SPENDING YOUR STIMULUS CHECK
I’m totally excited that our tax rebate checks are coming! Washington has turned into Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, all rolled into one, now delivering $300-600 checks to nearly every one of us.
The idea is that we’ll all rush out and buy, buy, buy – thus stimulating the economy, creating jobs, and causing bluebirds of happiness to trill with delight. Wal-Mart is ready for you, offering to cash your government checks for free and tempting you with special price promotions. Indeed, every big retailer is running shopper specials in May.
But, wait – most of the stuff sold in those stores isn’t made in America. So those sounds of economic stimulation we’re hearing – from factory machinery to bluebirds – are coming from China, Singapore, and other low-wage nations where U.S. corporations have moved production. Spending at the Wal-Marts won’t create new production or new jobs in your town or mine.
That’s why I have a different plan for my $600 check. I’m setting $400 of it aside to spend at farmers’ markets, artisan shops, and hometown businesses that sell goods produced locally, or at least produced in America. This way, our tax dollars can circulate here at home, genuinely benefiting our grassroots economy.
Then, I’m going to donate the other $200 to public-interest groups or progressive candidates who are pushing for real economic reform, not made-in-China consumerism. In particular, my small donations will support those working for a massive public investment in repairing and extending America’s deteriorating infrastructure – including water systems, bridges, schools, parks, public transportation, and a state-of-the-art Internet system.
Instead of a shopping stimulus, we should be employing millions of Americans at good wages to do the good grassroots work that needs to be done.
CORPORATE GREED STRANGLES HEALTH CARE
When drug-company arrogance combines with insurance-company avarice, look out for an explosion of gouging.
The essential idea behind the establishment of an insurance industry was not to maximize the profits of a few corporate giants but to create a social good for all of us – specifically, to spread the costs of medical care across our whole society. If everyone pays into the system, no one has to be crushed by the cost of care when they fall sick. The notion is that we’re all in this together.
But a pernicious ethic of greed has erupted within America’s corporatized system, putting an unbearable cost burden on some of us who are already burdened with the worst illnesses. Drug manufacturers have been given monopolies over medicines to treat such deadly diseases as cancer and multiple sclerosis, even though these drugs were developed with government funding. In turn, the monopolists are charging exorbitant prices for these life-saving drugs.
Enter the insurance profiteers, which have now created a special Tier Four pricing system that forces very ill people into co-payments that can cost them more than a thousand dollars for a month’s worth of crucial pills. The price can be more than folks pay for their mortgages or even more than their monthly incomes. Pay up … or do without. Which is to say: Die.
Remember, these are people who have insurance, yet this Tier Four price gouging effectively steals the uniting principle of insurance from them, profiting a handful of powerful corporations and impoverishing our society. Since the corporate system is abandoning America’s essential notion of the common good, it’s time to abandon it. Now is the time to push for an American version of single-payer health care for all. Check out House Resolution 676, sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.: 202/225-5126.
This article appears in May 16 • 2008.