Editor's Column
by
Tim Benjamin
By the time you read this,
we will know the results of the Minnesota state caucuses. I hope
you all attended and enjoyed the grassroots style of politics that
the caucus offers us, and, that your candidate won. Most of all,
I hope that the candidate who did win our delegates and our votes
will follow through on all their campaign pledges. Let’s hold
them to their words. If after the election, the candidates do not
follow through on their word, let’s write them and remind them
of what they promised all of us.
In the Saturday, February
2, 2008, edition of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, there was an
article discussing what’s going on at the
capital concerning health care issues, and describing the work of
a group that Christian Knights talks about in his front page article
in this issue, “Plenty of
Work to Do.” Representative
Huntley (DFL from Duluth), co-chair of the legislative commission
on health care access, seems to think that Minnesota is about to
make health care history. Rep. Huntley said, “I think we’re
making dramatic steps towards changing...our sick care system into
a health care system.” Governor Pawlenty has appointed another
group to make recommendations on health care reform, and it sounds
like both groups are on the same track. Senator Berglund (DFL from
Minneapolis), said there is momentum on health care reform right
now that will not last forever. She is suggesting, I believe, that
it’s not going to be an easy task, but the time is right for
real reform. On the other hand, Senator John Marty (DFL from Roseville),
has said the recommendations to the governor from his commission
didn’t go far enough. So it is possible that legislators are
going to butt heads—and we all know what that means: little
or nothing will happen. So, If Sen. Berglund is right, maybe there
will be some real reform. I hope she’s right, and she is right
far more often than many.
It’s awfully worrisome when the first thing you hear on a
Monday morning is that President Bush’s budget has been released
and that he’s cut Medicare and Medicaid by $200 billion. Senator
Berglund talks about momentum; this news sure seems to take the momentum
out of any kind of health care reform. It’s hard to imagine
any way to make President Bush’s ’09 budget work other
than by slashing programs. It is, by the way, the largest federal
budget ever. I think it’s time for a new president who is truly
dedicated to an agenda of fiscal responsibility—and not at
the cost of the middle class or working poor. Tax credits for the
services that the middle class and working poor use certainly would
be a good start. Also, putting money into the pockets of the middle
class and working poor, with jobs, is another good way to get the
economy back on the right track. That is why the Direct Support Professionals
Fairness and Security Act (H.R. 1279) is so important. I employ these
professionals, and there are not many of them that I know who own
stocks or have much in savings accounts. These, too, are some of
the people that need public transportation, and ultimately support
public transportation with their purchasing power. These are also
often, like many of us, people who cannot afford preventive health
care, and end up in emergency rooms costing two or three times what
preventive care would have cost.
Finally, let’s work for a president and senator who will stop
the war. It hasn’t stopped terrorism, and it’s now killed
more Americans than 9/11 did. It’s also added more than 150,000
people with disabilities to the population. If the amputations, brain
injuries, psychological trauma, blindness, and spinal cord injuries
had been caused by Osama bin Laden, we’d be traumatized as
a society. Instead, we’re leaving thousands of men and women
soldiers to be traumatized by a unwanted—and obscenely expensive—war.
Let’s give peace a chance. ![]()
