[Rhodes22-list] A Reply To A Politician Seeking Office

[Brad Haslett]

Robert,

Let's tackle the easy ones first.

The health care issue was solved this spring in a cigar bar over some really
good single-malt scotch on a cruise ship returning from Alaska.  I met a GP
MD from Middle Tennessee and we came up with the answers over a series of
conversations, but unfortunately there was no one there to take notes so
we'll have to tackle it again. First, we must take on tort reform, not only
for practitioners of medicine, but across the board.  Second, government
sponsorship for routine health care has proven too expensive for Tennessee
and I suspect for every state that has attempted it.  As my mother used to
say, "we can't afford to take you kids to the doctor every time you fart
cross ways!"  When TennCare was implemented, parents would bring their kids
to the doctor for a runny nose because it was "free".  The abuses nearly
bankrupted Tennessee and they eventually had to substantially scale back the
program.  Citizens need to be responsible for a financial threshold, say
$2500, same as the Health Care Savings program, and insurance kicks-in after
the threshold has been exceeded.  At the other end, you have to have limits
on amounts expended to extend life during the last 90 days.  You hate to put
doctors and the government in the position of playing God, but people don't
live forever and we have to accept that.  A combination of a tax-free Health
Savings Plan, catastrophic insurance with tort liability limits, and tax
credits for health insurance should do the trick. What we don't want is to
ruin the best health care system in the world through another failed
socialistic system.

We're going through a another populism phase in the US, probably because
we're in an election cycle with populists as candidates from both parties.
Isolationism and protectionism are both failed policies, China after the
Ming Dynasty comes to mind or the US after Smoot-Hawley during the Great
Depression. Sure, Ford has lost ten thousand jobs but during the same
period, Google and Yahoo has added more.  How would we limit offshoring
jobs?  Should we tell Nissan in TN and MS they have to leave? Or, Hyundai in
AL, Honda in OH, Toyota in KY, TX, & CA, Mitsubishi in IL, Isuzu in IN,
Mercedes in AL, BMW in SC, and so forth.  Should GM be forced to leave one
of their most profitable segments, Shanghai Buick, or Ford pullout from
Brazil where it is very successful?  If you want to be "fair", stop
subsidizing US cotton farmers and let African countries compete.  Now as to
the illegal immigration issue, why exactly are we even having this
conversation?  Build the damn fence!  Throw illegals over the other side and
let them apply for citizenship or guest worker status.  BTW, guest workers
get no US taxpayer subsidized benefits. The last thing we want is for the
government to pick the winners and losers in the marketplace, unless of
course, you are a Luddite weaver (personally I prefer machine woven cloth).
Please do tell me where I can find some loopholes for the "rich".  My
accounting degree only taught me how to delay taxes not avoid them.

The trip to Illinois gave me some good "quality" time to spend with my son
the "Coastie".  We stopped for fuel in the Bootheel of Missouri for fuel and
he asked why we didn't buy some ethanol flexfuel at $2.23 per gallon instead
of 87 octane at $2.72.  That was a good segue for a conversation on energy,
agriculture, and subsidies since we were ten minutes from crossing the
Mississippi River into Illinois.  First, I pointed out the fragile hillsides
in Southern Illinois that had been fallow for the last two decades but were
now planted in corn.  Corn is a "greedy" plant and the runoff from the
chemical fertilizers and pesticides run straight into the river along with
the soil from marginal fields (think Louisiana delta). As we approached the
southern end of the Salem-Loudon anticline, I explained why so many oil
wells were idle when oil was near $100 per barrel.  Ten years ago when oil
was at $13 per barrel, the lift costs were $18 per barrel and many of the
wells were shut-in, permanently.  The 2005 energy bill established a floor
for marginal fields starting at $18 per barrel and it was perceived as a
Bush/Hitler/Cheney/Rove conspiracy to subsidize "Big Oil". We have lots of
oil in this country but much of it is off limits.  China is exploring and
finding oil in the Straights of Florida off the coast of Cuba but we can't
drill on our side of the waters.  We have lots of oil in Alaska that is off
limits. I'm not suggesting that we give carte blanche to US oil companies to
start drilling, let's just understand that a great deal of our dependence on
foreign oil is a choice. I explained to my son that for the last 100 miles
we had been driving across a huge coal deposit.  The lowest sulfur coal
comes from the West but Illinois coal is now marketable because of the
scrubbing costs versus transportation costs.  However, the single largest
deposit of low sulfur coal, coal so pure it needs almost no scrubbing
whatsoever,  is in Utah.  President Clinton signed a bill in 1996 just
before he was re-elected to set aside 1.7 million acres in Utah for a
preserve which included a proposal for mining 25,000 acres of low sulfur
coal.  So where is the second largest deposit of such coal?  It is in
Indonesia and owned by the Lippo family, the same Lippo's that have been
active in Arkansas finance for 30 years and one of Clinton's biggest
financial supporters.  "Big Oil" is not the only energy conspiracy out
there. Where were we?  Oh yeah, now approaching the Loudon end of the
anticline, the ground flattens out and the soil gets better.  On the left
was corn stubble, on the right was corn stubble, for miles, and miles, and
miles, and miles.  Alex asked, "don't they still grow soybeans here?"  No,
they don't, not when corn based ethanol is subsidized.  So let me get to the
point, finally. I've advocated taxing oil, especially foreign oil for a long
time to fund alternative research.  But let's be really, really careful what
products we subsidize.  If you look at the total environmental cycle of a
Hummer versus a Prius, the Hummer is more eco-friendly.

The last 50 miles of our trip was over the flat land created by the last Ice
Age.  The earth's temperature rises and falls over long periods of time.
That's enough science for me.  You are welcome to worship who or what you
want. However, those who believe in Pope Al do have their useful purposes.
I say we reflood New Orleans like nature intended it to be and be done with
it.  There's a lot of high ground in Kansas.

My son is as big a history buff as I am and he spent most of his time with
his grandpa getting an oral history of WW2.  I was more interested in the
Great Depression and the history of the Illinois Basin oil field
development.  Dad has a good memory and a sharp mind for an 87 year old.
Alex and I saved our discussion of Iraq for the return trip.  He was a
Senior in HS at Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, VA when the
invasion of Iraq began.  Most of his instructors were former military
officers and they fell about evenly for/against the issue. We were in the
vicinity of the New Madrid seismic fault in the Bootheel and that was an
appropriate area for the discussion - opinions on Iraq tend to fall along a
fault line.  My personal thoughts are that history will be kind to Bush 43
and his decision in the long run.  In the short run, we know what happens
when we lose a war.  The Iraqi's were all to familiar with our abandonment
of them after Gulf War 1, and they too have seen the images of helicopters
evacuating the US Embassy in Saigon after the US Congress cut off funding.
What turned the factions around against fighting each other, and cooperating
with US forces, was the infiltration of alQueda forces and as Michel Yon
reported, "they raped one too many 13 year old".  If fighting alQueda is our
mission, we've done a damn fine job of it the last year.  The biggest victim
of "The Surge" has been the main stream media for their false reporting of
the progress.  I suspect we'll get out of Iraq on about the same timetable
we have in Germany, Japan, and Korea.  The Middle East controls two thirds
of the "cheap oil" and we'll have an interest there for a long time. Even if
we pull off a miracle and wean ourselves off of oil, the funding for radical
Islam will still have a market for their product for a long time (think
China).  Iraq is but one battle in a long war.

As we proved on this trip, "your mileage may vary".

Brad







On Jan 26, 2008 7:38 PM, Robert Skinner <robert at squirrelhaven.com> wrote:

> This is a message that I sent to a person seeking to be a US
> congresswoman for/from the state of Maine.  As you can see,
> I do not regard a party platform as sacrosanct.
>
> OK, Brad, Ed, Herb, etc.  Have a field day!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Tell Chellie what you think Congress's top priority should be."
>
> Chellie,
>
> I don't think we should allow ourselves to focus on any issue
> to the exclusion of others, so I will reply by ranking  your
> suggested issues.
>
> 1.  Iraq - stop the hemorrhage of blood and treasure, let the
>    religious zealots slug it out.  Concentrate on control of
>    nukes, access to oil in the short term, and point actions
>    against Al-Qaeda to keep their heads down.
>
> 2.  Health care - Rationalize the chaotic patchwork of health
>    care in the US.  While there must be limits of what can be
>    provided as the basic floor under all US citizens, it is
>    essential that there be some minimum of health care for
>    all.
>
> 3.  Economy - Set some controls on off-shoring of jobs.  Limit
>    immigration - fences, passports, etc.  Stop providing
>    welfare and other US citizen's basic support to illegal
>    immigrants.  Eliminate tax loopholes for the rich and make
>    tax laws understandable for all.  Reconsider the
>    implementation and consequences of NAFTA.
>
> 4.  Other (please write in the box below)
>
>    Develop alternative energy sources - wind, hydro, solar,
>    biodiesel, switchgrass ethanol, LNG - in that order.  Tax
>    petroleum products and and use the proceeds exclusively
>    to subsidize development of alternatives.  We cheaped our
>    way into this mess, and we will have to work ourselves
>    out - painfully.
>
> 5.  Global climate change
>
>    I do not regard "Global climate change" as something that
>    the US government can (or should) deal with unilaterally.
>    It may be irreversible, so the rate of change and dealing
>    with consequences are the issues - sea level rise,
>    desertification, etc.
>
>    On an international level, we need to plan the relocation
>    of people living in delta and other lowland areas prone to
>    flooding.  Bangladesh and New Orleans come to mind, as do
>    all the major seaports around the world.
>
>    We must also (for the sake of our health and economy) work
>    on limiting our dependence on non-renewable resources in
>    the US.  Biodiesel, wind power, tidal pool generators, etc.
>    all need attention.
>
>    But I also think that the developing countries will need to
>    use petroleum resources while they implement alternatives -
>    ones that (hopefully) result from our lead in such
>    endeavors.
>
>    Perhaps we need an Energy Corps - like the Peace Corps of
>    the last century.
>
> --
> Robert Skinner, 9 Gateway Commons, Gorham, Maine 04038-1331
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