively responded to the threat, and the Komen Foundation was forced to reinstate the funding.

The way in which women responded to the threat of the Komen Foundation should have put the Republicans on notice; it should have told the Republicans that women have had enough and they are ready to a fight. The Republican Presidential candidates, however, are still trying to win the primaries and they are still pandering to the religious right wing of their party. All of those candidates jumped into the argument between the Catholic Church and the Obama Administration. By accusing President Obama of violating the First Amendment right of freedom of religion those candidates have simply reminded women that the Republican Party is trying to deprive women of their reproductive rights and the health care so many women cannot obtain without affordable insurance coverage or the help of organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

The best thing the Republicans could have done would have been to let the controversy over the Affordable Health Care Act speak for itself, but this is something they did not feel they could do. The Republican Party is in a bit of a quandary. As it now stands, Republicans do not have a viable economic argument. The economy is improving in spite of all their obstructionist tactics, and the tax breaks for the rich that the Republicans are advocating are unpopular because of the great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation and because those tax breaks would come at the expense of Medicaid, Medicare, and probably Social Security. This leaves the Republicans scrambling for some other issue to use against President Obama in the upcoming election. I am sure the Republicans are hoping they can pick up some Catholic voters by painting Mr. Obama as being anti-religious. I do not think this will work. In all likelihood, President Obama’s reasonable efforts to resolve the issue between church and state will satisfy the Catholics who are already Democrats. What the Republicans are doing by trampling on women’s rights and health care, on the other hand, is going to alienate most of the women in the cities and suburbs regardless of the religious affiliations of those women. Ironically, this controversy will also make many people aware of some of the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act, and that awareness will probably make those people view the act more favorably.

I have just finished reading a news story that said American Bishops have rejected President Obama’s compromise. It would be foolish of me to offer spiritual advice to Catholics on this issue. What I offer instead is my hope. I hope Catholics will not see this dispute as an attack on their church, that they will understand that the intent is simply to make contraceptives and birth control available to all women who desire them, and that Catholics will not abandon their church or the Democratic Party over this issue. I think most people realize that everybody will be worse off if the Catholic Church or the Democratic Party are damaged because of this, and I have enough faith in my fellow Americans to believe they will not let either of those things happen.

Mr. One Percent

The empty suit that is Mitt Romney is currently being filled by the poster boy for the one percent and that poster boy is also Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a venture capitalist. Venture capitalists have one goal that is first, foremost and always. They strive to make as much money as possible. If they can reap huge profits by building successful, productive companies they will do that. If they can maximize their profits by destroying businesses, laying off all of the employees, and leaving gullible shareholder with an empty shell they will do that. It is a bit like a scene from the Godfather where one gangster turns to another and says: “Sorry, but I’m going to kill you. There’s nothing personal about it. It’s just business!” Well, it is certainly personal to the man who is being killed, and it is certainly personal to the people who are losing the means to provide for their families. But that is just the way it is. It is just business. Only the strong survive. Unfortunately, this business ethic carries over into Mr. Romney’s politics. He will say anything and do anything to gain power, and he will use that power to maximize the wealth of the wealthy.

Mitt Romney is not just tone deaf he is clueless. He lacks the empathy to understand the struggles of the majority of the people of this nation. As a venture capitalist he only pays around fifteen percent of his income in taxes, and he wants to reduce that amount. He tries to justify that by saying venture capitalists provide jobs, and he does this knowing full well that those businessmen will continue to maximize their profits in any way they can regardless of what the tax rate might be. To him ten thousand dollars is mere chump change. He cannot understand why people might think that challenging Rick Perry to a ten thousand dollar bet is a shameless flaunting of his wealth. He cannot understand why people think that a man who says that nearly four hundred thousand dollars is a small amount can and should share a greater percentage of the tax burden.

It is easy to see why Mitt Romney wants to shift a greater share of the burden of paying for our government off onto the middle class and the poor. He honestly thinks the federal deficit is more of a problem than high unemployment. Yes, I know he is saying that Mr. Obama has failed to create jobs, and that he, Mr. Romney, would create jobs, but that is just a lie. It is another case of Mr. Romney saying what he thinks he must say to get elected. The truth is that President Obama’s policies have created jobs, and more jobs would be created if Republicans such as Mr. Romney would pass the American Jobs Act. Instead of supporting reasonable attempts to correct the real problem, however, Mr. Romney wants to make the failed policies of George W. Bush even worse. In spite of the great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation, he wants to lower the tax rate on the rich and cut all of the safety nets the government provides. He was reluctant to embrace the Ryan plan because the destruction of Medicare and the steep cuts in taxes on corporations and the wealthy are too obvious. He knew the Ryan plan could hurt his chances in a general election. Yet he did endorse the Ryan plan to win the Republican Primaries. Furthermore, his own proposals are just as bad as the Ryan Plan. In order to accomplish the drastic cuts in government spending he is proposing he would have to drastically reduce the benefits of the earned benefits programs such as social security and Medicare as well as greatly reducing other government services.

Slashing government spending rather than making the rich pay their fair share of the taxes makes perfect sense in Mitt Romney’s world, even though it is painfully obvious that the trickle down theory has never and will never work. For people such as Mr. Romney it is not about jobs or people or even the production of goods. Mr. Romney is a businessman, and it is all about profits. There is nothing personal about it. The rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer. That is just the way it is. If the death of the middle class destroys the U.S. market so be it. Other markets will emerge in other nations. That might be the way to run a business but it is no way to run a country!